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lunasarielReview time!
After having been on a losing streak for a while (Witchmark, The Angel of the Crows, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and Shadows Rising were all varying degrees of disappointing), I appear to be on an equal-and-opposite winning streak, because each of the books below was a Fucking Delight, albeit in different ways.
Usual blanket warning for All The Spoilers below the cuts!
First, off: Winter's Orbit, by Everina Maxwell.
I started reading this as a sync-read withhamsterwoman ,cafemassolit , andcyanmnemosyne , mainly on the strength of Cafe's delighted !!!!!!!!!!!!!! that Course of Honor was getting a reprint/update/actual published copy. Syncread here (both because the conversations it engendered were utterly delightful, and because I apparently swallowed it too fast to maintain too many coherent thoughts about it, so this will be handy for reconstruction purposes).
I admit I was a little >.> going in - mutual pining/embarrassment hasn't always been my thing in the past, as has "Character A has lost their One True Love and must learn to love again." And may I just say, THANK YOU K!!!! Without Cafe's sparkly & infectious joy, I would never have met these two absolute muppets and their weird, beautiful, politically fraught, bear-filled world, and my life would be the poorer for it.
This book was such an utter and complete goddamn delight, you guys. Yes, it's tropey, but these are MAGNIFICENT tropes, splendid and unapologetic. We *will* have Mutual Pining, we *will* have Big Damn Heroes, we *will* have Mutual Competence Kink, we *will* have Huddling For Warmth and There's Only One Bed, and we *will* love it. Jainan's desperate, quiet Ravenclaw courage and Kiem's, er, less quiet Hufflepuff sparkliness utterly drew me in, and I fell so in love with them falling in love with each other. It's exactly the kind of thing I love, watching them each separately have "oh no he's hot what do??" reactions, slowly growing into "o h n o he's hot *and* smart *and* a badass srsly what do???" and finally culminating in "oh wait, he thinks *I'm* the hot and smart and badass one???? <3" I just loved watching them both grow so much, both as individuals and into each other - Jainan slowly but surely coming to believe that he is, in fact, wonderful and deserving of love and praise (although it also acknowledges that five years of being married to The Official Worst Person In The Empire isn't something you get over in a day), and Kiem equally slowly learning that he is, much to his surprise, clever and competent and deserving of love and respect.
I gotta say, Everina Maxwell had me 100% taken in with Jainan's "grief" - it really took me until like chapter 4 to even begin to think that there was something a little...off about how Jainan was clearly desperately and enduringly unhappy, but he didn't seem to be longing for Taam's presence the way you would expect of someone who had just lost someone they love. And even then, it took me up to like chapter 15 to think that maybe Taam was involved in Shady Shit(TM). I did start to suspect an abusive relationship around then, and I wasn't at all surprised when it turned out to be physically (and strongly hinted to be sexually) abusive as well as emotionally. I'm normally pretty good about spotting this kind of thing, so I'm just sitting here in admiration of an author who can so totally make me believe that Jainan was grieving and not, y'know, traumatized.
It's a good thing that he's now married to the human manifestation of a golden retriever, though. I started off loving Kiem and Jainan both separately, but the book really started to gel for me about the time of the University gala, and really took off (pun not intended) at their visit to the military base, which tracks pretty closely with their mutual pining developing mutual admiration/competence kink aspects. They were both still wonderful when they were basically extremely awkward contractually-obligated roommates with ill-timed crushes, but I really started to get into the swing of things once Kiem realized that Jainan isn't all brown eyes and cheekbones, but is actually a brilliant engineer, certified Fucking Nerd, and quarterstaff-wielding badass, and had his "...oh" moment. (Or series of "...oh" moments, I guess. XD) Kiem was less of a woobie overall, but Jainan's sort of helpless, confused affection at Kiem's Aggressive Sunshine Puppy personality was adorable, especially as he learned that it's not an act or a persona he puts on, Kiem is just genuinely Like That all the time and doesn't realize that it's the superpower it clearly is. The way they clearly admire each other as people/professionals, on top of having warm squishy feelings towards each other, is something that gets me every time.
Their first real team-up at the military base was the first time I started shipping them in earnest, I think. I'd loved Jainan's Ravenclaw-ness and Kiem's Hufflepuff-ness individually before, but the way their abilities combined and amplified each other, with Jainan really getting to spread his engineering wings for the first time and Kiem bringing him sustenance and Useful People like a puppy with a succession of Very Important Sticks was just <3 <3 <3. And then, of course, it was followed by the shipping heart of the novel - the flybug crash and subsequent trek through the snowy wilderness, culminating in a bear fight/huddling for warmth/confessions of love/TONS of hurt/comfort. Like, we've got:
From this point on, you can really start to see them function as a team, but as Jainan starts to figure out that maybe he deserves to be in a loving, committed, mutually supportive relationship, the scars he's already got start to show more clearly. It was about this time that I went from like 70% sure to 98% sure that Taam was an abusive piece of shit. For example, there was a moment (I forget exactly when but I'm pretty sure it was before the military base trip) where Kiem raised this hand to do something totally innocuous, like scratch his ear or use his wristband or something, and Kiem flinched, that also made me think that something had gone Very, Very Wrong.And then, when Kiem's entirely justified anger thatImpSec Security (definitely not ImpSec; Illyan and/or Duv Galeni would never run such a shoddy operation :P) had completely overlooked and/or ignored the fact that Jainan hadn't been able to talk to his family for two fucking years provoked a D: instead of a :D reaction in Jainan, I started to really side-eye the fact that Jainan apparently expects any anger in the vicinity to be directed at him regardless of whether or not he's actually done anything wrong. By the time this was explicitly confirmed in the blackmail video, and then confirmed to a further, more horrifying degree in Jainan's memories, I wasn't surprised so much as fighting the urge to give Jainan a hug (or at least heartily encouraging Kiem to do so, which luckily he did anyway :D).
Speaking of ImpSec, Winter's Orbit's Vorkosigan Saga similarities really showed through in a lot of ways, much to my delight. Kiem himself was about 80% Ivan's easy-going charm (and a certain amount of "Ivan you idiot!", let's be real here XD) and 20% Miles' feral balls-to-the-wall Knight Errant crazy; I mean, who else would consider his secretary, a random grad student, a comm, and a really good smile just about all he needs to effect an emergency search-and-rescue mission into a hidden enemy base packed to the brim with illegal planet-destroying weaponry? And! Asmelita66 pointed out in the syncread, he also has Miles' habit of pulling rank/kicking things up the chain of command as a go-to method of solving problems, with...mixed results. The Emperor also reminded me strongly of Emperor Ezar, in her commitment to Duty Above All Else and her steely determination that no mealy-mouthed little shit of a descendant would interfere with the good of *her* Empire. I can't quite see her assassinating her own son under the cover of a massive interplanetary war, but they're definitely in the same ballpark of "I've been holding this empire together with string and sheer willpower for the past three-quarters of a century and don't you fucking forget it." But we also had Bel the terrifyingly efficient secretary, lots of that sparkling dialogue that Lois McMaster Bujold excels at, and, tbh, I got a lot of echoes of Barrayar in the Iskan Empire itself - they clearly think they're Hot Shit, and while their internal affairs are of course very important to them, we start to see that they really are this tiny little podunk corner of a very, very large universe. XD
Someone (cafemassolit , I think?) made the excellent point that both Kiem and Jainan occupy roles that we mostly see women in - Kiem as the pretty sparkly socialite who's perceived as useless and just wants to be taken seriously, while Jainan is the quiet, introspective quasi-political prisoner who's immensely intelligent but has very little operational power and sees himself as dependent and/or inferior. They also both spend a lot of time thinking about/feeling responsible for other people's emotions. I don't really have a point here; I just found it interesting.
...There was actually a plot outside of the tropes/shippiness, I promise! I understand that the whole Auditors subplot wasn't part of the original fic; or at least not to the extent that it is here. It would be interesting to go back and compare the two, because if I didn't know in advance, I wouldn't at all have been able to spot the Auditors as a later addition. They were very well integrated, and I liked that they provided some structure to the earlier chapters, which otherwise might have been a bit amorphous before the embezzlement plot really took off. Speaking of, I'm actually pretty proud of myself for calling the embezzlement/arms dealing scheme pretty early on; the only things I was off-base about were that I got Taam's and Aren's roles in the embezzlement/Taam's death reversed, I was a little off on the conspiracy's ultimate goal, and I thought that Bel was an undercover member of the Sefalan Guard sent to find out what was going on. (Hey, I was right about her actually being from Sefala and being Up To Some Shit!) I could have done with some more politics, tbh - we only got hints of what was going on, but I very much enjoyed those hints, and I was intrigued by the situation they were sort of gesturing at/outlining. Like, I'm sure there's an entire book's worth of Thean clan politics in here, and plenty to be said about how Sefala came to be Like That, and of course plenty of police politics - I mean, they were more than eager to poach Bel away from Kiem's service,even especially after finding out about her past. And add in Kiem's new diplomatic position and Jainan's sudden clearance to Get Shit Done, and I would love a Vorkosigan Saga-length series about these two, and their adventures, and their deepening relationship, and Jainan's process of healing, and, and, and. <3
TL;DR: Delightful tropey space opera that helped me crystallize a lot of why I like the things I like; plz fling violently and lovingly at the head of your nearest Vorkosigan Saga fan.
And, speaking of Lois McMaster Bujold's works...
The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
It took me a loooooong time to get into LMB's non-Vorkosiverse works. I think I read a review of one of the Penric & Desdemona books way back in like 2012 that described the main romance in a way that made me think I would find it squicky, and overall I got the impression that LMB's SF was way better than her fantasy.
I can't say that I'm mad at Past Me for making that assumption, but boy was I wrong! It's very different, certainly - one of the reasons I was dragging my feet was that I couldn't imagine reading a LMB book without at least one Vorkosigan or Vorkosigan-adjacent individual present - but I ended up liking it A Lot. It's certainly true that Caz - quiet and sad and desperately desiring a nice peaceful life where he can sit down and read without anybody shouting at him - is worlds away from quicksilver, reckless Miles "Forward Momentum" Vorkosigan. But I quickly came to first respect, and then to love Caz as a character. He started out as, let's say, not a super happy fun-times character, but one whose suffering and ground-down despair felt very real. UnflinchingHONORRRRRRRRR honor is something I tend to really like, and I adored how Caz's superpower was basically being a decent goddamn human being. Granted, being an in-universe Memetic Badass with a decade-plus of experience in like five different types of warfare didn't hurt, but I loved that what ultimately saved the day was that he had once been kind to some random kid when it would have been easy to leave him to his own devices. <3
Overall, this book was chockablock full of things I love - A Man of Honor, feisty princesses (but done slightly more realistically than the feisty princesses I read as a tween), twisty political machinations, and of course, competence kink like whoa. I gave this book to my mom, who loves a good disease (but will also accept a good tumor), and her favorite bit was, a bit unexpectedly, the bravo who tried to challenge Caz to an Elegant Courtly Duel, and got the "kid, seriously, walk away now, because I don't duel. The way I was taught to fight, somebody ends up dead, and lemme tell you, it's not going to be me" speech that kinda made him scuttle backwards. XD I didn't expect this to be her favorite part, especially not with the high chance of teratomas in the offing, but it *was* an excellent example of how Caz the gentle and rather shy humanitarian blends so well with Caz the Fuck Off I Have A Sword And I Can Use It Better Than You.
Despite being full of things I love, this was actually one of LMB's darker books, I think. I mean, not Memory-dark, but still not exactly happy fun times. It did have thrillin' heroics and found families and a happy ending and all, but most of this book is *dark*. Like, genuine TWs for sexual assault mention, body horror, and animal death, in addition to all of the usual violence, death, and general assholery that is attendant upon early 2000s high fantasy. Animal death in particular is a pretty hardcore Nope Trope for me, and I'm actually not sure I would have read CoC if I had known the menagerie scene was in there. But it is actually one of the best books I've read in the last year, and I'm genuinely glad I did, despite all of the *gestures at everything above*. I think LMB is just good enough at conveying the characters and their world that moments of squick actually builds into the world rather than distracting from it, the way Certain Other Authors do.
I did love the twisty political machinations, though. My mom ended up kinda confused and bogged down in the intricacies, and while I did have an adjustment period where I had to refer to the wiki a lot to remember who was who's cousin and who controlled which territory via marriage to who's sister and/or daughter, I had a fair grasp of it by the end. The dy Jironal brothers were A+ villains - you had the supremely, icily competent Martou pulling the strings, andSerg Ges Dondo as the repulsive Yikes Guy. And they both made excellent foils for Caz, as well! He feared becoming a monster like Dondo (not a wholly unreasonable fear either, even aside from the demon thing, given his wartime experiences), but the myriad ways in which he actually *was* becoming like Martou were very interesting. Both capable, competent, devoted men who loved their country and their ruler...and weren't adverse to bending the rules a bit to get where they needed to be. Of course, the whole demon thing was a *very* reluctant last resort, and a matter of deep repugnance for Caz, but it also begged the question whether Martou had had a moment like that in the past, or whether his was a longer, slower slide of gradually compromised morals. More on this below, but I loved the idea of the curse of Chalion being one that twisted one's best qualities into one's worst. It made for some fascinating villains (although I think even Caz wonders whether Dondo even had any good qualities to start with), as well as some wonderfully tragic...I can't even call them anti-heroes. But the suggestion that Orico's infuriating jelly-ness and Teidez's fatal case of testosterone poisoning were perversions of, respectively, gentleness and courage was just *chef's kiss*.
Shipping-wise, I was utterly indifferent to Caz/Betriz, even though this is a dynamic that normally squicks me out/annoys me a bit. So I guess this was an improvement? Like, I was constantly asking myself "whyyyyyy does this need to be here?", because the plot works just fine without it, but I wasn't actively off-put by it or anything. I think if more time/narrative energy had been devoted to it I would have gotten more annoyed, but as is, I could just shrug, admit that not every relationship LMB writes is going to be Aral/Cordelia, and move on. Iselle/Bergon was sweet, but in an "awww, I hope those kids do well" way, rather than an "I ship it" way. I kinda halfway tried to get myself to ship Caz/Palli, since my mind has been running down fealty ship paths lately, but eh, I think they work better as Battle Brothers Without Benefits. *shrug*
One thing that I'm glad turned out to be just a writing tic of LMB's, rather than a Vorkosiverse-specific thing, was her propensity for really, really good one-liners. There were a couple of really good ones here, but the only one I actually remembered to write down was:
"As a betrothal gift, my dear Royesse, I have guessed what your heart most desired to complete your trousseau," Dondo told her, and motioned his page forward.
Iselle, regarding him with that same frozen stare, said "You guessed I wanted a coastal city with an excellent harbor?"
...and the really funny thing is, *she actually gets that by the end*. Whereas Dondo gets eaten by demons. >:D
TL;DR: Not at all what I expected, but 95% utterly delightful (by which I mean "frequently painful") and 5% "...why does this need to be here again?" romance.
Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Apparently one of the pro reviewers said, "Bujold couldn't characterize badly if threatened with a firing squad," and WOW is that true. Once again, Ista is a wholly unexpected protagonist, but I was even more *heart eyes motherfucker* at her because we never see protagonists like Ista. Like, ever. Angry, bitter, middle-aged, a mother and grandmother, chewed up and spat out by the Grand Tragedy of the last book, wherein she was a tertiary character (albeit a well-drawn one) and a Terrible Warning object lesson for the protagonist(s). It was indescribably refreshing to meet a character like her who is front and center of her own story. She does have kids, and she is the dowager royina, but her role in the story is not The Mother or The Mentor. Her grief is very real, and often very present, but it doesn't consume her. For someone whose character type is so often passive and subordinate, I'm hard-pressed to think of a more proactive, dynamic character. And I'm delighted in ways I can't fully express that it's Ista - furious and tired and neglected and very female - who ends up as a paladin, which I've only seen given as a description for men, or very masculine people, in the past.
Two thumbs up for the characterization all around, actually. I was Utterly Unsurprised to find that Arhys dy Luetz, the supremely competent mercurial Combat Genius and logistical badass with daddy issues like whoa, an unquenchable urge to Prove Himself, and heaps of passionate devotion to his men and his beloved castle, washamsterwoman 's favorite. :D Catti was just the right amount of *facepalm* while still remaining...understandable, if not always exactly sympathetic. She's one of those people I would find incredibly exhausting if I had to hang out with her IRL, but in fiction she's fun to watch since I don't have to deal with her. Illvin grew on me a lot; I particularly liked that he and Arhys had a very close and loving relationship, rather than being rivals as I thought they were set up to be. Oh! And can I just say: it was both surprising and refreshing that Ista's (again, a middle-aged mother and widow and Ravaged By Madness) reaction to 1. seeing Illvin naked and 2. reposing in Arhys' lap was ;)))))) Not in, like, a creepy or lecherous way; she just enjoys good-looking dudes and isn't ashamed of it. I kinda get the feeling that she would like both Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, if both in very different ways. XD
Liss was another standout favorite, although I'm far less surprised that I loved the spunky tomboy Horse Girl. I thought her nascent romance with both dy Guerra brothers was very well-handled, from her rivalmance with Ferda to Foix's surprising sneakiness at deliberately *not* winning the wood-chopping competition...while making damn sure Liss sees him being all charming and good-naturedand also without his shirt off, it just so happens. I loved how she genuinely seemed to like and respect Ista, even though they've had vastly different life experiences, and how she's actually trying to be a good lady's maid while simultaneously not even trying a little bit to be a lady. Her interactions with Lady dy Hueltar, at the very beginning and the very end, were particularly excellent, as Liss just could not be bothered to give one single fuck. And not in, like, an aggressive way! She literally just didn't care. At all. /shrug
At first, I thought I would be sad/annoyed that this wasn't a direct sequel to CoC, since I had gotten so attached to that group of characters, but while I did enjoy seeing the dy Guerra bros again, I was more OK than I thought I would be with Caz, Iselle, etc. being almost entirely offscreen. But there was enough, hmm, thematic continuity, I want to say, to keep me going - it felt very much like a continuation of the same overarching story. Speaking of which, it's exactly the sort of delicate, complex political situation made moreso by humans being human at each other that LMB so excels at. I loved both dy Luetz brothers' devotion to Porifors as a place in its own right, not just as a physical reminder of their father, and Ista's "ugggghhhhh, not This Shit Again" (re: political shenanigans, as well as re: the gods deciding to fuck with her) felt very real. Overall, though, I think I was more into it for the characters than the overarching demon-oriented plot.
Although! This seems as good a time and place as any to say: I really love this whole five gods system, the unique political landscape, and particularly the aforementioned curse of Chalion. It's a very simple idea, that a person's best qualities turn around and become their worst, but I don't think I've ever seen it explored on so grand a scale, and I thought LMB did some really interesting things with it. In particular, I liked Caz's premonition that Iselle's brilliance and charisma would sour into bitterness, and even outright rebellion/civil war, and his musings on whether Martou's, er, Cardinal Richelieu-ness started out as genuine loyalty and intelligence. It's very clear to me how, under an It Got Worse curse like this, Ista the lonely and freaked-out teenager could have wound up killing her husband's lover, and how her particular brand of clear-sightedness would manifest as madness.
While I've realized that I'm thoroughly :\ about LMB's penchant for older man in position of power/younger subordinate woman ships, I love her "two actual grown-ups who have been thoroughly knocked about by life finding love and healing in each other long after they'd stopped thinking they deserved either one" ships like whoa. Ista/Illvin hasn't taken root in my heart as completely as Aral/Cordelia, but I do like them quite a bit better than Caz/Betriz. As I mentioned above, I loved that Ista's reaction, upon first coming across a very naked Illvin in a dream, was basically "hi there ;)))" (once she stopped being freaked-out, of course, b/c magical god-sent dream WTF?!?!), and I loved that Illvin is absolutely here to hold her flower while she kicks a truly impressive amount of demonic ass. And! I also loved that she sees and admires and respects him, even in the shadow of his oh-so-shiny half-brother, while totally also noticing that said half-brother ain't half-bad either. There's just something about the way they see each other as something special and quasi-miraculous, even or perhaps especially during a time when everything else seems to be going to shit as fast as humanly possible, that really gets to me. I guess it's a similar kind of trope to my Battle Couples thing...and maybe they are a Battle Couple? Kinda? Not the way, say, Wiccan and Hulkling are, but the way they complement each other's strengths and respect and build off of each other's ideas feels very similar.
IDK where best to put this, but one weird thing I kept coming across was Ista's description of dy Cabon. She seemed to be weirdly fixated on his weight - I don't think we got any other physical descriptions of him, like, at all. All of his descriptions were firmly centered around how he was fat, and loved eating, and couldn't run because he was so fat, and so on and so forth. When LMB has defined a character by one physical feature before, it's always been for a very good reason - Miles' shortness and brittle bones, for example, would naturally be something he thinks about a lot, since he's the narrator. But I ended up being a bit >.> over the repeated "hey, have I mentioned lately that dy Cabon is REALLY REALLY FAT?" by the end of it; I kinda ended up imagining him as the albino from The Princess Bride, since I don't think we even got a hair color for him. I dunno. Dy Cabon's characterization was excellent otherwise, and I know it was meant to tie him more closely to the Bastard, but I felt like this was a weird way to define him.
LMB continues excellent at WHAM! lines. I almost never remember quotes, but An enemy might drop his guard, weary of his task, turn his back; love would never falter, really stuck with me. She's just so, so good at painful emotions like this - Ista's fear and anger at being a Very Powerful and Important Person with no control whatsoever over her own life, constantly infantilized even by those who genuinely loved her and knowing that they would never, ever allow her to have anything even beginning to resemble a real life. The claustrophobia and frustration felt very, very real, but not in a way that dragged me down. Instead, it just made her subsequent journey (both literal and metaphorical) all the more satisfying. And satisfying is something LMB does *very* well, I find. :D
TL;DR: I remain utterly in awe of LMB's skills regarding characterization, worldbuilding, and creating utterly unexpected protagonists that I love wholeheartedly.
After having been on a losing streak for a while (Witchmark, The Angel of the Crows, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and Shadows Rising were all varying degrees of disappointing), I appear to be on an equal-and-opposite winning streak, because each of the books below was a Fucking Delight, albeit in different ways.
Usual blanket warning for All The Spoilers below the cuts!
First, off: Winter's Orbit, by Everina Maxwell.
I started reading this as a sync-read with
hamsterwoman ,cafemassolit , andcyanmnemosyne , mainly on the strength of Cafe's delighted !!!!!!!!!!!!!! that Course of Honor was getting a reprint/update/actual published copy. Syncread here (both because the conversations it engendered were utterly delightful, and because I apparently swallowed it too fast to maintain too many coherent thoughts about it, so this will be handy for reconstruction purposes).I admit I was a little >.> going in - mutual pining/embarrassment hasn't always been my thing in the past, as has "Character A has lost their One True Love and must learn to love again." And may I just say, THANK YOU K!!!! Without Cafe's sparkly & infectious joy, I would never have met these two absolute muppets and their weird, beautiful, politically fraught, bear-filled world, and my life would be the poorer for it.
This book was such an utter and complete goddamn delight, you guys. Yes, it's tropey, but these are MAGNIFICENT tropes, splendid and unapologetic. We *will* have Mutual Pining, we *will* have Big Damn Heroes, we *will* have Mutual Competence Kink, we *will* have Huddling For Warmth and There's Only One Bed, and we *will* love it. Jainan's desperate, quiet Ravenclaw courage and Kiem's, er, less quiet Hufflepuff sparkliness utterly drew me in, and I fell so in love with them falling in love with each other. It's exactly the kind of thing I love, watching them each separately have "oh no he's hot what do??" reactions, slowly growing into "o h n o he's hot *and* smart *and* a badass srsly what do???" and finally culminating in "oh wait, he thinks *I'm* the hot and smart and badass one???? <3" I just loved watching them both grow so much, both as individuals and into each other - Jainan slowly but surely coming to believe that he is, in fact, wonderful and deserving of love and praise (although it also acknowledges that five years of being married to The Official Worst Person In The Empire isn't something you get over in a day), and Kiem equally slowly learning that he is, much to his surprise, clever and competent and deserving of love and respect.
I gotta say, Everina Maxwell had me 100% taken in with Jainan's "grief" - it really took me until like chapter 4 to even begin to think that there was something a little...off about how Jainan was clearly desperately and enduringly unhappy, but he didn't seem to be longing for Taam's presence the way you would expect of someone who had just lost someone they love. And even then, it took me up to like chapter 15 to think that maybe Taam was involved in Shady Shit(TM). I did start to suspect an abusive relationship around then, and I wasn't at all surprised when it turned out to be physically (and strongly hinted to be sexually) abusive as well as emotionally. I'm normally pretty good about spotting this kind of thing, so I'm just sitting here in admiration of an author who can so totally make me believe that Jainan was grieving and not, y'know, traumatized.
It's a good thing that he's now married to the human manifestation of a golden retriever, though. I started off loving Kiem and Jainan both separately, but the book really started to gel for me about the time of the University gala, and really took off (pun not intended) at their visit to the military base, which tracks pretty closely with their mutual pining developing mutual admiration/competence kink aspects. They were both still wonderful when they were basically extremely awkward contractually-obligated roommates with ill-timed crushes, but I really started to get into the swing of things once Kiem realized that Jainan isn't all brown eyes and cheekbones, but is actually a brilliant engineer, certified Fucking Nerd, and quarterstaff-wielding badass, and had his "...oh" moment. (Or series of "...oh" moments, I guess. XD) Kiem was less of a woobie overall, but Jainan's sort of helpless, confused affection at Kiem's Aggressive Sunshine Puppy personality was adorable, especially as he learned that it's not an act or a persona he puts on, Kiem is just genuinely Like That all the time and doesn't realize that it's the superpower it clearly is. The way they clearly admire each other as people/professionals, on top of having warm squishy feelings towards each other, is something that gets me every time.
Their first real team-up at the military base was the first time I started shipping them in earnest, I think. I'd loved Jainan's Ravenclaw-ness and Kiem's Hufflepuff-ness individually before, but the way their abilities combined and amplified each other, with Jainan really getting to spread his engineering wings for the first time and Kiem bringing him sustenance and Useful People like a puppy with a succession of Very Important Sticks was just <3 <3 <3. And then, of course, it was followed by the shipping heart of the novel - the flybug crash and subsequent trek through the snowy wilderness, culminating in a bear fight/huddling for warmth/confessions of love/TONS of hurt/comfort. Like, we've got:
- The totally not symbolic at all moment when Kiem tells Jainan to let go and that he won't let him fall, and then sweeps him up in his arms to much mutual heart eyes.
- Kiem getting to show off his competent side, from being mildly surprised that not everybody is experienced in wilderness/extreme weather survival, to showing exactly why being able to keep everybody calm and upbeat in an emergency is such an important leadership quality.
- Jainan fighting off a fucking bear with a quarterstaff JFC. Of course, if it was a regular ol' Earth bear this would be impressive enough, but apparently bears on this planet are six-legged, aggressively carnivorous reptiles. (This was something that never got old for me - Iskan "bears" and "doves" and whatnot are apparently terrifying murderous alien monstrosities than anything you might think of when you try to imagine bears and doves. XD)
- The aforementioned huddling for warmth/confessions of love, which is what I think of them properly getting together.
From this point on, you can really start to see them function as a team, but as Jainan starts to figure out that maybe he deserves to be in a loving, committed, mutually supportive relationship, the scars he's already got start to show more clearly. It was about this time that I went from like 70% sure to 98% sure that Taam was an abusive piece of shit. For example, there was a moment (I forget exactly when but I'm pretty sure it was before the military base trip) where Kiem raised this hand to do something totally innocuous, like scratch his ear or use his wristband or something, and Kiem flinched, that also made me think that something had gone Very, Very Wrong.And then, when Kiem's entirely justified anger that
Speaking of ImpSec, Winter's Orbit's Vorkosigan Saga similarities really showed through in a lot of ways, much to my delight. Kiem himself was about 80% Ivan's easy-going charm (and a certain amount of "Ivan you idiot!", let's be real here XD) and 20% Miles' feral balls-to-the-wall Knight Errant crazy; I mean, who else would consider his secretary, a random grad student, a comm, and a really good smile just about all he needs to effect an emergency search-and-rescue mission into a hidden enemy base packed to the brim with illegal planet-destroying weaponry? And! As
melita66 pointed out in the syncread, he also has Miles' habit of pulling rank/kicking things up the chain of command as a go-to method of solving problems, with...mixed results. The Emperor also reminded me strongly of Emperor Ezar, in her commitment to Duty Above All Else and her steely determination that no mealy-mouthed little shit of a descendant would interfere with the good of *her* Empire. I can't quite see her assassinating her own son under the cover of a massive interplanetary war, but they're definitely in the same ballpark of "I've been holding this empire together with string and sheer willpower for the past three-quarters of a century and don't you fucking forget it." But we also had Bel the terrifyingly efficient secretary, lots of that sparkling dialogue that Lois McMaster Bujold excels at, and, tbh, I got a lot of echoes of Barrayar in the Iskan Empire itself - they clearly think they're Hot Shit, and while their internal affairs are of course very important to them, we start to see that they really are this tiny little podunk corner of a very, very large universe. XDSomeone (
cafemassolit , I think?) made the excellent point that both Kiem and Jainan occupy roles that we mostly see women in - Kiem as the pretty sparkly socialite who's perceived as useless and just wants to be taken seriously, while Jainan is the quiet, introspective quasi-political prisoner who's immensely intelligent but has very little operational power and sees himself as dependent and/or inferior. They also both spend a lot of time thinking about/feeling responsible for other people's emotions. I don't really have a point here; I just found it interesting....There was actually a plot outside of the tropes/shippiness, I promise! I understand that the whole Auditors subplot wasn't part of the original fic; or at least not to the extent that it is here. It would be interesting to go back and compare the two, because if I didn't know in advance, I wouldn't at all have been able to spot the Auditors as a later addition. They were very well integrated, and I liked that they provided some structure to the earlier chapters, which otherwise might have been a bit amorphous before the embezzlement plot really took off. Speaking of, I'm actually pretty proud of myself for calling the embezzlement/arms dealing scheme pretty early on; the only things I was off-base about were that I got Taam's and Aren's roles in the embezzlement/Taam's death reversed, I was a little off on the conspiracy's ultimate goal, and I thought that Bel was an undercover member of the Sefalan Guard sent to find out what was going on. (Hey, I was right about her actually being from Sefala and being Up To Some Shit!) I could have done with some more politics, tbh - we only got hints of what was going on, but I very much enjoyed those hints, and I was intrigued by the situation they were sort of gesturing at/outlining. Like, I'm sure there's an entire book's worth of Thean clan politics in here, and plenty to be said about how Sefala came to be Like That, and of course plenty of police politics - I mean, they were more than eager to poach Bel away from Kiem's service,
TL;DR: Delightful tropey space opera that helped me crystallize a lot of why I like the things I like; plz fling violently and lovingly at the head of your nearest Vorkosigan Saga fan.
And, speaking of Lois McMaster Bujold's works...
The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
It took me a loooooong time to get into LMB's non-Vorkosiverse works. I think I read a review of one of the Penric & Desdemona books way back in like 2012 that described the main romance in a way that made me think I would find it squicky, and overall I got the impression that LMB's SF was way better than her fantasy.
I can't say that I'm mad at Past Me for making that assumption, but boy was I wrong! It's very different, certainly - one of the reasons I was dragging my feet was that I couldn't imagine reading a LMB book without at least one Vorkosigan or Vorkosigan-adjacent individual present - but I ended up liking it A Lot. It's certainly true that Caz - quiet and sad and desperately desiring a nice peaceful life where he can sit down and read without anybody shouting at him - is worlds away from quicksilver, reckless Miles "Forward Momentum" Vorkosigan. But I quickly came to first respect, and then to love Caz as a character. He started out as, let's say, not a super happy fun-times character, but one whose suffering and ground-down despair felt very real. Unflinching
Overall, this book was chockablock full of things I love - A Man of Honor, feisty princesses (but done slightly more realistically than the feisty princesses I read as a tween), twisty political machinations, and of course, competence kink like whoa. I gave this book to my mom, who loves a good disease (but will also accept a good tumor), and her favorite bit was, a bit unexpectedly, the bravo who tried to challenge Caz to an Elegant Courtly Duel, and got the "kid, seriously, walk away now, because I don't duel. The way I was taught to fight, somebody ends up dead, and lemme tell you, it's not going to be me" speech that kinda made him scuttle backwards. XD I didn't expect this to be her favorite part, especially not with the high chance of teratomas in the offing, but it *was* an excellent example of how Caz the gentle and rather shy humanitarian blends so well with Caz the Fuck Off I Have A Sword And I Can Use It Better Than You.
Despite being full of things I love, this was actually one of LMB's darker books, I think. I mean, not Memory-dark, but still not exactly happy fun times. It did have thrillin' heroics and found families and a happy ending and all, but most of this book is *dark*. Like, genuine TWs for sexual assault mention, body horror, and animal death, in addition to all of the usual violence, death, and general assholery that is attendant upon early 2000s high fantasy. Animal death in particular is a pretty hardcore Nope Trope for me, and I'm actually not sure I would have read CoC if I had known the menagerie scene was in there. But it is actually one of the best books I've read in the last year, and I'm genuinely glad I did, despite all of the *gestures at everything above*. I think LMB is just good enough at conveying the characters and their world that moments of squick actually builds into the world rather than distracting from it, the way Certain Other Authors do.
I did love the twisty political machinations, though. My mom ended up kinda confused and bogged down in the intricacies, and while I did have an adjustment period where I had to refer to the wiki a lot to remember who was who's cousin and who controlled which territory via marriage to who's sister and/or daughter, I had a fair grasp of it by the end. The dy Jironal brothers were A+ villains - you had the supremely, icily competent Martou pulling the strings, and
Shipping-wise, I was utterly indifferent to Caz/Betriz, even though this is a dynamic that normally squicks me out/annoys me a bit. So I guess this was an improvement? Like, I was constantly asking myself "whyyyyyy does this need to be here?", because the plot works just fine without it, but I wasn't actively off-put by it or anything. I think if more time/narrative energy had been devoted to it I would have gotten more annoyed, but as is, I could just shrug, admit that not every relationship LMB writes is going to be Aral/Cordelia, and move on. Iselle/Bergon was sweet, but in an "awww, I hope those kids do well" way, rather than an "I ship it" way. I kinda halfway tried to get myself to ship Caz/Palli, since my mind has been running down fealty ship paths lately, but eh, I think they work better as Battle Brothers Without Benefits. *shrug*
One thing that I'm glad turned out to be just a writing tic of LMB's, rather than a Vorkosiverse-specific thing, was her propensity for really, really good one-liners. There were a couple of really good ones here, but the only one I actually remembered to write down was:
"As a betrothal gift, my dear Royesse, I have guessed what your heart most desired to complete your trousseau," Dondo told her, and motioned his page forward.
Iselle, regarding him with that same frozen stare, said "You guessed I wanted a coastal city with an excellent harbor?"
...and the really funny thing is, *she actually gets that by the end*. Whereas Dondo gets eaten by demons. >:D
TL;DR: Not at all what I expected, but 95% utterly delightful (by which I mean "frequently painful") and 5% "...why does this need to be here again?" romance.
Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Apparently one of the pro reviewers said, "Bujold couldn't characterize badly if threatened with a firing squad," and WOW is that true. Once again, Ista is a wholly unexpected protagonist, but I was even more *heart eyes motherfucker* at her because we never see protagonists like Ista. Like, ever. Angry, bitter, middle-aged, a mother and grandmother, chewed up and spat out by the Grand Tragedy of the last book, wherein she was a tertiary character (albeit a well-drawn one) and a Terrible Warning object lesson for the protagonist(s). It was indescribably refreshing to meet a character like her who is front and center of her own story. She does have kids, and she is the dowager royina, but her role in the story is not The Mother or The Mentor. Her grief is very real, and often very present, but it doesn't consume her. For someone whose character type is so often passive and subordinate, I'm hard-pressed to think of a more proactive, dynamic character. And I'm delighted in ways I can't fully express that it's Ista - furious and tired and neglected and very female - who ends up as a paladin, which I've only seen given as a description for men, or very masculine people, in the past.
Two thumbs up for the characterization all around, actually. I was Utterly Unsurprised to find that Arhys dy Luetz, the supremely competent mercurial Combat Genius and logistical badass with daddy issues like whoa, an unquenchable urge to Prove Himself, and heaps of passionate devotion to his men and his beloved castle, was
hamsterwoman 's favorite. :D Catti was just the right amount of *facepalm* while still remaining...understandable, if not always exactly sympathetic. She's one of those people I would find incredibly exhausting if I had to hang out with her IRL, but in fiction she's fun to watch since I don't have to deal with her. Illvin grew on me a lot; I particularly liked that he and Arhys had a very close and loving relationship, rather than being rivals as I thought they were set up to be. Oh! And can I just say: it was both surprising and refreshing that Ista's (again, a middle-aged mother and widow and Ravaged By Madness) reaction to 1. seeing Illvin naked and 2. reposing in Arhys' lap was ;)))))) Not in, like, a creepy or lecherous way; she just enjoys good-looking dudes and isn't ashamed of it. I kinda get the feeling that she would like both Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, if both in very different ways. XDLiss was another standout favorite, although I'm far less surprised that I loved the spunky tomboy Horse Girl. I thought her nascent romance with both dy Guerra brothers was very well-handled, from her rivalmance with Ferda to Foix's surprising sneakiness at deliberately *not* winning the wood-chopping competition...while making damn sure Liss sees him being all charming and good-natured
At first, I thought I would be sad/annoyed that this wasn't a direct sequel to CoC, since I had gotten so attached to that group of characters, but while I did enjoy seeing the dy Guerra bros again, I was more OK than I thought I would be with Caz, Iselle, etc. being almost entirely offscreen. But there was enough, hmm, thematic continuity, I want to say, to keep me going - it felt very much like a continuation of the same overarching story. Speaking of which, it's exactly the sort of delicate, complex political situation made moreso by humans being human at each other that LMB so excels at. I loved both dy Luetz brothers' devotion to Porifors as a place in its own right, not just as a physical reminder of their father, and Ista's "ugggghhhhh, not This Shit Again" (re: political shenanigans, as well as re: the gods deciding to fuck with her) felt very real. Overall, though, I think I was more into it for the characters than the overarching demon-oriented plot.
Although! This seems as good a time and place as any to say: I really love this whole five gods system, the unique political landscape, and particularly the aforementioned curse of Chalion. It's a very simple idea, that a person's best qualities turn around and become their worst, but I don't think I've ever seen it explored on so grand a scale, and I thought LMB did some really interesting things with it. In particular, I liked Caz's premonition that Iselle's brilliance and charisma would sour into bitterness, and even outright rebellion/civil war, and his musings on whether Martou's, er, Cardinal Richelieu-ness started out as genuine loyalty and intelligence. It's very clear to me how, under an It Got Worse curse like this, Ista the lonely and freaked-out teenager could have wound up killing her husband's lover, and how her particular brand of clear-sightedness would manifest as madness.
While I've realized that I'm thoroughly :\ about LMB's penchant for older man in position of power/younger subordinate woman ships, I love her "two actual grown-ups who have been thoroughly knocked about by life finding love and healing in each other long after they'd stopped thinking they deserved either one" ships like whoa. Ista/Illvin hasn't taken root in my heart as completely as Aral/Cordelia, but I do like them quite a bit better than Caz/Betriz. As I mentioned above, I loved that Ista's reaction, upon first coming across a very naked Illvin in a dream, was basically "hi there ;)))" (once she stopped being freaked-out, of course, b/c magical god-sent dream WTF?!?!), and I loved that Illvin is absolutely here to hold her flower while she kicks a truly impressive amount of demonic ass. And! I also loved that she sees and admires and respects him, even in the shadow of his oh-so-shiny half-brother, while totally also noticing that said half-brother ain't half-bad either. There's just something about the way they see each other as something special and quasi-miraculous, even or perhaps especially during a time when everything else seems to be going to shit as fast as humanly possible, that really gets to me. I guess it's a similar kind of trope to my Battle Couples thing...and maybe they are a Battle Couple? Kinda? Not the way, say, Wiccan and Hulkling are, but the way they complement each other's strengths and respect and build off of each other's ideas feels very similar.
IDK where best to put this, but one weird thing I kept coming across was Ista's description of dy Cabon. She seemed to be weirdly fixated on his weight - I don't think we got any other physical descriptions of him, like, at all. All of his descriptions were firmly centered around how he was fat, and loved eating, and couldn't run because he was so fat, and so on and so forth. When LMB has defined a character by one physical feature before, it's always been for a very good reason - Miles' shortness and brittle bones, for example, would naturally be something he thinks about a lot, since he's the narrator. But I ended up being a bit >.> over the repeated "hey, have I mentioned lately that dy Cabon is REALLY REALLY FAT?" by the end of it; I kinda ended up imagining him as the albino from The Princess Bride, since I don't think we even got a hair color for him. I dunno. Dy Cabon's characterization was excellent otherwise, and I know it was meant to tie him more closely to the Bastard, but I felt like this was a weird way to define him.
LMB continues excellent at WHAM! lines. I almost never remember quotes, but An enemy might drop his guard, weary of his task, turn his back; love would never falter, really stuck with me. She's just so, so good at painful emotions like this - Ista's fear and anger at being a Very Powerful and Important Person with no control whatsoever over her own life, constantly infantilized even by those who genuinely loved her and knowing that they would never, ever allow her to have anything even beginning to resemble a real life. The claustrophobia and frustration felt very, very real, but not in a way that dragged me down. Instead, it just made her subsequent journey (both literal and metaphorical) all the more satisfying. And satisfying is something LMB does *very* well, I find. :D
TL;DR: I remain utterly in awe of LMB's skills regarding characterization, worldbuilding, and creating utterly unexpected protagonists that I love wholeheartedly.
