(no subject)

[skygiants]

After a lovely but extremely extremely busy past several weeks, I spent all afternoon hibernating on the couch reading Ocean's Echo, the follow-up to Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit. This one is set in a different corner of the same Big Messy Space Polity that Winter's Orbit takes place in and is really deeply and enjoyably engaged with The Problem Of Intense Telepathic Bonds: in the backstory, the military of this particular corner of space did some experiments to create telepathic soldiers who could either give telepathic commands OR read minds; in the present, command-givers have been integrated into society but mind-readers are mistrusted and frequently subject to military conscription and forcible mind-bonding to a trusted command-giver. Tennal Halkana is both an important politician's nephew and a deeply unstable mind-reader who has crossed his illustrious aunt's lines too many times; Surit Yeni is a command-giver who has been ordered to get him under control by telepathically bonding with him but is too honorably to actually do so as it is technically illegal and definitely unethical. As a result, they decide to team up and fake a telepathic mind-bond until conditions are right for Tennal to escape!

"Let's fake a mind-bond" is of course an extremely fun twist on thee trope and having read Winter's Orbit, I expected that the protags would of course fall in love along the way, but I did not expect the stakes to escalate so fast and in such big Space Operatic ways! I also really appreciated the various times and ways in which the power dynamics shifted over the course of the book, and the way in which both of them choose at various times to consciously even the playing field, as well as how dangerous and unpleasant the actual telepathic mind-bond was when it actually happened and that the happy ending involved both of them getting to be completely separate and independent people! although I will say Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint has ruined me a little for plots in which someone's shattered personality has to be reconstructed and rebuilt on a metaphysical plane by a person who loves them; it is of course Sweepingly Romantic, the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc., but not being a particularly sweeping romantic myself I am of the opinion that this is the kind of work that takes a village. I also found the military experiments backstory very effectively creepy and wish there had been even more of it as I still do not entirely understand how the architect | reader divide worked or the subsequent societal/sociopolitical developments there. I would be pleased if Maxwell chose to return to this corner of the universe but would also gladly explore other areas of it.

Comments

[jiggit]

I loveddddd the fake telepathic soul bond so much (like I think I would enjoy reading more fic that makes use of it, honestly). I also really really loved the specifically 'alien'/unknowable nature of the bond once they activated it and started feeling the edges of losing themselves. Excellent horror and existential dread.

I enjoyed the story and characters enough to buy the personality reconstruction, because I read it as a memory association ordeal for the person with the shattered personality, tinged heavily by the both of them having mind-bonded to an unsafe degree (and because I was willing to give it some leeway on account of the Sweeping Romance elements). (I haven't read ORV (yet?? the main problem for me is that it feels like a big mental undertaking.)) For other books, I think I very possibly would not have been so generous because objectively I think I'd hew closer to your view of it. I also agree that the reader/architect divide doesn't feel as clear to me as it could be and that I enjoyed the world enough that I'd love to read another tackling this.

As someone who is relatively ambivalent about the poetics of outer space but loves age of sail, the ocean imagery with the currents and the waves and the chaotic space worked very very well for me!! Also, I love Surit dearly.

[chestnut_pod]

I can't wait!!!!!!

[morbane]

Thank you very much for alerting me to this - this sounds like the kind of MY JAM where even if it is not what I am expecting or uneven in parts I will love it enough to be pleased easily. *runs off to buy*

[asakiyume]

mmmmmm yes, I would not want to count on one person rebuilding me, no matter how much that person loved me.

[sophia_sol]

not being a particularly sweeping romantic myself I am of the opinion that this is the kind of work that takes a village

hmmm YEAH hard agree!! Can't help but wonder if both of them came back from the experience of being put back together from shards of themselves in space with some aspects of themselves forever missing, because the other didn't actually know everything about them! That would be interestingly horrifying to explore, actually, but I understand why the book didn't go there.

I'm real excited for this to come up in ORV though now!!!

odd question

[eileenlufkin]

So the version you read has an ending, not a cliffhanger? Does it have more than 20 chapters? Because I think I might need to complain to audible.com.

[sandrylene]

On the "it takes a village" - holy crap, yes, and particularly because at that point they've known each other, what? Like a week or so, maybe? It's a bit ridiculous. But definitely still a thoroughly enjoyable book!

I'm still trying to process what I think of the family dynamics going on there.

I did enjoy the sort of setup of "your strengths as an officer are being excruciatingly honorable and by the book, but you can't read people to save your life" and therefore having "I am good at human nature and crap at everything else" be a really useful complementary skillset.