Book review

[riontel]

Finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen last night, the latest installment in Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga and the most boring one to date. I kept waiting for something (anything!) to happen. When Miles showed up I went, aha, finally, but no, still nothing. I can deal with emotions and romance and kids in my sci-fi, even if I'd rather not, but not at the expense of everything else and not when the emotions, romance and kids are so bland. Bujold used to manage a fine balance of adventure, intrigue and political shenanigans without robbing her characters of personalities. In fact, one of the things she handled brilliantly up till now was Miles's growth and change through all the insane non-stop action. In this book, nobody grew, nobody changed, and I would say everything was completely predictable except I couldn't have predicted such a nothing story.

Comments

[efimpp.livejournal.com]

It should have ended on "Count Vorkosigan, sir" :-)

[riontel.livejournal.com]

Maybe, especially since she clearly seems to be bored with Miles.

[lkoyfman.livejournal.com]

I agree, i couldn't wait to finish it and discard it... I have a tendency to re-read the books I like multiple times. Don't have any desire to open this one again...

[riontel.livejournal.com]

It's like she was so taken with her own daring at tackling a potentially controversial subject, she let everything else fall by the wayside. So disappointing. BTW, I remember you were the reason I started reading this series!

[lkoyfman.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope earlier books of this series didn't disappoint you! :)

[beldmit.livejournal.com]

Well, Jole himself was changing drastically. And, I suppose, Miles changed too.

I was waiting for SOMETHING when read the book, but after I finished it, I understood that no out-of-range adventures does not mean "nothing".

[riontel.livejournal.com]

I didn't feel that Jole changed at all. He made some new career and life choices but they were actually very much in line with his personality. And I had no doubts from the get go what his choices would be, there were no surprises, no twists, no conflicts. Lots of banter, but that doesn't make a book.

Miles has matured, naturally, but not because of any events in this book (since there weren't any). We were basically given a whole bunch of new people's descriptions and "where are they now" for some established characters.