(no subject)

[skygiants]

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.

Comments

[sapote]

I went back through your archives after I read the Vorkisigan books myself specifically to respond to this post: OH MY GOD, the space fashion is SO HIDEOUS. My favorite was - oh, what was the name of the femme fatale in The Vor Game? She was introduced at one point wearing a sparkly form-fitting romper with a giant standing collar. And heels. I thought the space Cosby sweaters on Babylon 5 won the prize for "the future looks just like the 90s", but no, she wins.

Though in fairness I think Lwaxana Troi would wear it too.

[ckd]

Cavilo.

That space fashion is legitimate bad BBC space fashion, I'll have you know.