Reading: Brothers in Arms

[white_hart]

Lois McMaster Bujold's Brothers in Arms sees Miles Vorkosigan and his Dendarii Mercenaries between contracts on Earth, now a galactic backwater, where Miles struggles to keep his two personas - Lord Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith - apart and out of the way of the people who want to kill them. This task is made even harder when the head of security at the Barrayaran Embassy disappears and Miles's attempts to track him down lead to Miles himself being kidnapped and replaced by a clone.

I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy this one as much as I've enjoyed the others in the series so far. Maybe I just wasn't quite in the mood for it, or maybe I was put off by chapter 2, in which it becomes woefully apparent that neither Bujold nor, presumably, her editor actually knew what "dowager" meant. Or Miles's confidence in a situation where - for once - he isn't way ahead of everyone else tips to the wrong side of the fine line between entertaining chutzpah and irritating cockiness. Or the romance subplot between Miles and Elli Quinn just didn't work for me (Bujold's romances don't, generally; the romance element of Shards of Honour was the main reason why I bounced off it very hard the first time I tried it). And really, nor did the final showdown on a Thames Barrier that was simultaneously a far-future Thames Barrier designed to protect London and the whole lower Thames basin from much higher sea levels than the present barrier and enough like the current structure that it felt very much as if Bujold had visited London, taken a tour, and decided that it was so cool she had to put it in a book. (Unlike the rest of the London setting, which isn't recognisably London at all; I did feel that Bujold rather threw away the chances setting the novel on a far-future Earth rather than another planet offers to throw in a few familiar landmarks and make readers feel like they're really seeing their home in 500 years' time.)

I don't know. I felt like I ought to be enjoying it, but the joy of the previous books just didn't seem to be there this time, and it ended up being rather a slog. I'm sure I will carry on with the series, but maybe not for a little while.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

I recently reread it, and it felt like a slog for me too. They pick up again, though, I think.

I don't mind Bujold's romances, but I didn't buy Miles/ Quinn.

[white_hart]

I know that there is generally considered to be a point beyond which one should not read; opinion seems to be divided on where that is (except that everyone seems to agree that if you get to Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen you've gone too far) but I certainly had the impression that it wasn't until somewhere after A Civil Campaign. Maybe Brothers in Arms has just aged badly - it is a very early book by publication order.

[tree_and_leaf]

Maybe Brothers in Arms has just aged badly,

Perhaps - I certainly think Memory is superb and one of her best.

[tree_and_leaf]

Cryoburn I found dull. I enjoyed "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" a lot more than many people on my flist did, although the criticisms made of its grasp of ethics are fair enough (I think the main problem is that if you try to do what's basically a heist plot in a Barrayan context with those characters, dissonance is inevitable). GJOTRQ is also dull, also

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(Rot13 for spoilers and a minor rant, in case anyone actually cares).

[white_hart]

I completely agree with you about the rot13'd plot point (GJATRQ came out before I started reading the series and although I wasn't particularly seeking out posts about it it was hard to miss) - both the pointlessness of that kind of surprise retcon and the adding insult to the injury of the original ghastly line. (Signed, a monogamous bisexual.)

[tree_and_leaf]

It's perhaps particularly annoying as there is a very minor plot point in "Diplomatic Immunity" involving someone making that kind of baseless assumption about Bel Thorne, and being completely wrong in a way that could have led to disaster if anyone had paid any attention to it. (Don't thin this is a spoiler, really).

I mostly pretend GJATRQ is bad fanfic.

[nanila]

I bounced off Brothers in Arms and never went back to it. I don't know why but I could muster zero interest in Miles' clone thread.

[white_hart]

I’m glad it’s not just me!

[mountainkiss]

Do you know what it is that you don’t like about the romances?

(This isn’t my favourite of the series, and I often end up skipping bits when I reread it. I like the character of Galeni and I think it has some great moments, but it goes on for a very long time. Without wanting to spoil anything though, I’ll admit I love the next book and when I reread this I’m mostly setting up a reread of that.)

[coughingbear]

I think I also read it for the set-up for the next book too, though there are parts I really like. I am not a huge Elli fan though which definitely influences my enjoyment of this.

On 'dowager', my impression is that in US English it can be used to refer to senior older women more generally, rather than as we would expect, as the widow of a titled person, so I tend to think that's how Bujold is doing it. (Yes - looking at the OED, it's as we'd expect, but Merriam-Webster offers 'a dignified elderly woman' as second definition.)

[white_hart]

I quite liked Elli in Ethan of Athos but here she really didn't seem to have much personality at all, she was all about looks.

How very odd to take a word with such a specific meaning and make it so general as to be pointless!

[white_hart]

I don't like heterosexual romance as a genre (I used to say I didn't like romance as a genre, but then I discovered that I don't have the same problem with f/f romance), and Bujold's romances feel very genre-romance. I think it's to do with reinforcement of "traditional" gender roles - there's a presumption of male dominance and female passivity which frankly gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies.

I did like Galeni, but there wasn't enough of him to make up for the amount of time Miles spends contemplating his own navel and the squicky romance.