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I like the fat little creep.
So in the last ten or eleven days, I've been rereading the Vorkosigan books at a headlong pace: Shards of Honor, Barrayar, The Warrior's Apprentice, The Vor Game, Cetaganda, Borders of Infinity, Brothers in Arms each in a span of about 36 hours, tops. Brothers in Arms lasted a little longer than the rest, because of course I already knew what was coming next.
As I may have mentioned, I became a Bujold fan at the age of 12, when I snuck down to Dave's room and stole the copy of The Vor Game he'd forbidden me to borrow. (He was at school! He wasn't going to miss it! I put it back when I was done!) I turned 12 in October of 1993, and I think this happened in the late winter or spring of 1994. Naturally, I sped through her other books in whatever order I could lay hands on them, mostly via the local public library and used bookstore.
Mirror Dance was released in March 1994. I don't know when exactly I bought it--I may have been 13 by then--but I bought it in hardcover, at a small independent bookstore that had it readily in stock, so it must have been before the paperback was released a year later. My copy is from the first printing. It was probably the first book I bought in hardcover, with my own money, from my paper route (which I'd inherited, like so many other things, from Dave).
I was precocious and all, but I was also no more than three years older than the clone kids in the book the first time I read it.
For ten years afterward, when I reread Mirror Dance, I started no earlier than Chapter 11. I couldn't bear to reread the first third of the book again, and I am still having trouble psyching myself up to it. It's not what happens to Miles; it's not even what happens to Maree. It's that I have to brace to watch my very favorite character so comprehensively eviscerate himself--even knowing he makes a full recovery, later on--that just kills me. It's easier by an unimaginable margin to read what Ryoval does to Mark, than it is to read what Mark does to himself with all good intentions.
(Miles' version at least rushes by a little faster, in Memory--and, well, he's Miles. Of course he'll survive it somehow. But Mark...!)
(I think I neglected to mention, in my litany of Vorkosigan-influenced life things: my first car was named The Fat Little Creep--and in its honor I still crank up "Creep" anytime it comes on while I'm driving, in any car since, having gotten in the habit that first year--and my second computer was named Mark Pierre, and both were named for being somehow Mark-like. Er, in good ways. Neutral-to-good.)
So, in short: OH MARK. D:
As I may have mentioned, I became a Bujold fan at the age of 12, when I snuck down to Dave's room and stole the copy of The Vor Game he'd forbidden me to borrow. (He was at school! He wasn't going to miss it! I put it back when I was done!) I turned 12 in October of 1993, and I think this happened in the late winter or spring of 1994. Naturally, I sped through her other books in whatever order I could lay hands on them, mostly via the local public library and used bookstore.
Mirror Dance was released in March 1994. I don't know when exactly I bought it--I may have been 13 by then--but I bought it in hardcover, at a small independent bookstore that had it readily in stock, so it must have been before the paperback was released a year later. My copy is from the first printing. It was probably the first book I bought in hardcover, with my own money, from my paper route (which I'd inherited, like so many other things, from Dave).
I was precocious and all, but I was also no more than three years older than the clone kids in the book the first time I read it.
For ten years afterward, when I reread Mirror Dance, I started no earlier than Chapter 11. I couldn't bear to reread the first third of the book again, and I am still having trouble psyching myself up to it. It's not what happens to Miles; it's not even what happens to Maree. It's that I have to brace to watch my very favorite character so comprehensively eviscerate himself--even knowing he makes a full recovery, later on--that just kills me. It's easier by an unimaginable margin to read what Ryoval does to Mark, than it is to read what Mark does to himself with all good intentions.
(Miles' version at least rushes by a little faster, in Memory--and, well, he's Miles. Of course he'll survive it somehow. But Mark...!)
(I think I neglected to mention, in my litany of Vorkosigan-influenced life things: my first car was named The Fat Little Creep--and in its honor I still crank up "Creep" anytime it comes on while I'm driving, in any car since, having gotten in the habit that first year--and my second computer was named Mark Pierre, and both were named for being somehow Mark-like. Er, in good ways. Neutral-to-good.)
So, in short: OH MARK. D:
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(I love hearing this bit of your history!)
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And, yay! I love sharing this kind of fannish history.