this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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I liked the first two (about Cordelia) better than the Miles books in some ways. He's just a kid, she's more interesting in a lot of ways.
That said, I think the best bit of the whole series is the Miles-focused novella The Mountains of Mourning.
Ooh, if you missed it, be sure to pick up "Gentleman Joel and the Red Queen". It returns the focus to Cordelia.
Oh, I have not, thanks for the recommendation!
Okay, I picked it up and blitzed through Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, and it was a deep disappointment. The personal and romantic stakes and themes of the earlier books with Cordelia Naismith were coupled with other adventures or plots, and the combination of the personal and the galactic plots was part of what made them work. I felt like Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen utterly lost the broader plot, and it was just a book about two people getting together and retiring. Which, to be fair, is a perfectly fine plot and there are multiple genres and sub-genres built around that plot, but in the context of the Vorkossigan Saga, it was a nothing-burger of a story. There are some revelations about things long-past, which I think Bujold did to try to flesh out the story, but hardly anything happens. Seriously, the stakes are so low. What a baffling addition to this series.
Okay, I picked it up and blitzed through Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, and it was a deep disappointment. The personal and romantic stakes and themes of the earlier books with Cordelia Naismith were coupled with other adventures or plots, and the combination of the personal and the galactic stakes was part of what made them work. I felt like Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen utterly lost the broader plot, and it was just a book about two people getting together and retiring. (Which, to be fair, is a perfectly fine plot and there are multiple genres and sub-genres built around that plot, but in the context of the Vorkossigan Saga, it was a nothing-burger of a story.) There are some revelations about things long-past, which I think Bujold did to try to flesh out the story and maybe give Cornelia's take on some of the events that happened around her in the intervening ~30 years since she had a book from her perspective, but in this book, hardly anything happens. Seriously, the stakes are so low. It's pleasant, but scarcely needs to exist for the rest of the characters or novels. What a baffling addition to this series.
Yep. It's just a cozy story set after the saga.
Lol. I guess I wasn't surprised - it felt like a continuation of the one with the generically engineered designer bugs running loose.
But yeah, other than that, it's big tone shift from the rest of the saga.
I did like The Mountains of Mourning, but it felt a bit too local? It had a nice mystery/detective aspect to it