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Nov. 4th, 2010 07:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafStayed up too late reading Cryoburn.
Not one hundred per cent convinced. Not convinced at all, actually, for two main reasons.
(i) The impact of Aral's death was wasted. Oh, I can see the idea - we get hints throughout the last half of the book that Miles, and even Mark, are worried about him, and the idea that death is an easily solvable problem is undermined right at the end by the characters' shock at discovering Aral is dead, but... no. It didn't work for me. (But then I always found Aral more interesting than Miles, and less irritating, so I suppose it would).
(ii) Does anyone else think that the Barrayans are being awfully casual and calm about cryorevival when their entire political system is based on inheritance? I mean, what happens to that society if people stop dying? This, remember, is the society which about forty years ago in canon-time was having great trouble getting rid of infanticide for birth defects even among the educated classes, never mind what happened in the back woods because stopping mutations had become fundamental to their society. I don't buy it, or not without more exploration of the issue.
The kids were well done, though, which is hard, so points for that. But still: meh. Am disappointed.
Not one hundred per cent convinced. Not convinced at all, actually, for two main reasons.
(i) The impact of Aral's death was wasted. Oh, I can see the idea - we get hints throughout the last half of the book that Miles, and even Mark, are worried about him, and the idea that death is an easily solvable problem is undermined right at the end by the characters' shock at discovering Aral is dead, but... no. It didn't work for me. (But then I always found Aral more interesting than Miles, and less irritating, so I suppose it would).
(ii) Does anyone else think that the Barrayans are being awfully casual and calm about cryorevival when their entire political system is based on inheritance? I mean, what happens to that society if people stop dying? This, remember, is the society which about forty years ago in canon-time was having great trouble getting rid of infanticide for birth defects even among the educated classes, never mind what happened in the back woods because stopping mutations had become fundamental to their society. I don't buy it, or not without more exploration of the issue.
The kids were well done, though, which is hard, so points for that. But still: meh. Am disappointed.