Kalina

I read this some time ago when I was dreaming of joining the Two Weeks Before the Mast program on the Lady Washington, and found it extremely engaging. This is a story of sailing a tall ship in a modern context – not during the golden age of sail, but when the world had already changed and technologies were advancing, so in the story telling you traverse two eras. If you love ships or adventure or both, this is a very engaging read.

I have mixed feelings about this book and series.

The magical system that gets revealed over the course of the book is among my favorites, along with those from_His Dark Materials_ and The Kingkiller Chronicle. The magic system reflects real aspects of human minds and human interaction, with additional details and descriptions that made me feel like the magic made sense, was a reflection of something real. Instead of waggling a magic wand to get what you want, you learn about human minds and human behavior. There are also consequences that feel real and resonate with my own life experiences.

The fantasy world is full of fun surprises, with creatures and cultures and objects that don't just riff on existing ideas but operate in a unique way that makes the world enthralling to discover.

That said, there are aspects of the writing that I have to skim past and try to ignore.

The author revels in describing abuse of power, with detailed views into how the (fat, bald, scarred) villains enjoy manipulating, raping, and murdering children, and yet still get rewarded with power, while the (attractive, tall, muscular) good guys do a lot of grinning and rescuing children and suffering from the intensity of their own morality. This aspect of the characters is poured on too thick. I don't need my fantasy to involve so much twisting of the knife. I can see that making the reader writhe against injustice is worth something, but there's just too much of it.

There's also a touch of homophobia. In this first book, the only character we meet that prefers same-sex encounters is a sexual predator, and the focus of his villainy is that he prefers boys. There's a sadomasochist woman villain that is a “man hater” that is hinted at as a lesbian. Beyond these villains, the world appears completely hetero.

As in many fantasy novels, there are moments when it feels like the author accidentally starts retelling Tolkien stories and then has to shake out of it.

I've read this series at least twice and just re-read the first book, so obviously I have found the fantasy worth having to trudge through the physical and mental torture of most of the characters... but I wouldn't recommend the series to everyone and am not sure I'll read it again.

The lectures on writing and creativity were inspiring, engaging, and thought-provoking. Those were more than worth the price of admission even if some of the other lectures didn't much capture my interest.

I listed to the author-narrated audiobook and suspect that is the best way to experience this book.

The writing in these books is just delicious. Miles is a maddening delight. Bujold has completely convinced me of his reality as a person, and he's a person I crazy love, wrapped in an action adventure that doesn't stop and always has something new to deliver.

Grover Gardner as narrator for the audiobooks adds a lovely playful and sardonic note to Miles' speech. I'm not sure whether I love the audiobooks more, for that delivery, or the printed books, which allow me to stay a while with the especially good passages, to page back again and again and wonder at how the author does this slight of hand to make me believe so hard in her character and his story.

I started this book twice. The first time it never quite swept me up. When I started it the second time, I think I'd become familiar enough with the author's voice and the worldbuilding that it was easier to follow, and more fun.

The treatment of characters stands out as unusual. In sci fi and fantasy, we get accustomed to larger-than-life characters that are burdened with the weight of their own intense morality. This book explores characters that do good and bad, with small to catastrophic repercussions, with the problem of morality belonging more to the culture and the situation than on any individual character. We don't get stuck twisting inside one person's identity crisis, but experience people as an expression of a unique world that has produced them.

As a sci fi reader, I enjoyed this book as an exploration of “what if” a world was so shaped by ongoing catastrophic geological activity that human evolution, culture, and history became dominated by the response to that challenge.

I was glued to it, though the writing did annoy me as everything (hands, smiles, people) is relentlessly described as “male” or “female” (“lazy male smile”? Really? ) when smiles aren't gendered they are “bland” over and over again, and for some reason everyone purrs all the time. Could have stood a better editing pass. But the characters' arcs were more appealing than in the first book and the overall plot and milieu held much more interest for me being more action driven. Romantic ideals improved dramatically. It did successfully hook me but I felt a little embarrassed about it.

There are some over used words in this that annoyed me (bland, purr, male, female) and the characters not very likeable, love story nonsensical and kind of gross, fantasy world too much like the teen vampire franchises. I set it aside to DNF but then gave it another chance... and was glad I did. It picks up later in the book with more action, and now I'm very much enjoying the second book so it was worth getting through this one.

Started as audiobook, finished as ebook, preferred the latter.

In traditional KSR style, this book is full of grand sci-fi visions, experienced through the senses of a variety of characters with starkly contrasting personalities and modes of thinking. The world building is gorgeous and, just as Red Mars did, left me feeling like I had traveled to these remarkable places.

As usual, I enjoyed Vernor Vinge's ideas and vision. However, I didn't care much about the characters until the very end, and the plot got a bit rambling. I skimmed through parts. Still, a fun read, that will probably come to mind in the future as these technologies get more fleshed out IRL.

This book might suffer from comparison when it comes to rating, since many of Vinge's other works have actively blown my mind.