Vorblogging - "Cryoburn"
I can't believe I'm really finished.
It's very hard to write intelligently about this book as a whole, because anything I might have said or thought about the story of Jin and Roic and the curious culture of Kibou-daini was completely blown away by the last four pages.
Beautiful and terrible and so, so, moving, from the moment Miles hears the words that he has been dreading for so many years -- in which book was that greeting foreshadowed? I know it was, but I can't remember when -- to Gregor's farewell, which would have almost certainly left me in tears had I not been reading on Muni. The choice to show the aftermath of Aral's death in a series of drabbles was a brilliant one: snapshots of a family in grief, each shown reacting in his or her own way, neither too little nor too much, all perfectly crafted but especially Gregor's (and when, oh when, are we going to get a story from Gregor's point of view?). But it's odd, too, to have ended the book this way. It's an appropriate closing, I suppose, to a book so steeped in aging and death. Nor would I accuse the ending of coming out of nowhere; many clues are seeded through the text, most notably the conversation between Mark and Miles regarding whether they can talk their father into trying the Durona anti-aging treatment. But it's such a shift in tone, in a way that almost changes the whole meaning of the story, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
And so ends the Vorblogging project, at least until another book comes out. A very satisfying series of reads, and I thank![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justira and seventhe for encouraging me to pick these books up and write about my impressions as I went. Memory, I think, remains my favorite, but I enjoyed them all. I might do a wrap-up post later, once I've had some time to process my thoughts. And then decide what to read next.
It's very hard to write intelligently about this book as a whole, because anything I might have said or thought about the story of Jin and Roic and the curious culture of Kibou-daini was completely blown away by the last four pages.
Beautiful and terrible and so, so, moving, from the moment Miles hears the words that he has been dreading for so many years -- in which book was that greeting foreshadowed? I know it was, but I can't remember when -- to Gregor's farewell, which would have almost certainly left me in tears had I not been reading on Muni. The choice to show the aftermath of Aral's death in a series of drabbles was a brilliant one: snapshots of a family in grief, each shown reacting in his or her own way, neither too little nor too much, all perfectly crafted but especially Gregor's (and when, oh when, are we going to get a story from Gregor's point of view?). But it's odd, too, to have ended the book this way. It's an appropriate closing, I suppose, to a book so steeped in aging and death. Nor would I accuse the ending of coming out of nowhere; many clues are seeded through the text, most notably the conversation between Mark and Miles regarding whether they can talk their father into trying the Durona anti-aging treatment. But it's such a shift in tone, in a way that almost changes the whole meaning of the story, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
And so ends the Vorblogging project, at least until another book comes out. A very satisfying series of reads, and I thank
justira and seventhe for encouraging me to pick these books up and write about my impressions as I went. Memory, I think, remains my favorite, but I enjoyed them all. I might do a wrap-up post later, once I've had some time to process my thoughts. And then decide what to read next.