Queen of Coincidence

[jducoeur]

So I'm about halfway through The Vor Game, and I'm quite enjoying it -- it's a fascinating wander through Bujold's world, and does a lot to clarify who is who on the local galactic scene. And it nicely follows up The Warrior's Apprentice in some very sensible and realistic ways. (I had figured that leaving Oser in a position of responsibility with the Dendarii was a bad idea.)

But.

The degree of coincidence here has just reached the preposterous point. Let's get this straight. Miles just happens to run into Gregor in jail on Jackson's Whole (a planet that neither had any intent of visiting), they both happen to fall into the clutches of the woman who sent Miles to jail for completely unrelated reasons (what reason did she have to believe that the person being smuggled out of the Oser fleet was the guy she was trying to capture?), and there he finds General Whatisface, who just happens to have joined this particular mercenary fleet after Miles destroyed his career?

I enjoy Bujold's writing a lot, so I'll suspend my disbelief and let things unfold. But unless this all turns out to be some grand and subtle plot of Simon Illyan's, I'm going to be disappointed that she had to resort to quite this level of synchronicity...

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

You are not alone in your complaints. From a willing-suspension-of-disbelief level, this plot is one of her weakest. There are a few more coincidences coming, though none quite so bad as in the first half of the book.

One thing I really liked about this book was how Oser does (at least at first) show a unique-in-the-canon grasp of how to cope with Miles as an enemy: throw him out the nearest airlock without letting him talk :-) Miles is one of the characters who has the (codified-by-me) GURPS ability "silvertongue" (also noted in such luminaries as milady deWinter and Saruman). I figure it at being worth about 100 points (more-or-less co-equal with Immortality, IIRC). Miles is certainly a high-point character, but even so, his player has abusively min-maxed the creation process :-)

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I must agree with both of you. However, I like the book immensely, so I don't get all hung up over extreme coincidences. She doesn't do it again in other books.

As for silvertongue, it's a good descriptor. Have you ever heard a big chunk of pure silver ring? I saw one at a jewelry store, it was salvage from some shipwreck, about half the size of a copier paper box; originally stacked ingots but it had fused. They struck it with a mallet. It was a gorgeous sound.

Anyway, to protect myself against silvertounges in real life, many of them politicians, I don't listen/watch when they make speeches, I read them later.

Later reading, and Miles

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Duncan and I heard this first on a book on tape (The Armchair Reader, WONDERFUL voices). We did kind of look at one another afterward and wonder about the synchronicity, but like Cynthia, since we loved it so much (you learn so much about the characters!) we ignored that part.

I, too, laughed a lot at how to deal with Miles -- don't let him talk.

Cynthia, I,too read speeches afterward. They make so much more sense (or, alternately, make so little...)

Re: Later reading, and Miles

[jducoeur]

Duncan and I heard this first on a book on tape (The Armchair Reader, WONDERFUL voices).

Which is, in fact, how I'm "reading" this one. It's a loaner from Kes, alexx_kay's wife, and is helping suck me into the series despite my avowed Lack Of Free Time...

[siderea]

Thirded.

Allow me to recommend moving The Borders of Infinity nearer the top of your to-read list.

A

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

He read Borders of Infinity in between The Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game. (So far, I'm encouraging him to stick to chronological order in Miles' life -- which meant "The Mountains of Mourning" before Vor Game.)

[siderea]

Ah, very good. :)

ˇ

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Although it's interesting sometimes to note the ways in which the publication/composition order differs from internal chronology. The Vor Game was written after Brothers in Arms and (at least) "The Borders of Infinity" novella. But Lois had never explained *how* Miles had ended up back with the Dendarii. It's possible that the... dubious plot structure of TVG comes out of it being required to end with that plot point reolving in a specific way, as opposed to evolving organically, according to the dictates of the (individual) story's whims.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Oh, now that's a thought. Like twisting the end of a sidewalk to make it meet the part that was laid 30 years ago ;-)