Something Witty This Way Comes

Okay I see what you all were talking about when you said wait till you get to Mirror Dance. Omg.

Lord Mark Vorkosigan. What an icon. Mark who was built as a weapon while in captivity and becomes a tool on his very own initiative only needs four to seven people to care about him as a human before he remakes his entire self and becomes a goddamn hero. Mark figures out how to do Internal Family Systems therapy on himself while being tortured horribly for five days. Hobbies include personal finance, scheming, and responding "round is a shape" when Aral and Miles say to get in shape. By the end he's setting up to the the Mycroft to Miles' Sherlock.

Mark suffers so much abuse and makes So Many Bad Decisions with So Many Consequences and only to end up literally writhing on the floor in the Unprecedented Agony of Being Perceived and Loved. (This is the part that broke me… I saw it coming and was like: Oh noooo, this part is gonna break me. And then it did, and it was perfect.)

Also, the entire, pervasive, complete and total Cordelia-ness of this novel whether or not she's in the room or even on the planet. She gives Mark the assignment of figuring out how to be Mark and there we goooo. And even after Miles has died and gone amnesiac, there's Cordelia's voice: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR BABY BROTHER?? This is the thing that gets the memory cascade going! It's Cordelia. And she's got Elena too: "But mostly because someday Countess Vorkosigan will ask me what I did for her son... Mark... she'll mean you." It's Cordelia All The Way Down and I am HERE for it.

I am also really... happy for Cordelia that Mark is here. Because Mark has Cordelia's number in a way that I'm not sure either Aral or Miles does, as deeply as they do know her and adore her. Until Mark, maybe Gregor is the only other person who can even begin to read her the way she reads everybody else (and Mark clocks that too!) and Gregor is way too busy being emperor to give Cordelia the runaround she deserves.

Just finished Brothers in Arms and AHHHHHHH IT'S SO GOOD. An incomplete (due to So Many Things) and disordered (due to excited flailing) list of things I love about this book:

-- that LMB is the kind of writer who uses words like wight and swive in a sci-fi novel

-- that Himbo Cousin Ivan is the hostage! Himbo Cousin Ivan makes an excellent damsel tied to the railroad tracks. so good.

-- Duv Galeni coping with grief through nigh-superhuman violence (I wanna see him again asap)

-- the fact that one of Miles' most far-fetched lies yet turns out to be an actual far-fetched plot that is occurring

-- the fact that said far-fetched lie throws otherwise perceptive people off the scent of the actual plot (Miles losing at winning again, womp womp)

-- Miles and Mark reading one another for filth over and over again from grand plans to the minutest gestures and both being salty about it for different reasons

-- the part where Miles manically recites all of Richard III to thwart truth drugs (choice of play is on the nose annnd I love it sooo much... also it's a minor miracle that this is Miles' first go with fast penta)

-- Miles' continued preference for tall stronk women (well done, short king.)

-- Elli Quinn's "Gods, I've fallen in love with a man who thinks he's an onion."

-- Elli Quinn's summary refusal of Miles' proposal of marriage

-- Elli Quinn's enthusiastic consent immediately thereafter to be Miles' Bodyguard with Benefits

-- Elli Quinn's saving evvverybody's asses and possibly averting millions of deaths by being extremely competent at what was supposed to be a mundane task, that Miles forgot he even told her to do

-- Elli Quinn's whole deal tbh

-- the fact that even though Cordelia is physically worlds away she is present in this book in a Deep Spiritual Sense: "My mother's theology actually... persons before principles."

-- "Yeah, invisible, like air. If it disappeared you'd hardly miss it. Till the next time you came to inhale." (!!!!!!!!!)

-- "He yields to logic. My mother is one of the few people I know who has almost completely conquered the will to be stupid."

-- "MILES, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR BABY BROTHER??" (I neeeeeeed to see Cordelia and Mark meet! aaaaghghgh)

1. nothing