mtvessel | A Queerer Bujold

Jun 2021
Winter's Orbit - Everina Maxwell – Orbit, 2021
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I do not engage with social media very much. I appreciate the opportunities it offers for communicating with others, but the fact that everything on which you express an opinion by clicking, commenting or liking is ruthlessly categorised (appropriately or not) and fed to the Panoptic Algorithm makes it something of a devil's bargain. Yes, the cost of providing such a service needs to be covered somehow, but a small, honest subscription, similar to the one typically paid for TV streaming services or mobile phone access, would be better than the duplicitous "agreement" buried in a mass of legalese to which you indicate consent when you sign up. Thanks to my avoidance behaviour, the Algorithm's recommended books for me are generally pretty terrible - it still hasn't figured out that I like variety in the genres and authors I read rather than more of the same - but just occasionally it serves up something good. Like this.

That is, if you can stomach the precept for the plot, which is an arranged marriage to stabilise a planetary treaty. Playboy prince Kiam is summoned by the formidable Emperor of Iskat, ruler of a loose federated empire of seven worlds, and told that he is to marry Count Jainan, the widower of his recently deceased cousin Taam and the representative of Thea, the newest and smallest vassal planet, the very next day. The reason for the unseemly haste is that the Resolution, an alien organisation that runs the intergalactic link network, is in town to renew its treaty with Iskat, which is underpinned by the treaties with its vassal planets, which are in turn underpinned by marriages between their representatives and the royal family. If the Resolution decides that the situation between Iskat and its vassal states is too unstable, it may declare its treaty with Iskat null and void and cut it off from the rest of the galaxy.

Got all that? Fortunately this rather convoluted setup is data-dumped in the first conversation, much like the dense opening chapters in Jane Austen's novels, leaving the rest of the novel to focus on the characters of Kiam and Jainan, who both turn out to be immensely likeable. They are chalk and cheese - Kiam is affable, good with people, and media-savvy, while Jainan is honour-bound, ascetic and intellectual with a keen interest in engineering - but of course, in the time-honoured tradition of romances, opposites attract. Eventually. Maxwell does a really good job of explaining the thoughts and feelings of the two protagonists in relation to their situation, making the misunderstandings that lead to their refusal to get together even though each secretly finds the other totally hot, believable.

There are some good secondary characters that even out the sex ratio a bit, and gender diversity is well represented. One particularly nice little feature in the worldbuilding is the cultural convention that a person represents their gender (if they choose to have one) by wearing a piece of either flint or wood as a decoration, making awkward declarations of preferred pronouns unnecessary. The SF setting is competent, but so similar to Bujold's Vorkosigan series that I suspect it may have started life as fan fiction. That said, the existence of modern features like mobile communications devices and media advisors does make it feel a little more cohesive than Barrayar's bizarre mix of high and low technologies. And while Bujold herself is better than many in the representation of queer people and their relationships, Maxwell takes it to a new level.

The plot beats are absolutely those of a typical romance, so I can't say that this book will blow you away with its originality. But you know what? I'm going to give it five stars, simply because of all the books I've read in the past few months, it's the one that I have most looked forward to picking up each evening. When the Algorithm recommends Maxwell's next book to me, as it inevitably will, there's a good chance that I will get it.