(no subject)

I think it is more a comment on me than on the book that one of the main things that jumped out to me about Cryoburn is Lois McMaster Bujold's terrible ideas about interstellar fashion. Why does she have this obsession with formal harem pants? They wear bloused trousers with tight ankle cuffs as business professional attire on Kibou-dani, they wear the same thing as formal opera-wear in Quaddiespace, I'm pretty sure the style is explicitly mentioned in at least one other book and I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS IS A FASHION TREND IN VORKOSIGANVERSE, it sounds uniformly hideous. Most of her fashion descriptions sound pretty hideous, actually. Bujold is generally a skilled writer but she needs to hire someone to come up with planetary fashions for her that are a.) interestingly unique and b.) NOT TERRIBLE.

. . . that out of the way, I do have other things to say about Cryoburn I guess! Though not all that many things. It was a perfectly functional, enjoyable read, on the level of Diplomatic Immunity or Cetaganda - one of those "Miles visits strange planet, trips over wacky hijinks and cultural quirks, unravels labyrinthine plot, enables beta couple to find romance" books. This one involves less Ivan (always sad) and more spunky kid sidekicks, but I will agree that the spunky kid sidekicks were thematically necessary now that Miles has moved into the parenthood stage of his existence.

On the other hand, instead of having a book that displaced all the themes - both the parenthood ones, and the other spoilery ones - onto a different planet with one-off characters so that Miles can have relatively low-stakes hijinks, it would have been kind of nice have a book that dealt with those same themes by . . . actually having a plot in which Miles interacted with his family and addressed those issues for real? Ah well.

(no subject)

Some lazy Friday memes!

1. Go look at your blog. Find the last fandom-related thing you posted. The characters in that post are now your team-mates in the zombie apocalypse. How fucked are you?

Not counting booklogging, the last really fandom-related thing I posted was the You're Beautiful costume poll, which officially makes me the most fucked person in the world. I love those crazy kids, but they are the opposite of qualified for postapocalyptic survival. Tae Kyeung would almost certainly faint dead away in the face of zombie germs and Mi Nyu is usually too busy fending off dangerous inanimate objects like shelves and bidets to face the zombie threat. My only hope is Stylist Wang and her ferocious leopard-print. And I guess Tae Kyeung's cowlneck, if it could be persuaded to fight for the forces of good.


2. Give me a character's name and I will tell you three reasons why it would be terrible to try to date them, have sex with them, or be in a long-term relationship with them.

For an extra challenge, pick characters you know I'm really fond of. Anyone can tell you reasons not to date Cthulhu, after all.

THIS MEME IS SO HILARIOUS TO ME. Bring it on!