Books: the Vorkosigan saga
Dec. 3rd, 2011 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyI just finished reading Young Miles, which is the second omnibus collection of stories in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan universe. I had never read any of the books before and I've been finding them quite gripping.
The politics of the universe that she's created are quite splendid, I think. Complex but they makes sense. There are very different planets involved, with their own customs and traditions.
You can tell that the series was started in the '80s - Cordelia's doctor smoking in front of her without giving it much of a thought is the precise moment when I stopped and went... 'hey, was this written in the '80s?' and then I went and checked and, yep, it was. That was the big thing that made it click for me. There are some other things, too - calling the hermaphrodite gender on Beta 'it' strikes me as old-fashioned; I think nowadays people would use an alternative pronoun or make up one of their own rather than use a term that can be interpreted as calling people things.
I have to give a warning for attempted rape (as well as rape that happens off-page). I felt like the author handled it well and didn't glamorize it but the character who performs the rape and attempted rape continues to be a secondary character in the series for a while and is on the side of the protagonists. There is also infanticide in the "Mountains of Mourning" short story and attempted infanticide in another story.
Miles himself has some gender issues but he's aware of several of them and the universe does not conform to his gender expectations. And his mom and dad (who are the ones featured in the first omnibus - it's basically about how they met, fell in love, got married, and had Miles - all during a war) are really awesome.
Miles gets a lot of prejudice aimed at him from his father's society for being a 'mutant'. Again, this attitude is intentionally shown by the author as a flaw in Barrayar society.
The politics of the universe that she's created are quite splendid, I think. Complex but they makes sense. There are very different planets involved, with their own customs and traditions.
You can tell that the series was started in the '80s - Cordelia's doctor smoking in front of her without giving it much of a thought is the precise moment when I stopped and went... 'hey, was this written in the '80s?' and then I went and checked and, yep, it was. That was the big thing that made it click for me. There are some other things, too - calling the hermaphrodite gender on Beta 'it' strikes me as old-fashioned; I think nowadays people would use an alternative pronoun or make up one of their own rather than use a term that can be interpreted as calling people things.
I have to give a warning for attempted rape (as well as rape that happens off-page). I felt like the author handled it well and didn't glamorize it but the character who performs the rape and attempted rape continues to be a secondary character in the series for a while and is on the side of the protagonists. There is also infanticide in the "Mountains of Mourning" short story and attempted infanticide in another story.
Miles himself has some gender issues but he's aware of several of them and the universe does not conform to his gender expectations. And his mom and dad (who are the ones featured in the first omnibus - it's basically about how they met, fell in love, got married, and had Miles - all during a war) are really awesome.
Miles gets a lot of prejudice aimed at him from his father's society for being a 'mutant'. Again, this attitude is intentionally shown by the author as a flaw in Barrayar society.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-04 08:22 am (UTC)Yay! for discovering these wonderful stories - I wish I could read them again for the first time :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-04 04:54 pm (UTC)