Saturday, January 26

Art

Diversions

Reading Shards of Honor and Barrayar after having read the rest of the Vorkosigan cycle is a very different experience to reading them for the first time. I couldn't help but keep a tally as characters were introduced: She survives, he gets his central nervous system fried, he dies peacefully in his sleep (something of a rarity), he gets his peripheral nervous system fried, he gets his central nervous system, if not fried, then at least scrambled, he gets his throat cut in about five more pages, all of these guys die in battle, she gets shot by her captors, he gets shot by his captors, he gets his head chopped off, he gets his bones melted, his internal organs mulched, and his tissue taken over by a genetically engineered super-plague.

Much easier to list the characters who survive. Which actually includes that last one. Well, he dies at least once, but it doesn't take.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:55 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 Which reminds me, I need to pick up the Ivan book...

Posted by: GreyDuck at Sunday, January 27 2013 03:42 AM (xbP2x)

2 ... a freak shopping accident?

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, January 27 2013 03:25 PM (rITYa)

3 Well, if you don't mind spoilers, go to the TVTropes page and search for "shopping".

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, January 27 2013 06:42 PM (PiXy!)

4 Forgot one (I think, I've never been clear if it was just a name collision):
Arde - survives, despite a hazardous boss

Posted by: ReallyBored at Tuesday, January 29 2013 05:34 AM (HRMe/)

5 Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that.  He only shows up for a moment, but my guess is that it's the same character.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, January 30 2013 10:32 AM (PiXy!)

6 Who, Mayhew?  Yes, it's the same character.  The two books were written within eight months of each other, and LMB isn't the sort to miss the chance for that sort of re-weave.  One generation incidentally destroys his career, the second generation redeems the family's honor and the victim, unknowing.

His later career isn't detailed, I have to think that he got put into the future-plot-stubs box of odds-and-ends and she never found any way to weave Arde into a complete theme in some later book.  She doesn't really write Dendarii Mercenary books anymore.  Her most successful books since the "Borders of Infinity" novella have stuck pretty close to the Imperium, look at how weak Cryoburn was, for instance.  It turned into a homily to socialized medicine.   Well, sort of.  A rant against evil space HMOs, more like.

Posted by: Mitch H. at Thursday, January 31 2013 06:11 AM (jwKxK)

7 Cordelia accidentally wrecked Arde's career while fleeing Beta Colony's excessively universal health care.  I think it's a wash.

Also, I rather like Cryoburn.  The plot makes perfect sense given what's already been established about the technology and political systems involved, and we see Miles defusing a crisis so smoothly that hardly anyone gets their head blown off.  Which has got to be harder to write than the chaotic military action of some of the earlier books.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, January 31 2013 06:12 PM (PiXy!)

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