Mostly cats and Vorkosigan Saga gushing
Jun. 26th, 2012 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunasarielI'm down in L.A., visiting my mom's side of the family at the moment. I've been saving up bits of observations here and there for the past few weeks, since little enough worthy of comment has happened. I plan to do a full write-up of this L.A. trip, next week's Orange County trip to/with my dad's side of the family, and the following week's Comic-Con adventure (whew!) as they occur, but for now I'd like to get this much, at least, out of the way.
Back at home, life in the Shire goes on, much as it has this past Age. I'm loving working at the animal shelter, especially really getting to know the cats. It's hard to pick favorites, but I do spend a lot of time with Arthur, a stray who was brought in almost exactly a month ago, drastically underweight and terrified of everything and everyone. He's now officially up for adoption, but, again, he started out hiding behind the mini couch in his room and never, ever coming out. I would spend, on average, 20 minutes coaxing him out, and when I did, I discovered that he's a complete and utter sweetie. He purrs so hard his entire body shakes, even his ears, and his coat is this gorgeous reddish-blackish-brown color. So he went from curled up in a very, very small ball behind the couch, his big fluffy tail covering his face, to creeping out and sort of eeling around the room. I can actually use my fingers as toys with him (NOTE: this is a monumentally stupid thing to do with most cats, unless you really like lacerations), since he's so careful with his claws that I never even feel them. The last couple of days, he even voluntarily came out to greet me, with no coaxing at all. But then he got a new roommate, Milo, a big, brassy orange tabby, who hisses at Arthur every time he leaves his hiding spot, so now it's back under the couch pretty much all the time. I'm seriously fighting the urge to take him home, since he already seems to trust me pretty well, and I sure have the time to devote to him. Or I would until I had to go back to Berkeley, which is one of the primary reasons I haven't just broken down and adopted him yet.
Speaking of cats, I have come to the conclusion that I am pathologically attached to Cassie, and I'm only half-joking when I say this. RG was over on the last-but-one Sunday night while I was at my dad's house for Father's Day dinner, and he and my mom let Cassie out, since she'd been meowing and restless all day, but RG unblocked the pet door to let one of our other cats, Apollo in, and forgot to block it up again to prevent Cassie, who has been very ill lately, from getting out. I had planned on a nice, relaxing evening of reading Barrayar (at the time, I was just barely past
Cordelia finding out about Kou's suicidal depression
Also, there's been some dramarama going 'round on TGWTG that just left a bad taste in my mouth. Basically, it all started when Spoony, one of my favorite producers from the site, made a, er, poorly-thought-out joke in which he (and it's unclear as to whether "he" is him being in-character as the acidic, darkly witty, perpetually furious SpoonyOne, or just as his own, unadorned, IRL self, let's call him N, who, it seems, is only slightly better) in which he mentions raping one of his fellow co-producers, who happened to be female. (NOTE: It's made abundantly clear that this was only a joke, and he had not the slightest intention of actually doing anything; it's the fact that he felt he could joke about rape, and raping one of his co-workers, that people took offense to.) A third producer for the site, Obscurus Lupa, also female, reported him to the TGWTG people, earning him a four-week suspension. Spoony apologized and agreed with the site's decision, the producer mentioned in the original joke apparently didn't even know what was going on until somebody asked her to comment, and all seemed well. But fans of both Spoony and Obscurus Lupa took it badly and entered into one of those epic flame wars of song and legend. Both sides got both defensive and offensive, the situation quickly deteriorated, and, long story short, Spoony quit/has been fired. This really stinks since, not only have I always really enjoyed Spoony's material, it didn't have to get this bad. From what I can tell, Spoony's fans attacked Obscurus Lupa for reporting him, leading to a couple of inflammatory or explanatory (depending on one's point of view) blog posts by her, leading to *her* fans basically mobbing Spoony, leading him to going from annoyed and repentant to downright furious, some personal insults got thrown around, and before you know it, a relatively simple case of "I'm sorry I made an offensive joke I clearly didn't think through before posting" mushroomed into hurt feelings all around and the loss of one of my favorite online comedians/reviewers.
In slightly more cheerful news, I finished Barrayar, the second Vorkosigan Saga book, and, once again, I loved it! Cordelia continues to be a (quasi-literal) weapons-grade badass, Aral continues to be so Starky it hurts, Kou continues to be an adorkable awkward eager puppy (but now with added layers of woobieishness and headdesk-inducing stupidity), Bothari continues to be just this side of horrifying, Illyan contniues to be slightly creepy but mostly likeable...and that's all the characters who made it over from Shards of Honor, I believe. Drou makes a hell of a secondary character, but I'm actually kind of glad that she's not a main, since I'm not sure whether she could carry a story of this magnitude by herself the way Cordelia can. I'm interested to see the development of Barrayar: The Next Generation (Gregor, Ivan, Miles, and Elena), since there's a good chance that, if not already deeply screwed up, they're going to become so. Only Miles has both of his parents around, Gregor is an orphan who spent a good deal of his formative years with people actively trying to murder him, Elena's only family is a certifiable homicidal maniac, and Ivan's mother shows signs of becoming dangerously overprotective. Basically, at some point, I'd love for this conversation to happen:
Random Person: Hey, remember that one time your mom broke out of one military base and into another, accompanied only by a spastic, a lunatic, and her maidservant, and came out with your uterine replicator tube in one hand, the head of the evil fake Emperor in the other, and the Imperial Residence in flames behind her, having broken out said evil Emperor's two most valuable hostages in her spare time? Or that time she got captured during the Escobaran War and ended up assassinating one of our top generals, while buck-ass nude the whole time?
Miles: *teeth gritted* No. I have never heard those stories before. They are entirely new to me, and I certainly haven't heard them six zillion times before.
Cordelia: *facepalm*
Aral: That's my girl!
Only played for comedy. So much of Barrayar is taken up with what I'm sure will become Big Events that people love to bring up and talk about in later books. During the aforementioned "A Betan frill, a spastic, a lunatic, and a maidservant walk into the Imperial Residence..." incident, when they were slinking around the city and pretty much making it up as they went, I could almost feel the, um, legendary-ness, for lack of a better word, of the situation forming.
Cordelia and Kou are still tied for my favorite, although I admit to being utterly charmed by the glimpse of bb!Miles we got in the epilogue. Cordelia (*still* trying not to call her Cordy) is, indisputably, a (an?) HBIC, and I loved the way she handled herself, and the entire hellish situation (series of hellish situations, actually), throughout the book. She's not the same flavor as Aral or Illyan, who always know what's what, always know exactly what to do and how to do it, and always have a dozen fallback options, Plan Bs, and escape routes mapped out beforehand. Cordelia mostly flies by the seat of her pants, at least on Barrayar, and, to bastardize a favorite Joss Whedon quote of mine, I couldn't help but be awesomed by the way things fell into place. Seriously, there are no words for how much fun I had watching a distraught mother charge headlong into certain death, backed up by her little squad of freaks and geeks, end up basically winning the entire damn war single-handedly, and return a hero, having succeeded beyond even her own wildest hopes.
Kou, on the other hand, strikes a very Lennier-like chord in me. You just want to wrap him up in a big fluffy blanket, give him a puppy and some hot tea with lemon and honey, and cuddle him, while still being able to rest secure with the knowledge that, if you ever want a fleeing groundcar blown up with a plasma arc or an escaping assassin tackled, he's your guy. Given that he and Cordelia are tied for my favorite, his thinking-about-suicide scene was one of my favorites, for so many reasons. Cordelia acknowledges that she and Aral basically see him as their son, especially Aral, which gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies. We got to see that Kou was in a bad place, mentally speaking, but one completely in-character for him, which gave him a starting point to climb back out of, if that makes any kind of sense. Also, oddly enough, I liked Aral's furious reaction: Cordelia has introduced a *lot* of elements to their lives that make him uncomfortable, that he doesn't understand, or that could potentially hurt him politically, but he's been almost superhumanly accepting of the whole thing, so it was kinda nice to see him finally freak out about something, especially since he, characteristically, calmed down once Cordelia laid out all the facts for him and, basically, smacked him on the nose for being a typical Barrayaran male (read: emotionally constipated idiot).
Speaking of emotionally constipated idiots, I have a feeling that Kou's and Drou's extremely drawn-out courtship could have made me want to bash my head against the wall if it was handled less deftly than it was. But as things stand, I'm fully behind Cordelia when she finally gets fed up with them dancing around each other and Kou especially being a twit about the whole thing and just up and got them together, but I like what their courtship, if it can be called that, did for both of them. As mentioned previously, Kou had fallen into a pretty deep depression, and was almost entirely focused on his own pain and humiliation, and so needed a good sharp mental smack to get him out of his "poor me" state of mind, and into one where he can actually appreciate Drou and her feelings. Similarly, Drou learned a good lesson about problem-solving via communication and not letting people retreat in on themselves in a sticky situation, which was something the old, shy Drou really needed to learn. Also: their wedding? D'awwwww. Wee Gregor dancing with Drou, both Kou's and Drou's families being OMGSUPERDUPERPROUD, Aral's musings on how a grocer's son and a retired soldier's daughter were being married in the Imperial Residence, surrounded by old-school Vors, all of it was a perfect ending.
Now that I've gushed about all the stuff I like, there are one or two things that I thought didn't work so well. Anybody as consummately awesome as Cordelia does run the risk of edging into Mary-Sue territory, and her spontaneously playing the messiah for Bothari didn't quite work for me. Like, it's not enough that she's a beautiful, snarky, enlightened, astrocartographer living legend who not once, but twice engineers the assassinations of powerful, heavily-guarded villains. Accidentally. Understand, I love her for precisely these reasons, but it's a fine line between "holy crap, that was awesome! Cordelia, you're my kind of girl!" to breaking my willing suspension of disbelief, and roughly 250 pounds of deeply unstable killer almost literally falling down at her feet and worshiping her got close, especially when the best he could manage towards Aral, his commanding officer and the only person who believed in him for years, is (initially, at least), a kind of rigid respect. Also, I have a feeling that Alys and her relationship with Cordelia could have been developed a little better. As things stand, Padme's death and the difficult birth of Ivan remind me strongly of Ensign Zombie from Shards of Honor, where I feel bad for her, but in more of a general, humanitarian, "well, that sucks" kind of way, than an immediate, "oh, no, not Alys!" kind of way. Her friendship with Cordelia often seemed kind of incidental, happening mostly off-screen with little on-screen development of either her character or their relationship.
On the whole, though, it was fantastic, and I've already dived headlong into The Warrior's Apprentice, the next book in the series. Oh, Miles, you glorious dummy... (Also: dammit, now I need a crop of Vorkosigan Saga icons to add, now that I've actually got the space! LJ, y u no have Vorkosigan icon comm? XD)
Back at home, life in the Shire goes on, much as it has this past Age. I'm loving working at the animal shelter, especially really getting to know the cats. It's hard to pick favorites, but I do spend a lot of time with Arthur, a stray who was brought in almost exactly a month ago, drastically underweight and terrified of everything and everyone. He's now officially up for adoption, but, again, he started out hiding behind the mini couch in his room and never, ever coming out. I would spend, on average, 20 minutes coaxing him out, and when I did, I discovered that he's a complete and utter sweetie. He purrs so hard his entire body shakes, even his ears, and his coat is this gorgeous reddish-blackish-brown color. So he went from curled up in a very, very small ball behind the couch, his big fluffy tail covering his face, to creeping out and sort of eeling around the room. I can actually use my fingers as toys with him (NOTE: this is a monumentally stupid thing to do with most cats, unless you really like lacerations), since he's so careful with his claws that I never even feel them. The last couple of days, he even voluntarily came out to greet me, with no coaxing at all. But then he got a new roommate, Milo, a big, brassy orange tabby, who hisses at Arthur every time he leaves his hiding spot, so now it's back under the couch pretty much all the time. I'm seriously fighting the urge to take him home, since he already seems to trust me pretty well, and I sure have the time to devote to him. Or I would until I had to go back to Berkeley, which is one of the primary reasons I haven't just broken down and adopted him yet.
Speaking of cats, I have come to the conclusion that I am pathologically attached to Cassie, and I'm only half-joking when I say this. RG was over on the last-but-one Sunday night while I was at my dad's house for Father's Day dinner, and he and my mom let Cassie out, since she'd been meowing and restless all day, but RG unblocked the pet door to let one of our other cats, Apollo in, and forgot to block it up again to prevent Cassie, who has been very ill lately, from getting out. I had planned on a nice, relaxing evening of reading Barrayar (at the time, I was just barely past
Cordelia finding out about Kou's suicidal depression
Also, there's been some dramarama going 'round on TGWTG that just left a bad taste in my mouth. Basically, it all started when Spoony, one of my favorite producers from the site, made a, er, poorly-thought-out joke in which he (and it's unclear as to whether "he" is him being in-character as the acidic, darkly witty, perpetually furious SpoonyOne, or just as his own, unadorned, IRL self, let's call him N, who, it seems, is only slightly better) in which he mentions raping one of his fellow co-producers, who happened to be female. (NOTE: It's made abundantly clear that this was only a joke, and he had not the slightest intention of actually doing anything; it's the fact that he felt he could joke about rape, and raping one of his co-workers, that people took offense to.) A third producer for the site, Obscurus Lupa, also female, reported him to the TGWTG people, earning him a four-week suspension. Spoony apologized and agreed with the site's decision, the producer mentioned in the original joke apparently didn't even know what was going on until somebody asked her to comment, and all seemed well. But fans of both Spoony and Obscurus Lupa took it badly and entered into one of those epic flame wars of song and legend. Both sides got both defensive and offensive, the situation quickly deteriorated, and, long story short, Spoony quit/has been fired. This really stinks since, not only have I always really enjoyed Spoony's material, it didn't have to get this bad. From what I can tell, Spoony's fans attacked Obscurus Lupa for reporting him, leading to a couple of inflammatory or explanatory (depending on one's point of view) blog posts by her, leading to *her* fans basically mobbing Spoony, leading him to going from annoyed and repentant to downright furious, some personal insults got thrown around, and before you know it, a relatively simple case of "I'm sorry I made an offensive joke I clearly didn't think through before posting" mushroomed into hurt feelings all around and the loss of one of my favorite online comedians/reviewers.
In slightly more cheerful news, I finished Barrayar, the second Vorkosigan Saga book, and, once again, I loved it! Cordelia continues to be a (quasi-literal) weapons-grade badass, Aral continues to be so Starky it hurts, Kou continues to be an adorkable awkward eager puppy (but now with added layers of woobieishness and headdesk-inducing stupidity), Bothari continues to be just this side of horrifying, Illyan contniues to be slightly creepy but mostly likeable...and that's all the characters who made it over from Shards of Honor, I believe. Drou makes a hell of a secondary character, but I'm actually kind of glad that she's not a main, since I'm not sure whether she could carry a story of this magnitude by herself the way Cordelia can. I'm interested to see the development of Barrayar: The Next Generation (Gregor, Ivan, Miles, and Elena), since there's a good chance that, if not already deeply screwed up, they're going to become so. Only Miles has both of his parents around, Gregor is an orphan who spent a good deal of his formative years with people actively trying to murder him, Elena's only family is a certifiable homicidal maniac, and Ivan's mother shows signs of becoming dangerously overprotective. Basically, at some point, I'd love for this conversation to happen:
Random Person: Hey, remember that one time your mom broke out of one military base and into another, accompanied only by a spastic, a lunatic, and her maidservant, and came out with your uterine replicator tube in one hand, the head of the evil fake Emperor in the other, and the Imperial Residence in flames behind her, having broken out said evil Emperor's two most valuable hostages in her spare time? Or that time she got captured during the Escobaran War and ended up assassinating one of our top generals, while buck-ass nude the whole time?
Miles: *teeth gritted* No. I have never heard those stories before. They are entirely new to me, and I certainly haven't heard them six zillion times before.
Cordelia: *facepalm*
Aral: That's my girl!
Only played for comedy. So much of Barrayar is taken up with what I'm sure will become Big Events that people love to bring up and talk about in later books. During the aforementioned "A Betan frill, a spastic, a lunatic, and a maidservant walk into the Imperial Residence..." incident, when they were slinking around the city and pretty much making it up as they went, I could almost feel the, um, legendary-ness, for lack of a better word, of the situation forming.
Cordelia and Kou are still tied for my favorite, although I admit to being utterly charmed by the glimpse of bb!Miles we got in the epilogue. Cordelia (*still* trying not to call her Cordy) is, indisputably, a (an?) HBIC, and I loved the way she handled herself, and the entire hellish situation (series of hellish situations, actually), throughout the book. She's not the same flavor as Aral or Illyan, who always know what's what, always know exactly what to do and how to do it, and always have a dozen fallback options, Plan Bs, and escape routes mapped out beforehand. Cordelia mostly flies by the seat of her pants, at least on Barrayar, and, to bastardize a favorite Joss Whedon quote of mine, I couldn't help but be awesomed by the way things fell into place. Seriously, there are no words for how much fun I had watching a distraught mother charge headlong into certain death, backed up by her little squad of freaks and geeks, end up basically winning the entire damn war single-handedly, and return a hero, having succeeded beyond even her own wildest hopes.
Kou, on the other hand, strikes a very Lennier-like chord in me. You just want to wrap him up in a big fluffy blanket, give him a puppy and some hot tea with lemon and honey, and cuddle him, while still being able to rest secure with the knowledge that, if you ever want a fleeing groundcar blown up with a plasma arc or an escaping assassin tackled, he's your guy. Given that he and Cordelia are tied for my favorite, his thinking-about-suicide scene was one of my favorites, for so many reasons. Cordelia acknowledges that she and Aral basically see him as their son, especially Aral, which gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies. We got to see that Kou was in a bad place, mentally speaking, but one completely in-character for him, which gave him a starting point to climb back out of, if that makes any kind of sense. Also, oddly enough, I liked Aral's furious reaction: Cordelia has introduced a *lot* of elements to their lives that make him uncomfortable, that he doesn't understand, or that could potentially hurt him politically, but he's been almost superhumanly accepting of the whole thing, so it was kinda nice to see him finally freak out about something, especially since he, characteristically, calmed down once Cordelia laid out all the facts for him and, basically, smacked him on the nose for being a typical Barrayaran male (read: emotionally constipated idiot).
Speaking of emotionally constipated idiots, I have a feeling that Kou's and Drou's extremely drawn-out courtship could have made me want to bash my head against the wall if it was handled less deftly than it was. But as things stand, I'm fully behind Cordelia when she finally gets fed up with them dancing around each other and Kou especially being a twit about the whole thing and just up and got them together, but I like what their courtship, if it can be called that, did for both of them. As mentioned previously, Kou had fallen into a pretty deep depression, and was almost entirely focused on his own pain and humiliation, and so needed a good sharp mental smack to get him out of his "poor me" state of mind, and into one where he can actually appreciate Drou and her feelings. Similarly, Drou learned a good lesson about problem-solving via communication and not letting people retreat in on themselves in a sticky situation, which was something the old, shy Drou really needed to learn. Also: their wedding? D'awwwww. Wee Gregor dancing with Drou, both Kou's and Drou's families being OMGSUPERDUPERPROUD, Aral's musings on how a grocer's son and a retired soldier's daughter were being married in the Imperial Residence, surrounded by old-school Vors, all of it was a perfect ending.
Now that I've gushed about all the stuff I like, there are one or two things that I thought didn't work so well. Anybody as consummately awesome as Cordelia does run the risk of edging into Mary-Sue territory, and her spontaneously playing the messiah for Bothari didn't quite work for me. Like, it's not enough that she's a beautiful, snarky, enlightened, astrocartographer living legend who not once, but twice engineers the assassinations of powerful, heavily-guarded villains. Accidentally. Understand, I love her for precisely these reasons, but it's a fine line between "holy crap, that was awesome! Cordelia, you're my kind of girl!" to breaking my willing suspension of disbelief, and roughly 250 pounds of deeply unstable killer almost literally falling down at her feet and worshiping her got close, especially when the best he could manage towards Aral, his commanding officer and the only person who believed in him for years, is (initially, at least), a kind of rigid respect. Also, I have a feeling that Alys and her relationship with Cordelia could have been developed a little better. As things stand, Padme's death and the difficult birth of Ivan remind me strongly of Ensign Zombie from Shards of Honor, where I feel bad for her, but in more of a general, humanitarian, "well, that sucks" kind of way, than an immediate, "oh, no, not Alys!" kind of way. Her friendship with Cordelia often seemed kind of incidental, happening mostly off-screen with little on-screen development of either her character or their relationship.
On the whole, though, it was fantastic, and I've already dived headlong into The Warrior's Apprentice, the next book in the series. Oh, Miles, you glorious dummy... (Also: dammit, now I need a crop of Vorkosigan Saga icons to add, now that I've actually got the space! LJ, y u no have Vorkosigan icon comm? XD)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 09:31 pm (UTC)I have to say that I agree with the worry that Cordelia treads too close to the Mary-Sue line -- I just find her too awesome, personally, to hold it against her. I'll say that her relationship with Bothari actually doesn't tax my suspension of disbelief -- mostly because it sort of makes sense to me. Bothari is clearly clinically... not well. Barrayar is happy enough to use a dangerous crazy like him -- someone like Ges by turning him into a torture weapon, a better man like Aral by treating him as if he isn't a dangerous crazy when he isn't being actually dangerous. But of all of the people he meets, only Betan Cordelia has any kind of background for dealing with him from a place of recognizing his illness and what he might need, so it makes sense to me that he would relate to her in a qualitatively different way. I forget if any of this is in the books or if I was extrapolating and it just makes sense to me, but that's kind of what I always thought.
I was also bummed that we didn't get to see the relationship between Alys and Cordelia develop more. We do see more of Alys in some of the later books, and I actually find her quite awesome, but I wish I had gotten that sense from the Cordelia books, too.
As for icons:
Looking forward to hearing about your LA trip! Glad the cat cuddling has been going well, and hope Cassie has gained some weight while you've been away.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-29 01:29 am (UTC)Squee! Glad you got it up and working; I hope your Kindle is holding up okay?
I just find her too awesome, personally, to hold it against her.
Completely agreed! So far, there's been nothing she's done that hasn't elicited a mental cheer from me: escaping Beta Colony, trekking around with Aral or Gregor, political wrangling (Vorwhoever's attempt to sabotage her marriage by reavealing that Aral was...*gasp* bisexual! And not a virgin when he met her! was a particular CMOA that I forgot to mention), etc. And I agree that Cordelia has a unique understanding of his mental illness as an actual illness, and not just "oh, well, he's crazy, might as well try to get some use out of him before he becomes completely non-functional." It's just that, given Bothari's attitude towards women in general, I had expected Aral to engineer his redemption instead, and him uncharacteristically latching onto Cordelia was just that liiiiittle bit too far. I'm a fair ways into The Warrior's Apprentice now, though, and I'm loving his interactions with Miles and Elena (another BAMF lady I love reading about)!
I was also bummed that we didn't get to see the relationship between Alys and Cordelia develop more.
Yeah, I imagine them having a very Jane Roland & Lady Allendale vibe, where Cordelia is shocked but pleased to find out that not all Barrayaran women are a bunch of empty-headed butterflies who have internalized their culture's attitudes towards women, and that traditional Barrayaran femininity can be pretty damn dangerous, in a Terry Prattchett-ish "Ladies Who Organize" way.
As for icons: iconsbycurtana has some of my favorites, and so does ase.
Oooh, thanks for the links! ^.^ I've already gone through Curtana's, and didn't find any quotes that I was familiar with (I do plan on snagging most of them once I read their respective books, though), but I got at least one good one from ase, as you can see. This Miles one is especially a propos, since I just passed this part of the book this morning.
Looking forward to hearing about your LA trip!
Thanks, and likewise! You're in Portugal now, yes?
no subject
Date: 2012-06-30 07:41 pm (UTC)Yep, the Kindle is doing just fine! But the rodents have been monopolizing it for purposes of Percy Jackson :P Anyway, the ultrabook, which I can now use, is a lot less painful/slow.
I love the "was bisexual, now monogamous" moment of Cordelia's, too (even through the quibble that, you know, he's actually still both...) Is that when she also muses that Aral's initial response to her was at least in part because she came across as more of a soldier than a woman? I kind of love that bit, too.
I see what you mean about wanting Bothari's redemption to come via Aral, and I actually agree. It makes in-universe sense for Cordelia to understand him best, but the story arc is kind of taxed by it. But we can talk more after you've finished A Warrior's Apprentice, which has a lot of Bothari stuff in it. (I do love Bothari's relationship with Miles, and also Miles's crush on Elenna.)
It's funny you should mention Alys as a PTerry-esque "Ladies Who Organize" type, because Lady Alys and Sybil would get along marvelously well, I feel.
I forget how many books are in the first Miles omnibus I gave you... just Apprentice and The Vor Game and a short story? Vorkosigan books tend to be not too hard to find in libraries, but not always in a useful order, and while they can be read out of order (I did), you really get much more out of the series if you read them in order.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-01 10:02 pm (UTC)Wow. You're right, to a Californian, that sounds crazy. But then again, it takes, like, 18 hours to drive from one end of our state to the other. Hope it's cooler there than it was in Spain!
It makes in-universe sense for Cordelia to understand him best, but the story arc is kind of taxed by it.
Exactly! Well put. It's one of those weird moments where the logic and continuity are perfect, but something about it still rings a little false.
Is that when she also muses that Aral's initial response to her was at least in part because she came across as more of a soldier than a woman?
Yeah, I think it is. And, yes, I love that he was initially charmed by her competency and kickassery than her femininity (although he certainly came to appreciate the whole package, in time ;) ); one of my absolute favorite couple tropes is the Battle Couple, or at least the couple where both parties are badasses who can handle themselves.
Lady Alys and Sybil would get along marvelously well, I feel.
Oooh, they would! Heh, now I kind of want to see them get together, have tea, and quietly take over the world. Politely. XD
just Apprentice and The Vor Game and a short story?
Yup. The short story is "The Mountains of Mourning," which I initially misread as "The Mountains of Madness," which in turn gave me a brief idea of some sort of Lovecraft crossover, which would be...interesting.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-02 08:28 am (UTC)I, too, love Battle Couples, which is part of the reason I tend to mostly ship slash, and it's probably one of the reasons why Aral/Cordelia is one of my few canonical OTPs.
I would love a crossover involving Lady Alys and Sybil (I think I've had Ivan meet with Sybil in one of my crossover memes, but it was attempting to ship them, and that was just weird :P). You get to see more of Alys in the background of the books set on Barrayar (which are my favorites).
I also meant to mention that we do see another example of typical Barrayaran femininity that does not at all mean being fragile or airheaded, but that character appears much later in the series. (I don't really consider Elenna or the Koudelka girls typical because Tante Cordelia had such a heavy influence in their upbringing, so I'm not counting them in this, even though I like Elenna a lot, enjoy the Koudelkas en masse, and adore one of them for reasons I won't go into at the moment :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-02 06:01 pm (UTC)LOL. I'm leaving for SoCal (again) later today, and during the whole nine-hour drive, I'll be thinking of how many small central European countries we could cross in the same time. XD
I, too, love Battle Couples, which is part of the reason I tend to mostly ship slash, and it's probably one of the reasons why Aral/Cordelia is one of my few canonical OTPs.
You're speaking my language!
typical Barrayaran femininity that does not at all mean being fragile or airheaded
I was just thinking about this re: Elena! Like, she gets all flustered and shy when hit on, and won't move without an okay from either Miles or her father, but she's cool in a crisis, and will dislocate a man's arm in about half a second if he tries anything. I think I like her. ;)
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Date: 2012-07-05 10:04 am (UTC)Yes, Elena is an interesting case for all those reasons (though growing up with Bothari as her sole parent would've been... interesting wherever she'd been born.)
It occurred to me that the "Mountains of Mourning" short story has another example of what being Barrayaran and female is like, although in that case it deals with the non-Vor. It's an interesting story for that, though in general not one of my favorite pieces of Vorkosiverse canon.