"The Vor Game" - Random Thought

[jetpack_monkey]

Just finished Chapter 11. I was ready to give up on this book, honestly. The crazy bouncing between Miles's unfortunate deployment, his mutiny, his semi-imprisonment, and his first ImpSec assignment frankly lacked the clean narrative thrust of "The Warrior's Apprentice." Then Gregor showed up, which lead me to stroke my goatee and say, "Iiiinteresting." And then Metzov captured Miles and Gregor and I went, "Brilliant!"

Miles reminds me of the Marvel superhero Longshot. He's blessed with good luck until he attempts to act purely in his own interest -- and then his luck goes amazingly sour.

I wonder if Lois McMaster Bujold believes in karma.

Comments

[jmtorres]

The Kyril Island part of Vor Game was initially published separately as a... novella I guess? So I've always felt that Vor Game has weird pacing and on odd split.

[niqaeli]

You need to read Vor Game because it has important character stuff. It is, however, oddly paced and goes much better on the reread.

Future books that were not written piecemeal are paced with the same awesome as you have come to expect. And you'll need Vor Game for them to have their full impact. (Cetaganda, not so much. But the later stuff, yeah, it matters. Not the plot so much, but the character arcs.)

[booster17.livejournal.com]

Vor Game really does require a bit of set-up, but it's so worth it for all the follow-up. Very similiar to A Civil Campaign in that way.

[desertwillow.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say congratulations. Whatever may have happened between us, and however I feel about this, I'm happy that you have found happiness.