a civil campaign by lois mcmaster bujold

There is political machinations, romantic intrigue (of a sort), Miles being Miles, and Ivan shines and proves he is not nearly as incompetent as his much more competent relatives see him as.Īs an aside, poor Ivan.

Re-reading this, I fell in love with it again. It says something about Lois's ability to hook a reader that despite the obviousness that there was stuff that happened before, I was fully invested in the characters now. It has the distinction of being the first Vorkosigan book I've ever read, despite it being 12th in the series. Even if I don't re-read others in the series, I will pick up this one. (Sept.) FYI: Bujold has won four Hugos and two Nebulas for books and stories in the Miles Vorkosigan series.This is a book I find myself re-reading every few years. Bujold successfully mixes quirky humor with just enough action, a dab of feminist social commentary and her usual superb character development in a sprightly SF romance that her many fans will find enormously satisfying. Through all these often hilarious and occasionally dangerous incidents, Miles strives heroically to keep his eye on the prize-the winning of Ekaterin's hand in marriage. And then there's the dirty infighting going on in the Council of Counts over who should inherit two vacant districts, plus an attempt to frame Miles for murder. Worse, Mark has set up his laboratory in Vorkosigan House, the bugs have gotten loose and Miles's parents, Lord Aral and Lady Cordelia, are due home any second. Second, Miles's disaster-prone clone brother, Mark, has concocted a scheme to make a fortune marketing ''butter bugs,'' unattractive, cockroachlike creatures that secrete a bland tofulike food product. First, Emperor Gregor is getting married, and Miles, like everyone else in the government, is caught up in the complex social and diplomatic whirl surrounding the impending nuptials. Their courtship is made even more difficult by a series of interrelated events. Unfortunately, Ekaterin is the recent widow of a crooked government official whose death Miles holds himself partially responsible for.

Miles, forced by ill heath to give up his military career and having embarked on a second career as an Imperial Auditor (a kind of peripatetic judge and ambassador), is madly in love with the beautiful and brilliant Ekaterin Vorsoisson. Bujold dedicates her new novel to the Bront s, Georgette Heyer and Dorothy Sayers, which gives a pretty good indication of the territory she's staked out in this well-done addition (after Komarr) to her popular Miles Vorkosigan series.

A civil campaign by lois mcmaster bujold