Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

[lightreads]

CryoBurn by Lois McMaster Bujold

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Ah. I got an ARC of this two weeks ago, and it’s a mark of just how fucked in the head I was by the bar exam that I couldn’t even crack it open until now. But I did at last, and ah, it was good.

This is a romp. In fact I’d go so far as to say in some places it’s a caper. Basically, it’s a hundred thousand words of Miles repeatedly happening to people. These people generally start out unsuspecting, but by the end are learning to brace for impact, even if they’re curled up in the fetal position and whimpering on the inside.

Except be careful for the corners and edges on this caper, because some of them will cut you. Like most of this series, this book contemplates a bit of speculative technology – cryo freezing and reviving, here – and asks a lot of penetrating questions about the sociopolitical fallout. Without, thank God, being didactic or prescriptive or blankly alarmist or utopian. This is a book about the institutions of death when death is temporary. Except – and I’m paraphrasing Miles here, because he sums this up nicely for us at one point – institutions and corporations and political machines are just big groups of people mostly moving in the same direction. They might feel like they’ll live forever, but they’re just us, too, and we certainly don’t.

Except when we kind of do, and how voting power would be allocated to frozen people, not to mention the economics of it (I slapped a hand over my face and laugh-groaned a lot over the commodified cryo corpse contract swaps, because ahaha, yes, that is so fucking trufax). Then again, I clearly still am fucked in the head by the bar exam, because I also thought in a frantic gabble at one point, “does this planet have an inherited Rule Against Perpetuities? Because if the voting interests don’t vest within 21 years of the end of a life in being – and technically they’re not lives in being – then the conveyances are void oh my God what is wrong with me?”

To everyone who actually understood that: I am so, so sorry.

Ahem. The point. This book is not a disappointment. It is fun and hilarious and chewy. It is also a lot more conscious of Miles’s privilege than previous volumes, in ways I appreciated. Really, one of the best things that happened to this series was the introduction of roving point-of-view, because there are so very many things that Miles does not know about himself; his quite literal entitlement is often one of them.

And then it ends with a quintet of drabbles. Really good drabbles, the kind that feel like really good haiku, where saying the perfect thing in the perfect, tiny package makes writing like origami or something else beautiful and precise and intense. Ouch.

The title isn't any better after reading, though.

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Comments

[jenett]

I had, through some very great good fortune, the chance to read it at about the point it went off to the publisher. (And have been firmly sitting on my hands ever since, except for the other two people who had the same chance.)

I really feel that the book would be much much much poorer without the drabbles. Though, yes, ouch.

I very much agree about the roving perspective giving us totally new views of Miles (and also of Mark, which I very much liked) that Miles can't do for himself. And I was fascinated by the legal issues involved.

[retrofit]

Aaaaaaaah! Your RAP gabble-thoughts made me laugh really a lot.

I want to read this, and don't want to wait for hardcover, but do not have a Kindle or the like. Is there anyone who will sell me an open-platform e-book? I'd even settle for a PDF, but not if I have to install proprietary software to read it.

[neotoma]

You've made it that much harder for me to not buy the electronic ARC that is available.

[sibylle]

Oh, I so agree about the drabbles. I've been fearing this event since, oh, the generational focus shifted from Aral and Cordelia to Miles and company, and now that it finally happened I must admit I did spend ten minutes or so after finishing reading quietly in tears, but it was a good kind of pain. And the drabbles, the drabbles ... *sniff* ... wonderful. Gregor's, especially. The perfect end point.

And the rest of the book was a delightful romp, and wonderful with its roving points.

[ecaterin]

OMG YOU HAVE AN ARC????????? I AM SEETHING WITH JEALOUSY RIGHT NOW. Okay, seething is a harsh word - I'm WRIGGLING with jealousy right now? OMG SO JEALOUS!!! :D

And rolling on the floor laughing at your Bar Exam brain getting mixed up with your Vorkosigan brain - lololololol!! I'm very intrigued at inclusion of Miles privlige issues, something I have felt for quite a while that was really missing from the series. Ekaterin's 'lesser Vor' POV is still only a POV from the bottom of the cream of society, you know? Not exactly a prole POV or a galactic's POV. Also really thrilled to hear there will be more socio/political/economic speculation regarding her world building, cause she does that very well I think :)

I'm very VERY VERRRRRRRY excited :D CAN'T WAAAAAIT!!!!

[ecaterin]

This is a romp. In fact I’d go so far as to say in some places it’s a caper. Basically, it’s a hundred thousand words of Miles repeatedly happening to people. These people generally start out unsuspecting, but by the end are learning to brace for impact, even if they’re curled up in the fetal position and whimpering on the inside.

Bwaa - too true :D And definitely some of my favorite bits of previous books, how people just get sucked along by the vacuum behind Miles as he flows past. If you're caught up in a fast running river, better start swimming or you'll go down! Here we have almost a whole book of it. It's kind of like the mature-Miles version of Warriors Apprentice - he can delegate the heavy lifting, but he's just as unpredictably brilliant :D

Except when we kind of do, and how voting power would be allocated to frozen people, not to mention the economics of it (I slapped a hand over my face and laugh-groaned a lot over the commodified cryo corpse contract swaps, because ahaha, yes, that is so fucking trufax).

OMG SO TRUE. I was positively wincing at her description, far too close to home there, Lois :P

Then again, I clearly still am fucked in the head by the bar exam, because I also thought in a frantic gabble at one point, “does this planet have an inherited Rule Against Perpetuities? Because if the voting interests don’t vest within 21 years of the end of a life in being – and technically they’re not lives in being – then the conveyances are void oh my God what is wrong with me?”

Still laughing from reading this before :D

Ahem. The point. This book is not a disappointment. It is fun and hilarious and chewy.

Indeed. The light heartedness of this story made it feel less present in the series to me...but that all changes by the end. By the end you realize what this is - this is Miles's last romp, cause he's someone new now. Good thing it was a first class caper then, eh?

And then it ends with a quintet of drabbles. Really good drabbles, the kind that feel like really good haiku, where saying the perfect thing in the perfect, tiny package makes writing like origami or something else beautiful and precise and intense. Ouch.

When I read this description from you the other day I may have actually squeaked. I love extremely-short form when its done well. Those drabbles are absolutely perfect. Those drabbles tell us as much as another half a book about the rest of that arc. Deep in our back-brain, they manifest a bunch of story-not-written, the bits below the water line. That's always magic to me. Ursula K. LeGuin is my favorite author for several reasons (her complete economy of language - prose that reads like poetry being a huge one) but largely for that ability to give you back story or culture or tone...without ever writing it down! You just look in your brain and go, 'wait, there isn't anything actually IN the book about that, but I can see it clearly.' LMB goes there sometimes, too, and it's fantastic :)

[reginagiraffe]

According to rumor, there's an Ivan book in the works. So we may yet see more of this Universe.

[kate_nepveu]

Manual trackback, in which I disagree but recommend this blog generally: http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/2011/08/bujold_115.php