What Am I Reading Wednesday
Feb. 18th, 2015 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsiWhat I am reading: Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
Motive by Jonathan Kellerman
What I have finished reading: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold. As there are a whole series of novels about Miles Vorkosigan they can be very different in themes, one is bound to have favourites. I’m not a big SF-fan, really, so perhaps it is not surprising that the Miles books that takes place in space are my least favourites and the one that takes place on Barrayar is those I like best. Then there are those that takes place on other planets, they are in the middle. Cetaganda is the first of them (at least in the internal chronology, Bujold doesn’t write in strict chronological order.) The plot is once again a murder mystery. Miles and his cousin Ivan are sent to the Cetagandan Empire to attend the funeral of the Dowager Empress. One of her servants is murdered at the bier and suddenly Miles finds himself more than a little involved. With the help of Ivan and an unusually adventurous Haut-lady, he sets out to find the murderer, save his own honour and, incidentally, also Cetaganda.
The book is a fine example of Bujold’s talent for building cultures. Cetaganda is the most “alien” culture in a universe with just humans. They live by ceremony and have an odd society with two sets of aristocrats. There are the Ghem, the military and then the very strange Haut, which have the political power. And then there is the Haut-ladies who has a very different sort of power. They are rather aggressive towards their neighbours and have an especially volatile relation to Barrayar, which they tried to conquer some decades past. It’s also pick up the recurring theme of gene-manipulation. Bujold often take an idea and then do what-if’s on it. What would tampering with human genes mean on a planet where everyone is equal? Answer: genetic diseases would be gone, but there are also attempts to make the super-equal human- hermaphodites. What would happen on a planet were the one with the most money wins? Answer, genetically enginered slaves to suit every taste and whim, like cloning yourself when you are old and then flush out the poor clones brain and replace it with yours. And so on. On Cetaganda to goal is to create the perfect human and in the process they are alienating themselves from the rest of the human race.
Cetaganda is firmly a “good, but not favourite” Bujold. Miles is his usual charmingly annoying self and as usual many of the minor characters are well rounded and interesting in their own right. And it has Ivan, who is charm incarnated and also a character who, one gradually realises, is a lot more complex than one first thought. His nickname in the family is that-idiot.Ivan but in Cetaganda you’ll get the very first glimpse of what Ivan has worked so hard his whole life to hide; a brain.
A few words on cover art. I would never have read Bujold’s book if I hadn’t been strongly recommended them by several friends, because the cover art is generally bad, if not straight awful. This is what my copy of Cetaganda looks like:
It does, somewhat reflects the story, we see Miles staring at Ghem-colonel Benin, a man he is somewhat allied with. And in between we see Miles kneel in front of the Haut Rian, which is something he does in the book. Only the artist has clearly just read an abstract because it is clearly stated that Benin’s face is painted in white and black with red accents, the bleeding zebra-look, as Miles put it. And Rian certainly doesn’t give Miles a rose. Besides, she is also the most achingly beautiful woman Miles have ever seen...Argh, bad cover art, argh!
What I will be reading next: Labyrinth, a novella by Lois McMaster Bujold
Motive by Jonathan Kellerman
What I have finished reading: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold. As there are a whole series of novels about Miles Vorkosigan they can be very different in themes, one is bound to have favourites. I’m not a big SF-fan, really, so perhaps it is not surprising that the Miles books that takes place in space are my least favourites and the one that takes place on Barrayar is those I like best. Then there are those that takes place on other planets, they are in the middle. Cetaganda is the first of them (at least in the internal chronology, Bujold doesn’t write in strict chronological order.) The plot is once again a murder mystery. Miles and his cousin Ivan are sent to the Cetagandan Empire to attend the funeral of the Dowager Empress. One of her servants is murdered at the bier and suddenly Miles finds himself more than a little involved. With the help of Ivan and an unusually adventurous Haut-lady, he sets out to find the murderer, save his own honour and, incidentally, also Cetaganda.
The book is a fine example of Bujold’s talent for building cultures. Cetaganda is the most “alien” culture in a universe with just humans. They live by ceremony and have an odd society with two sets of aristocrats. There are the Ghem, the military and then the very strange Haut, which have the political power. And then there is the Haut-ladies who has a very different sort of power. They are rather aggressive towards their neighbours and have an especially volatile relation to Barrayar, which they tried to conquer some decades past. It’s also pick up the recurring theme of gene-manipulation. Bujold often take an idea and then do what-if’s on it. What would tampering with human genes mean on a planet where everyone is equal? Answer: genetic diseases would be gone, but there are also attempts to make the super-equal human- hermaphodites. What would happen on a planet were the one with the most money wins? Answer, genetically enginered slaves to suit every taste and whim, like cloning yourself when you are old and then flush out the poor clones brain and replace it with yours. And so on. On Cetaganda to goal is to create the perfect human and in the process they are alienating themselves from the rest of the human race.
Cetaganda is firmly a “good, but not favourite” Bujold. Miles is his usual charmingly annoying self and as usual many of the minor characters are well rounded and interesting in their own right. And it has Ivan, who is charm incarnated and also a character who, one gradually realises, is a lot more complex than one first thought. His nickname in the family is that-idiot.Ivan but in Cetaganda you’ll get the very first glimpse of what Ivan has worked so hard his whole life to hide; a brain.
A few words on cover art. I would never have read Bujold’s book if I hadn’t been strongly recommended them by several friends, because the cover art is generally bad, if not straight awful. This is what my copy of Cetaganda looks like:
It does, somewhat reflects the story, we see Miles staring at Ghem-colonel Benin, a man he is somewhat allied with. And in between we see Miles kneel in front of the Haut Rian, which is something he does in the book. Only the artist has clearly just read an abstract because it is clearly stated that Benin’s face is painted in white and black with red accents, the bleeding zebra-look, as Miles put it. And Rian certainly doesn’t give Miles a rose. Besides, she is also the most achingly beautiful woman Miles have ever seen...Argh, bad cover art, argh!
What I will be reading next: Labyrinth, a novella by Lois McMaster Bujold
