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Ivan, His Booke, a babble
So I have read Captain Vorpatril's Alliance! and behind the cut are some sundry assorted things about it, including spoilers but possibly not including coherence - I've got a cold and also had to read this book in a room by myself so as not to make squeaky gaspy noises in anyone else's hearing.
-Biggest point - I was SO RELIEVED when I realized that most of this book was going to take place on Barrayar. Because, charmed as I am by the rest of Bujold's Nexus, it's Barrayar I adore, and when the book brought me back there it was like coming home. Also, in this particular chronological moment, Barrayar=Vorkosibabies, so that's always win. Although there were not nearly enough Vorkosibabies. But there was Simon! and Alys! and Ekaterin, a little bit. And it's always most fun to go to Barrayar through an outsider pov, which Tej provided beautifully.
-it choked me up a little bit that she didn't write Aral, even though he's technically still alive. She's shut his book, I'm afraid.
-I REALLY LIKE RISH.
-It was interesting how much having Tej as a pov character amplified the verse's embrace of genetic greed/Darwinian sexual selection. And, well, from that point of view Alys has got to be feeling like she won the lottery - her boy found a girl who's haut-descended, doesn't get much better than that for genetic perfection. I did bounce, a little, off of how highly sexualized the first part of the book is, maybe because the sexuality was presented in such an overwhelmingly visual way? And because I guess I'm not actually that in to perfect!people!lust. It was later, when Ivan was blissing out on commitment and domesticity, that I was really engaged by the pairing.
-I'm charmed by Tej. Not in love with her yet, but I think I could be - this book withheld several important tests, I thought, and that's holding me back from her. I want to see Tej with Cordelia, and with Kareen Koudelka, and I want to see how she'll deal with the actual savagery of Barrayar, which was never really on display in this book. Because it seems like there's always that moment, with galactic characters, where they have to fully recognize both Barrayar's grace and Barrayar's violence. Does Tej know how all the rest of Ivan's family died, for example? - for that matter, I can't remember if the complication to his children's position posed by her Cetagandan blood is ever made clear to her. But I would think that Barrayar could be absolutely vicious about the whole thing; they usually are.
-“This is not a date, you idiot,” Tej snapped at him. To her annoyance, his smile inexplicably broadened. DOLPHIN NOISES. IVAN RESPONDS TO "IDIOT" AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT. THIS IS NOT NORMAL BB.
-Simon kind of broke my heart. :(
-I seem to have come out of this book shipping a sedoretu. I've been entertaining daydreams of a Miles/Ivan/Ekaterin group marriage for a while, and then this happened:
“Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan is very close friends with Ivan’s mother, you know. Cordelia has frequently mentioned to me how much she treasured having a woman friend, when she first came to Barrayar as a bride and a stranger, to show her how to go on here—all those things the men didn’t know. At least there’s no war on, this time. Perhaps when Miles and I get back from Sergyar, we can visit again…?”
A heartbreakingly kind offer, Tej thought. She smiled, but shook her head. “We don’t expect to be here that long.”
“Ah,” said Lady Ekaterin, with a curious glance at Ivan Xav. “That’s a pity. Well, let’s just take a stroll through the dining room wing, and then we can go out the back and around to my garden…”
Miles & Tej as morning, Ekaterin & Ivan as evening, lots of babies, perfect bliss. This has become my Vorkosiverse otp.
-I LOVE THE IVAN XAV THING. I DO NOT KNOW WHY. IT IS CUTE LIKE SUNSHINE AND KITTENS. BUT NOT KITTENS ON TREES.
-That said, I want to side-eye a little at the way Bujold keeps decentralizing her narrative by pulling characters away from each other. I don't WANT Ivan and Tej to go away for two years! I don't WANT Byerly to go off adventuring. And I do want Mark and Kareen to come back, because I miss having them as more than mentions. Don't break up the families of choice, Lois, don't do it!
-Biggest point - I was SO RELIEVED when I realized that most of this book was going to take place on Barrayar. Because, charmed as I am by the rest of Bujold's Nexus, it's Barrayar I adore, and when the book brought me back there it was like coming home. Also, in this particular chronological moment, Barrayar=Vorkosibabies, so that's always win. Although there were not nearly enough Vorkosibabies. But there was Simon! and Alys! and Ekaterin, a little bit. And it's always most fun to go to Barrayar through an outsider pov, which Tej provided beautifully.
-it choked me up a little bit that she didn't write Aral, even though he's technically still alive. She's shut his book, I'm afraid.
-I REALLY LIKE RISH.
-It was interesting how much having Tej as a pov character amplified the verse's embrace of genetic greed/Darwinian sexual selection. And, well, from that point of view Alys has got to be feeling like she won the lottery - her boy found a girl who's haut-descended, doesn't get much better than that for genetic perfection. I did bounce, a little, off of how highly sexualized the first part of the book is, maybe because the sexuality was presented in such an overwhelmingly visual way? And because I guess I'm not actually that in to perfect!people!lust. It was later, when Ivan was blissing out on commitment and domesticity, that I was really engaged by the pairing.
-I'm charmed by Tej. Not in love with her yet, but I think I could be - this book withheld several important tests, I thought, and that's holding me back from her. I want to see Tej with Cordelia, and with Kareen Koudelka, and I want to see how she'll deal with the actual savagery of Barrayar, which was never really on display in this book. Because it seems like there's always that moment, with galactic characters, where they have to fully recognize both Barrayar's grace and Barrayar's violence. Does Tej know how all the rest of Ivan's family died, for example? - for that matter, I can't remember if the complication to his children's position posed by her Cetagandan blood is ever made clear to her. But I would think that Barrayar could be absolutely vicious about the whole thing; they usually are.
-“This is not a date, you idiot,” Tej snapped at him. To her annoyance, his smile inexplicably broadened. DOLPHIN NOISES. IVAN RESPONDS TO "IDIOT" AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT. THIS IS NOT NORMAL BB.
-Simon kind of broke my heart. :(
-I seem to have come out of this book shipping a sedoretu. I've been entertaining daydreams of a Miles/Ivan/Ekaterin group marriage for a while, and then this happened:
“Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan is very close friends with Ivan’s mother, you know. Cordelia has frequently mentioned to me how much she treasured having a woman friend, when she first came to Barrayar as a bride and a stranger, to show her how to go on here—all those things the men didn’t know. At least there’s no war on, this time. Perhaps when Miles and I get back from Sergyar, we can visit again…?”
A heartbreakingly kind offer, Tej thought. She smiled, but shook her head. “We don’t expect to be here that long.”
“Ah,” said Lady Ekaterin, with a curious glance at Ivan Xav. “That’s a pity. Well, let’s just take a stroll through the dining room wing, and then we can go out the back and around to my garden…”
Miles & Tej as morning, Ekaterin & Ivan as evening, lots of babies, perfect bliss. This has become my Vorkosiverse otp.
-I LOVE THE IVAN XAV THING. I DO NOT KNOW WHY. IT IS CUTE LIKE SUNSHINE AND KITTENS. BUT NOT KITTENS ON TREES.
-That said, I want to side-eye a little at the way Bujold keeps decentralizing her narrative by pulling characters away from each other. I don't WANT Ivan and Tej to go away for two years! I don't WANT Byerly to go off adventuring. And I do want Mark and Kareen to come back, because I miss having them as more than mentions. Don't break up the families of choice, Lois, don't do it!