Winter's Orbit

I gave myself a comfort reread of this book to remember again how much I enjoy it. It's still great.

Winter's Orbit is a queer romance / science fiction book. Personally, I think folks who like one genre but don't read the other would enjoy this book, but in practice it seems like the combination seems to make folks bounce from the idea. I wonder if perhaps this is why nobody else seemed intrigued to read this for hashtag SFFBookClub. Also, the romance is largely PG rated, if that's important to you one way or the other.

The plot hook is that reticent and duty-bound Count Jainan has recently lost his husband; in order to politically preserve an interplanetary treaty, he is quickly remarried to easygoing and irresponsible Prince Kiem. When Kiem's friendly overtures are rebuffed, Kiem tries to give Jainan space to mourn and not push him or through his silences; meanwhile, traumatized Jainan (who believes himself at fault for everything) feels pushed away but also that he deserves to be.

One trope that can frustrate me in a lot of romances is where two characters don't communicate and I feel like I need to yell "why won't y'all just talk to each other". Here, it feels less that these two don't talk, so much as they continually try, but end up talking past each other and making bad assumptions about why it's going poorly. This dynamic manages to work for me because the writing makes it believable why both of them think what they're thinking and why they don't push each other for better understandings. (But, I could also see this not working for some readers!)

The afterword mentions that this is a book that came from fanfic, and between how grippy it is to read and its use of some popular tropes, I think it shows (in a positive way). It opens with arranged marriage and there is definitely a scene with only one tent. (I don't know which fandom this is meant to have come from.)

But I also think saying this book comes from a fanfic undersells it. What I love is how solidly it intertwines the developing relationship between Kiem and Jainan with the developing space politics. For plot reasons, these two need to uncover the truth around the details of the death of Jainan's former husband, but this also results in uncovering Jainan's traumas and fears. Being vague for spoiler reasons, but the climax of the book has Jainan wrestle with being gaslit about his past, having to trust Tiem, working through his insecurities, and holding true to the strong parts of himself; and all this directly in the context of solving the space politics plot. It's this moment in particular where this book really melds these two genres together perfectly.

Going by the Goodreads star ratings "it was okay" is appropriate here. I found myself really intrigued as the relationships are introduced explored, conspiracies are uncovered and seeing how this all ties to impacting politics on a galactic wide scale.

I enjoyed the awkward introduction between Jainan and Kiem. They stumbled through their first hours and days not knowing what to say to each other, how to react and each assumed they were at fault in how the other reacted. This was done with humour but also highlighted how challenging an arranged marriage can be.

Is it a romance novel with sci-fi or sci-fi with a romance subplot? I'd say the latter but my patience for Jainan wore thin as the book crossed the 60% mark and brought down my enthusiasm for the rest.

Although Jainan has reasons to be mistrusting, docile and appear meek, which you learn as the story unfolds, but holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, use your words Jainan.

Jainan had never been good at communicating.

Something could have been avoided because Jainan didn't speak up? Yup.

Timmy fell down a well because Jainan didn't warn the kid about the pit? Sure did.

Damages from an abusive and unhealthy relationship leave long lasting impacts that don't immediately resolve themselves? Yeah, that's probably more accurate.

As a debut novel this was an excellent showing. The pacing of the story was appropriate. The plot didn't get bogged down in too many politics without being dry.

Unfortunately my opinion of the book erode as I approached the end. I'm not sure if things went south for me because I took a little longer to finish the last third or if there were problems with the book but I'd definitely read more from Maxwell.

This book is, honestly, extraordinary.

When I started it, I did think more intro was needed. There was a lot of “as you know, Bob” in the first chapter and I just let it wash over me without trying to understand the worldbuilding going on in the dialogue. And I continued reading.

Very soon, I decided that the book must have been originally a fanfiction that got the serial numbers filed off – it was familiar, and the sudden start almost presumed you already knew the characters. Imagine my delight when I realized that it is indeed original fiction, but the very first drafts were posted to a fannish forum I frequented at the time, where I’m fairly sure I read and commented on a few of them! Obviously, this only predisposed me further to it.

What’s extraordinary to me is the fact that in 2021 we can actually have a novel centering on a tropey m/m romance with an HEA published by a mainstream publisher and marketed as sf/f. It’s not segregated into some minor imprint for queer romance, it’s not put into the YA zone. It’s adult sf/f. Even though the romance is strong, we are acknowledging the plot and not pretending that because it explores emotional situations normally left to unvalued fanfiction, it’s “trashy”.

But don’t get me wrong – I don’t just value the book for its symbolic value. It’s a fantastic read. I found myself wishing I didn’t have to go to work so I could read more in the mornings, regretfully putting in a bookmark and going to bed on time at night to save chapters for the next day.

The plot: Prince Kiem is informed by the Emperor that he will be marrying Count Jainan for a political treaty. Kiem is initially very concerned for Jainan’s feelings, as Jainan’s partner (also a political marriage) died just a month ago. Jainan is also very concerned about how he’s imposing on Kiem, what a nuisance he must be, etc. (No prizes for figuring out who spent the last five years emotionally abusing him.) Gradually, as the two handle their diplomatic duties and work to investigate Jainan’s partner’s death, they fall in love, though they deny their feelings until they’re put in danger and have to act on them.

The progress of Kiem and Jainan’s relationship is deeply compelling. While hurt/comfort isn’t restricted to fanfiction (we can see it in published fiction from A Little Princess to Outlander) and the marriage-of-convenience-but-we’re-falling-in-love is a staple historical romance plot, Maxwell delves into the emotions of the situation in a way that people outside of fandom just … don’t. It’s unseemly to do this outside of the romance genre, and in romance there is much more emphasis placed on the physical and erotic aspect of the relationship. (More on this in a minute.) It’s so refreshing to read the delicate dance of these two characters in a published work of fiction. Both are worried about forcing intimacy on the other, but their attempts to stand back and diminish their wants and needs read as dislike to each other; the misunderstanding is fed from their mutual kindness and concern. This makes sense, and is much better than the stereotypical “I hate him, he’s so annoying! But my treacherous body is so attracted to him!” romance plot.

So, what I was saying about romance above. Historical romance, as a genre, is overwhelmingly heterosexual and dominated by formula. (Which is fine! If you like it, you like it, and I used to like it very much.) I read a post on Tumblr a little while ago that helped me understand something I love about all the m/m and f/f fanfiction and non-professionally-published fiction I read: heterosexual romance often feels like the author is referring to a checklist of secondary sexual characteristics that the characters are required to admire, but queer romance, because it does not have such a culturally-defined script, tends to acknowledge the individualism and reality of attraction. Think of the discourse going around about female characters depicted for the male gaze in League of Legends vs. for the female/queer gaze in Arcane. In heterosexual historical romance novels – and I know I keep going back to historical romance but the kind of dramatic, formal situation in Winter’s Orbit is something you don’t tend to see outside of that subgenre – you are very much aware of the main characters’ femininity and masculinity in the way that their attractiveness is described; the hero is always noted for his masculinity and even if the heroine is imperfectly feminine by societal standards, the hero will notice her femininity, sometimes pointing it out to her. By contrast, in Winter’s Orbit there is very little physicality. We have no idea what Kiem and Jainan look like beyond a few basics about their overall sizes and their hair, and while they have sex and recognize each others’ attractiveness, the focus is on how they act toward and for each other, as well as ungendered aspects of their persons. This extends to the entire book: gender is performed through social rituals (wearing a particular material, tying a scarf a certain way, etc.) and outside of these rituals, people do not gender each other. There is no tie between “biological sex” (to use the TERF term) and gender, to such an extent that secondary sexual characteristics are never mentioned. There is no indication that they relate at all to anyone’s self-determined gender or gender presentation. This feels very deliberate to me, especially when you consider that the two protagonists are only indicated with silhouettes on the cover, and it’s fantastic – both for the act of imagining a world where gender is understood in this way, and for what it does to the romance.

The one place this gender neutrality breaks down to me is that all titles that can be gendered use the masculine version (e.g. Prince). This isn’t bad, per se, but it’s not actually neutral. It might have been a better choice to either make up gender-neutral versions (Prins? Empero?) or to make use of the traditional feminine titles as other ranks.

I might be easy to manipulate. But I am very difficult to break.

I was a bit appherensive when I picked up this book. On one hand, it sounded like very much my cup of tea: I love arranged marriage romances with a lot of politics. On the other hand, I kept seeing it mentioned alongside Bonds of Brass, a book that also look great, then gave me a lot of strong and pretty negative feelings. So I was fully prepared to get disappointed again.
Fortunately, I didn't have to. This book isn't without its flaws; I really feel that all the worldbuilding and politicking could have been handled better, because it's such an integral part of the story and there is so much cool stuff here, but the way all of it was laid out was somewhat confusing and uneven. The first 1/4 book or so felt a bit like reading a fanfic for a canon I'm not familiar with, but without a fanwiki or a fannish friend to help me fill in the blanks. Once I got a better understanding of how the society and the politics and everything else here functioned, though, my enjoyment upped considerably.

The main thing I loved about the book was the romance and the characters involved in it. Like I said, I'm a sucker for arranged marriage romance, and this one had it all: the slow burn, the misunderstandings, having to work together for a common goal, the "WHY CAN'T THEY JUST TALK IN WORDS?.. Oh, right, this is why, really valid reasons here, BUT PLEASE, PLEASE just talk already," the awesome moments when they do finally talk. And there was that awesome part late in the book with the memories. You probably know which part is if you've read this. It hurt, and then it ended with making me smile with hope, and then shit got real, and then they got their happy ending, and— I'm very articulate, I know. I just really loved that part of the journey.

I also really loved Kiem, basically from the first moment I saw him on the page. Seriously, all it took was that first scene with him and the Emperor, and I knew that no matter how the book turned out, I would keep reading till the end just to root for him. Weirdly, Jainan took time to grow on more; I say "weirdly," because he is the type of character I normally fall for. Seriously, give me a character running on pure duty and hiding his cracks and his strengths alike behind a perfect facade of politeness, and then try to pry them out of my cold dead hand. Something about Jainan made it a slow burn on my part, too, though. However, by mid-book, I was all over him.

All in all, this was an enjoyable, quick read, and I wouldn't mind visiting this universe again. 

Starting off Pride Month with a less than stunning book, I guess… this book had an alluring cover and my library had a copy, so I was curious—that and the fact it was published by Tor Books, a mainstream publisher, gave me pause. Surely, this must be worthy of its mainstream status. The blurb was not that interesting but it did hint that there might be fascinating political elements or perhaps some suspense. I like my science fiction to have compelling world-building or at least some decent science as well as interesting characters, but this book failed on both of those counts.

The book unceremoniously inserts the reader into the world, throwing different planetary names and alliances at you before you really understand what is going on. This isn’t that unusual of a tactic so I took it in stride, but the author never managed to truly establish appropriate context for the different types of alliances or why one should care about certain groups (e.g. the Empire or the Resolution) in the book until very late in the novel, and even then not in great detail. The setup of the alliances and planets was also a rather dull reiteration of colonial structures, but in space… which is not particularly innovative.

I was also annoyed with the author’s treatment of gender in the book—gender is entirely about gender presentation, without reference to an internal sense of gender or physical gender at all. It felt extremely stereotypical, like an ally’s understanding of how trans people feel… as if a mere haircut or clothing choice would be sufficient to designate gender. Even in an ideal fantasy world where acceptance and understanding of presentation is the norm, gender is way more complex than that. This, along with the random insertion of non-binary characters and the narrative stopping to note certain signs of gender on-page, made the whole thing seem performatively woke.

I am not really into romance as it is, but the romance subplot really takes over most of the novel so that it felt like ‘romance with a side of sci-fi’ rather than the other way around. Most of the sci-fi elements revolve around the progression of the romance, and there is a sprinkle of science thrown in, but ultimately it is not as coherent or meaningful as it could have been to the overarching plot. The pacing was also way off for most of the book. Finally, the resolution of the plot relies on extremely predictable plot lines and rather convenient dei ex machina to tie everything in a neat bow. Hirondelle put it well: “But it is really really long and full of old fashioned romance tropes like big misunderstandings and too stupid to live characters with lots of big misunderstandings and the sf background is just decoration.”

The characters were also extremely dull—they felt kind of like cardboard cutouts. I was particularly annoyed with Jainan’s character because he has some repetitive tendencies that made his narrative voice extremely grating. Spoilers: From the beginning, he’s like a puppy that’s been kicked and is terrified of even his own shadow. It was relatively easy to anticipate the abuse backstory, which made Jainan’s constant self-doubting and learned helplessness superfluous. As a person I am sympathetic to his struggles, but as a reader I could not care about the character. He seemed more like a wounded teen girl than an adult man who is nearly 30. This, combined with the literally overnight development of the romance, was so cliché I could groan. Kiem also had issues where he seemed rather immature for his age, but I think that’s intentional, so it’s less of a problem. The two main characters suffered from a serious case of assuming-instead-of-conversing for the majority of the book, which I would not expect two adults who have been steeped their entire lives in political and diplomatic nonsense to engage in. Leigh's review goes into this aspect a lot more clearly than I could.

I believe this started as an online story through Archive of Our Own, and it makes sense—the book’s style seems very reminiscent of fanfiction. Usually you are working with established worlds and established characters, so there is never a need to develop personalities or backgrounds for the worlds you use in the story; both author and reader already know all of the details when they read fanfiction, presumably. However, this is an original story, and as such it sorely needed all of these elements to feel like a full-fleshed novel rather than… whatever this is. Pretty cover aside, this was ultimately a disappointing read.