Meta on Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit

I’ve been conflicted about posting this because I’m aware it’s harsh, and it violates the Buddhist instinct I’m trying to cultivate to not use my words negatively. I guess you could say I’m having a battle between my internal Vash and my internal Knives, where my internal Vash says, “Leave the poor woman alone. She’s put a lot of work into writing a book reflecting good social values,” and my internal Knives says, “But there are injustices here that need to be exposed.” And I’m compromising by locking this post, which feels like a lose/lose: still negative and not circulating real points I’d like to put out into the world. Ah well.

Everina Maxwell’s far-future, m/m romantic science fiction novel, Winter’s Orbit, is, I think, trying to “give the people what they want.” It seems to have succeeded in that it has been well received, but I wanted to like it more than I did. (This is my typical response to 95% of recent SF, as I’ve mentioned before, so put much of this down to taste.) Some aspects of this book I really do like. Early on, I thought I might even become a fan. For reference, I don’t think I’ve really fanned over a new (to me) book since 2017, so that’s a high compliment. But I think as a work cultural fiction it fails, and the characters and romance ultimately suffer as a result. Massive spoilers lie ahead and warnings for discussion of abuse( Read more... )