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FMK #11: Hugo and Nebula Winners
I still have not read Castle in the Air because there was a library book emergency where something I had checked out before I started FMK hit its renewal limit finally, so I had to read that instead. Hopefully this week you will get a combined response to both of them.
I figured it was time to do one where most of you probably had at least heard of them, so this week is Hugo and Nebula winners!
How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.
I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.
Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (Hugo, 1960)
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (Hugo, 1961)
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (Hugo, 1969)
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer (Hugo, 1972)
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (Nebula, 1972; Hugo, 1973)
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (Nebula, 1974; Hugo, 1975)
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (Nebula, 1975; Hugo, 1976)
Gateway by Frederik Pohl (Nebula, 1977; Hugo, 1978)
Downbelow Station by C. J. cherryh (Hugo, 1982)
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (Nebula, 1988)
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Nebula, 1992; Hugo, 1993)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Nebula, 2003; Hugo, 2003)
Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer (Hugo, 2003)
Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge (Hugo, 2007)
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (Nebula, 2007; Hugo, 2008)
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Then there's Gregor Vorbarra, who has been the Emperor since he was *four years old* over three planets, where his word is law, who has no real friends (Miles calls Gregor's friends "cronies", which I will never get over; Miles, your *enemies* have cronies, your friends have friends or allies), who is basically learning manipulation constantly, and gets a few short, sharp lessons in trust. Gregor Vorbarra, who is totally willing at age 22-something (time passage in WA is endlessly confusing to me) to sentence his foster brother to death because he feels he has to, because all evidence shows that his foster brother betrayed him. Who then runs away from home a few years later, and *gets dragged back* and told that it's up to him to Emperor because no one else wants it. So he takes this, and we see so little of him, but basically, from what we see, he Steps Up.
Gregor is frequently used as Emperor ex machina by the series, but Gregor is not The Good Guy in any sense. One of the things I love about VK is that the protags are the bad guys in any other media, which is great, because I love bad guy characters, they're so interesting and fun to play with. But, like, over the course of the series, I like Miles *less and less*, I feel he has something of a negative character growth. Which is valid and realistic, considering he goes from "let's abolish the Counts" when he's feeling like all his privileges are just there to crush him, and then is all totes fine with it later once he has tons of power. I like him early on, but there are parts later on in the series, after he's had his Come To Privilege stuff, where I want to slap him really hard.
And I'm not, like, expecting Magical Good Guys to come through and wave a Magical Good Guy Wand and make the bad guys go to jail or magically reform the systems... but I would like the series to acknowledge that Miles in ACC? Hella corrupt with what he does with the Escobarans. And it's just never touched. Miles is drunk on power and *corrupt* and... and... idk, I don't have words, but I feel like when you're writing someone like that, you should at least know that. And I don't get the impression that Miles Is Not Morally Pure Or Doing Things For The Right Reasons is getting through.
Miles has that great moment in Memory where he wrestles with god and man and realizes he's being bribed, so does this amazing turn and goes "okay, this dude trying to bribe me, SOMETHING IS OFF HERE". But then totally-- like, that moment in CVA where it doesn't seem like ANYONE REALIZES THE HOARD IS STOLEN WAR LOOT AND HAS RIGHTFUL OWNERS. Or that moment where no one reacts to Vashnoi at the dinner party. Or even that tiny throwaway moment in ACC where Ivan doesn't react to someone saying a woman alone can't raise a son. And I haven't gotten more than a couple pages into Gentleman Jole, so I don't even know what's in there, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess more of the same.
I don't know, I don't think I have a thesis here, but I have no problems whatsoever reading and writing Evil Mirrorverses, I've been doing it since the day I started writing evil Luke and Leia AUs in my head lo these many years ago from basically the day after I finished reading the ROTJ novelization, I just feel like you should be aware that you're doing it? The narrative itself does not need to come down like word of god and go "Lex Luthor stole 40 cakes AND THAT'S TERRIBLE" or have some kind of moral message, but... there's a difference between writing Methos as a reformed mass murderer, and *forgetting* he's a mass murderer.
Am I making any sense? Basically I like earlier VK; some dude is like "go to war, let a bunch of people die so I can murder my son" and then the other dude does that but then at the end of the book goes "yeah, so I realize now, you're not gonna fool me with that twice". :P
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I think my main problem is that most of the main characters in Barrayar do see the problems with the system but the solution they all choose is "well, we'd better prop up the corrupt system, because the people currently running it are all competent and well-meaning". Rather than, idk, actively working toward a transition in governance or something. I have so many problems with this narrative (part of my problem is that it is so satisfying as a story that it becomes insidious) and it's so pervasive in fantasy/sf. And in fantasy/SF, you can make sure the people up top are always competent and well-meaning, which does not work in RL.
Gentleman Jole is actually not as bad on that front because it's about people who have decided they can now nope out of propping up the corrupt system, but it doesn't actually make that a huge theme or anything.
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but the solution they all choose is "well, we'd better prop up the corrupt system, because the people currently running it are all competent and well-meaning"
Plus, they're also the ones running it.
And in fantasy/SF, you can make sure the people up top are always competent and well-meaning, which does not work in RL.
And, like, like, like! This is a series that STARTED OFF with Aral nearly getting fragged by his own men, and mutiny, and MAJOR WAR TO KILL SOMEONE AND A POLITICAL PARTY and and and and... just, like, Ezar Vorbarra = competant, not well-meaning. Serg Vobarra = neither of those. :P And it STARTS with that and and and and then Miles nearly gets sentenced to death because corruption and and and *tries to grab air and turn it into complaints about the narrative developments of a long-running science fiction series*
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I mean, the main moral choice in Barrayar was when Aral agreed to be Regent and Cordelia agreed to be consort and they accepted that decision meant all their political principles and personal feelings had to come second to giving Gregor a stable throne, and that made sense both on a character level and as a moral choice, but once Gregor *was* on a stable throne, they were supposed to be using the influence they'd had on him and all the groundwork they'd laid to go back to being the radicals they always were. And that seems to have all been forgotten in favor of WEDDINGS and GRANDBABIES. Which, don't get me wrong, WEDDING and GRANDBABIES are fine in their place, but I also wanted "I am old enough now to get away with publicly being the Republican I have always been privately" and that never seems to happen - I had hoped that at least they were quietly setting up Sergyar as a mostly-self-governing republic, but the new book is really aggressively uninterested in the governmental structure of Sergyar.
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There's probably something to be written -- and probably has been written -- about the tragedy of Aral and Cordelia being just that. What with the trope of "someone who isn't a liberal as a youth has no soul, someone who isn't a conservative as an old person has no brain", and, hell, I'd even cite Harvey and Sheila by Alan Shermann because I'm in that kind of mood: where you're a radical as a kid but then you grow up to become the establishment. And in Aral and Cordelia's case, that's literally true, they are literally the establishment. Aral got thrown into a war at age eleven by being a survivor of a massacre, ends that war at age thirteen and nearly guts a grown man and is clapped on the shoulder for it, then goes through some kind of schooling or whatever, then gets married, then his wife dies (I really really need to know who did it, and also what her name wasssssss), and then he has a reckless youth and then he gets back on the straight and narrow and then he GODDAMN CONQUERS ANOTHER PLANET and then he strangles someone and then he gets thrown into political exile and and and, this is basically the origin story of a dude who comes back and goes "fuck this shit, fuck all this shit, burn it down". But he takes responsibility for Gregor and then... well, it's interesting to contrast Aral's acceptance of Mark with Piotr's total unacceptance of Miles, so it's not like Aral becomes his dad in any way, but he does settle down into his role and not do anything about it. He's happy to give up the Regency, but then becomes Prime Minister. He was gonna give up being PM, but then Quintillan died, so he didn't. His "retirement" was getting shoved off to running a different planet. Aral at 25 meeting Aral at 65... it's a tragedy and it's a common tragedy and I'm sure literary stuff has a word for it, it's been forever since I studied that stuff.
I have a much less stronger grip on Cordelia's characterization, I find her "voice" pretty hard to grab onto, which is why it's hard for me to write from her POV (I keep trying and keep failing), so IDK her political views on stuff and how it all grows and expands over time, so I don't know if she ever wanted to change Barrayar or just study it in situ, but Aral damn sure wants to either tear it all down or drink himself to death trying...
There's a tragedy that links Aral and Gregor, in that they both had this dream of getting away, and then they Become The Establishment, primarily because they think they have to, because they don't think there's another choice.
And for a series with a main character who specializes in Creating Other Options (the thing with Mark suddenly being "what did you do with your little brother" is genius), that's a little disappointing. But also very real and very true. There's a tragedy underneath the surface.
...dammit, now I want to write time travel!Aral where he shows up, immediately post-Komarr from his side, right into Miles's treason trial. IDK what would happen next, but I bet it would involve swords. :P