Book: Memory

[liv]

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Details: (c) 1996 Lois McMaster Bujold; Pub Baen Books 2001; ISBN 0-671-87845-X

Verdict: Memory is heartbreaking and very satisfying.

Reasons for reading it: It's in the adored Miles Vorkosigan series, need I say more? Besides, when I reviewed Mirror dance, everybody kept telling me how wonderful it is.

How it came into my hands: My wonderful Beau lent it to me just in time before I exploded of anticipation.

The first hundred pages of Memory absolutely broke my heart, and in so many ways. I have just reread The color of light which is mindblowingly good, but I think Memory actually comes close. The brief scene between Miles and Elena is fantastically poignant. And the whole slow, unbearable progression where all Miles' flaws come together to create a chain reaction of disaster. He suddenly stops getting away with incredibly stupid plans through his amazing good luck and ability to salvage the most disastrous situations. His habits of always trying to pull one over his superiors, and of stringing along all kinds of characters who are in love with him, suddenly come back and bite him with full force.

After that opening which was wonderful and at the same time completely unbearable to read, the story settles more into the typical Miles frame, where the situation is world-threateningly dire and he comes up with some off the wall yet brilliant scheme to sort things out. But the set-up makes that adventure part far sharper, it's no longer a cosy swashbuckling romp, I really believed that Miles might not succeed this time. And his utter despair seems real, in sharp contrast to all the usual Miles emo wallowing. The horror of what happens to Illyan is also portrayed extremely well.

In some ways the latter part of the book feels a little too glib, as if Bujold drew back from the full horror of what she'd set up and took the easy route of a happy ending. But that's only by contrast with the opening and middle sections, it's still very good. I am very close to deciding against reading any more in this series, because MD felt like a satisfying ending to everything that has come before. All the strings, all the characters, are tied off somehow, some lives end tragically and others with glory, but pretty much every single one of the major characters (except Mark) has an emotionally satisfying outcome. It's particularly amazing to see Miles as an integrated adult, achieving something even greater than what he thought he wanted. Since there are couple more books still to go, I probably will succumb to temptation and read them because they're likely to be enjoyable, but I almost wish MD was the last in the series, because I fear that anything after that triumphant ending is going to look like self-fanfic.

I really can't say whether this or Mirror Dance is the stronger book. I think I'd probably take Memory to the proverbial desert island, if I had to choose, just because it picks up so many echoes from the rest of the series and has such a great payoff. I think my favourite is still the short story collection Borders of Infinity, but only by a hair.

Comments

[llennhoff]

I understand from the body of the reivew you are talking about Memory, but the title says Mirror Dance.

The best one sentence review of Memory I ever heard was "Memory is a book about elephants."

[rysmiel]

Memory is kind of the point where the series changes direction, and I think what it does after that in Komarr and Civil Campaign is interesting and different; I like what it does but it's enough not the direction I was actually hoping for for me to still be a little bit wistful for what I was hoping for, which was that Miles' attitude to his superiors would end up pushing him into a smoewhat different intolerable situation, one where the only way he had to save the Empire involvd disobeying a direct order from Gregor and where while he did save the day he did so at the scost of becoming perceived as every Barrayaran cliche of the mutant villain; I think Memory is the point where that becomes impossible. The later books are still very much worth reading; in some ways Memory is the first movement of an adult-Miles trilogy.

(I would also have really liked to see a book that stood relative to Cetaganda where Mirror Dance does relative to Brothers in Arms, but that does not seem possible either.)

I am also just a little bit less than satisfied with the Imperial Auditor position as solution ex machina.

[jack]

Hm. Having thought about it, I now see what some people object to in the Auditor thing. Miles is less torn between impossible loyalties than he might be, if you can just assume the government Works Despite it All rather than expecting horrible (realistic) trade-offs in everyone's loyalties.

But I really like what Komarr and Civil Campaign do do: they're definitely not just tacked on, they represent the challenges a more mature Miles faces. (Though I love it a lot, the last book, Diplomatic Immunity, does feel more so tacked on, although I'd still definitely want to read it.)

[siderea]

For the record, Miles isn't the protagonist of the next book (Komarr). He's a very major character, but we see him from the outside, following someone who falls within his orbit.

It's not a great book, but enjoyable enough.

I adored A Civil Campaign. Despite having no tolerance for romances, Regency or otherwise. Thing is, you have to read Komarr before ACC. Despite in some ways being "light", I find myself quoting ACC more than any other Vorkosigan book.