Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold

[rachelmanija]

I’m catching up on reviews; I read this some time last month. This is a bit unfortunate, because I enjoyed it while I read it, and if I’d reviewed it immediately afterward, I would have been more positive. One month later, I’m finding it un-memorable, which is not what I want from a Vorkosigan book.

In other ways, too, it wasn’t what I wanted. I always liked Ivan as a character, and what I probably would have liked best would be something with a tone along the lines of the early Miles books – funny with serious undertones, or serious with lots of funny moments – like The Warrior’s Apprentice or The Vor Game. I would have loved to see Bujold take Ivan a little more seriously, and have him wrestle with taking himself a little more seriously. Alternately, I would have enjoyed a pure light-hearted romp like Cetaganda or Ethan of Athos.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance had a few good serious moments, and it had some excellent light-hearted romping. But it was embedded in a lot of low-conflict, low-stakes, low-emotion, low-intensity scenes hanging around Barrayar. I found this especially frustrating because I kept seeing how a scene or plot point could have played out in a more interesting way, and then it often didn’t.

I did enjoy reading this, so the review is more grumpy than my actual experience of the book. The first quarter or so, on Komarr, was pretty great. Especially the scene with the groats. I also loved the offering to the dead, and the conversation where Tej and Rish talk over their problems and keep coming to the conclusion that they could probably be solved by someone having sex with Byerly.

My issues with this book come down to why I love Bujold’s earlier books. They tend to have very intense feelings and high stakes, whether emotional or physical. This book had low-key emotions and low stakes. It had some good comic scenes, but was too slow-paced to work as pure comedy.

The issue of stakes also applies to comedy, as a lot of comedy only works if the characters are extremely, extremely worried that something will go wrong, and are putting tons of effort into ensuring that it won’t, or trying to fix it if it does. A lot of this book would have been funnier if the characters had been more frantic.

Spoilers below.



It wasn’t that I disliked Ivan and Tej’s relationship. It was sweet. My problem was that they had no real interpersonal conflicts and very downplayed cultural conflicts. The external obstacles to their relationship were there, but both Ivan and Tej seemed only mildly worried about them, so I never worried that either of them would get emotionally hurt. This made their entire relationship feel flat.

If you have a claustrophobic character forced to go into a small, dark, wet place, I would like to see a little more fear and facing of fear. This was also so downplayed that it barely registered.

Once Ivan married Tej, he basically stopped taking significant action for what felt like the entire rest of the book. That is, he did do some stuff, but it was so low-key that he felt passive. Other people were creating most of the plot action. Granted, that has been a key character thing for him, but I would have liked to have seen it addressed more, whether by seeing him capably manipulating things to have them turn out how he wanted without the appearance of taking action, or by making a memorable choice to reveal his true character by not being passive.

I felt pretty convinced that a book from Byerly’s POV would have been more up my alley. Especially if Bujold was willing to hurt him a bit.



Please feel free to put spoilers in comments.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Vorkosigan Saga)

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

Sigh. Yeah.

Mostly, I left this book really, really wanting the two obvious higher-stakes sequels: the one about Byerly's spy adventures on Jackson's Whole (I really want to see what happens when he and Rish team up with Mark and Kareen to take down the brain transplant business); and the one where Gregor allows Ivan to think that he can have a nice low-key sinecure in the diplomatic corps-- right up until Ivan finds himself appointed ambassador to Eta Ceta.

[rachelmanija]

I ended up a lot more interested in Byerly than I was in Ivan. That had not been the case in A Civil Campaign.

To paint in broad strokes, characters are often most interesting when they're either on familiar turf at the top of their game, or when they're completely out of their depth. Since Ivan doesn't have a top of his game, the latter would be a good plot for him.

[vass]

I really want to see what happens when he and Rish team up with Mark and Kareen to take down the brain transplant business

...Oooooh.

[redbird]

It's better as Tej's book than as Ivan's, I think, in part because she has—and thinks she has—more at stake than he does. But Ivan is the known character who at least some readers are curious about, and his name in the title signals "this is a Barrayar book, but not about Miles."

[green_knight]

I loathed the first part where Ivan is a creep - and Bujold makes it perfectly clear that we're supposed to endorse his behaviour because 'we know he's a good guy'. After that, I liked the book - I liked the slow and unhurried Barrayar scenes; a time to stop and smell the flowers and look around.

But my main expectation was that with Miles out of the way we would see more of Ivan's strengths - he's pale and wan compared to Miles, and without the comparison, I expected to find more of Ivan; and I don't think the book delivered on that, at least not for me. (On the other hand, Gregor and Simon... I got a lot out of that. Ivan's relationship with Simon was wonderful.)

And I don't feel that I want higher stakes - one of the stakes, ever since Cordelia turned up, is dragging Barrayar kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, and while gradual changes to the calcified society that is Barrayar may _look_ inconsequential, they are not; they're just not flashy. (More agency for Tej would not have gone amiss.)

[rachelmanija]

Bujold makes it perfectly clear that we're supposed to endorse his behaviour because 'we know he's a good guy'.

I didn't get that impression at all. I thought we were supposed to know he was not intending to rape and murder Tej, since we knew what his actual intentions were. But he was acting creepy and dangerous, because he was resting on his intentions without thinking of how it must look to Tej, and deserved to be stunned and tied to a chair all night. I do think the ball got dropped in that Ivan never quite got told or seemed to understand just how badly he screwed that up and why.

And I don't feel that I want higher stakes - one of the stakes, ever since Cordelia turned up, is dragging Barrayar kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, and while gradual changes to the calcified society that is Barrayar may _look_ inconsequential, they are not; they're just not flashy.

I meant higher emotional stakes, not higher political stakes. Like, "Will someone get their heart broken?" "Will someone make a decision they will regret for the rest of their life?"

Also higher physical stakes on a smaller scale, like, "Could anyone we care about get killed or seriously hurt?"

[holyschist]

I found Ivan and Tej's relationship totally unconvincing: it seemed to be based on lust + convenience, which could have been interesting, but we were supposed to believe it was True Love, I guess. I was a lot more interested in By and Rish, who we barely got.

I also thought it played coy about By's sexuality in a really annoying way, and that for someone implied to be pansexual (the Betan sex therapists), Tej thought very much like a straight person. I wasn't keen on the pronoun games about Donno, either, but at this point I pretty much cringe at anything non-straight that Bujold introduces anywhere...