More Vorkosigage; also Pratchett [Reading]

[marydell]

Recent reads:

I trusted all of y'all and went ahead and read Memory despite my bad reaction to Mirror Dance. And y'all were right! It was excellent and mostly Mark-free. I really love Miles' relationships with Illyan and with Gregor, so this was a real treat, with a good mystery and a lot of interesting nuance.  Then I toddled along and read Komarr and liked that one quite a lot, too.

Then I skimmed around A Civil Affair Campaign a bit, and it seems to have large quantities of Mark, bugs, and romance--bleah.  Don't get me wrong, I like love stories, particularly when they're shoehorned into other genres, a la Dorothy Sayers or Ngaio Marsh.  I don't generally like love stories that are structured like romance, though. Sigh.   I think I might be more interested in reading it if I read some Georgette Heyer first, since it's an homage, and it's possible that I'll turn out to like Heyer. Recs?

Before this burst of Bujold reading, though, I read Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic as a bit of a post-Mirror Dance unicorn chaser.  It was quite delightful--like Douglas Adams, but with structure and narrative purpose and more entertaining (to me) characters.  The luggage, of course, being my favorite.  Anyway, everyone on Earth but me has read piles of Pratchett, so you all know this already, but there it is. I'll read more soon.  The audiobook is extremely well-read, but I initially found it kind of boring, because the book strikes me as sort of a madcap romp that works best with the faster pace of reading-on-paper (well, on Kindle, in my case) than the more ponderous read-aloud pace.   Once I'd gotten about halfway into the book I did enjoy the audiobook quite a lot, though.

Comments

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Two of my all-time favorite Heyers are A Civil Contract and Venetia - you might like those.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

papersky has a v. helpful post (http://papersky.livejournal.com/27014.html) giving her rankings of Heyer novels.

My personal favorites are A Civil Contract, Cotillion (oh, very much Cotillion), Frederica, and Sprig Muslin. papersky recommends The Grand Sophy, which is wonderful in a lot of ways, but has an extremely unfortunate and, for many people, book-ruining anti-Semitic scene.

[kate_nepveu]

Pratchett gets so, so much better. Enjoy.

(Also, if that was Nigel Planer doing the audiobook, well, I'm glad you enjoyed him, but Stephen Briggs does the later ones and I love his narrations passionately.)

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

My favourites are Black Sheep, Frederica, and Devil's Cub.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

My absolute favorite is A Civil Contract, but Frederica, Cotillion, and The Nonesuch are on my regular light rereading rota as well.

[vass]

Reading A Civil Campaign without reading Komarr first is not a good idea. Ekaterin is introduced in Komarr, which explains about her first marriage.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

By the way, A Civil Campaign may be a romance (or three), but it's also (and for me primarily) about various characters (Miles, Ekaterin, Kareen, Mark) growing as people.

For me, it's about what you do after you've done whatever is unthinkably bad in your worldview. How you rebuild yourself after a massive and dreadful screwup, how hard it is, and where you can end up afterwards. Less romance and more redemption.

It does, however, involve Mark, which I gather may be a problem for you.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Yep, I did read Komarr and liked it, and Ekaterin, a lot.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I hated how Mark & his choices were handled in Mirror Dance, (ranted about in a previous entry) so I'm not eager to continue his story, but I'm willing to if there's enough other stuff there to like. Which I'm confident there is--I just think I'll get more out of it if I recognize the Heyer-homage qualities as I'm going. It starts off with a formal courting visit which made me feel I was missing out on a reference.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! It sounds like I can't go wrong with A Civil Contract.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I read Heyer (and Sayers, who I believe is ALSO referenced in the dedication) for the first time after A Civil Campaign, and had no problems.

Honestly, there's a lot more to the story than the romance, but unlike many other romancey books, the romance and the sci-fi aren't shoe-horned onto each other. The political complications arise from the romance and the romance complications arise from the political and I think she did a decent job of telling a story that is both romantic and fun. (My favourite romance authors are the ones with a sense of humour: Crusie, Phillips, Cabot, Higgins.)

Also, there are some scenes with Ivan that make me howl with laughter. Poor Ivan....but ya know, he seems to deserve everything he gets.

[readinggeek451]

(My favourite romance authors are the ones with a sense of humour: Crusie, Phillips, Cabot, Higgins.)

Jennifer, Susan Elizabeth, Meg(?), and who? (I adore the first, am quite fond of the second, and have never read the third.)