#bookshot

i love them

Another entry in the Vorkosigan Saga, once again, I find myself just enjoying the hell out of these books. I've been chewing through them on Audible and I don't know what it is, but they seem to be like perfect comfort listens. (Currently, my Audible features 'The Name of the WInd' by Patrick Rothfuss which is great so far, but with ninety-four chapters it's a bit time-consuming.) Vorkosigan books though: I race through those on Audible.

Cetaganda is another solid entry in the series and finally introduces the oft-talked about, but never actually seen Cetagandan Empire. Miles and his cousin Ivan have been sent to the Cetagandan Homeworld to represent Barrayar at the funeral of the Dowager Emperess Lisbet, the mother of the current emperor, Fletchir Giaja. Miles being Miles and this being a Vorkosigan Novel, he gets sucked into an internal Cetagandan plot involving the intricate social class structure of the empire.

The Cetagandans have three levels: the Haut (overclass), the ghem (warriors), and the ba, (sexless servants to the haut)-- Miles and Ivan, upon their arrival are bum-rushed by a ba who attempts to storm their spaceship before drops a weapon and an artifact of some kind before fleeing. Miles keeps this to himself and starts a quiet investigation to figure out what, exactly, they may have gotten themselves into.

Things are further complicated when the ba that bum-rushed them turns up dead and they learn that the artifact they dropped is a copy of the priceless Great Key, which contains the Cetagandan genomes of the Haut class that they use to guide the development of Cetagandan society. Miles realizes that an unknown enemy is attempting to frame Barrayar and potentially start a war and finds an ally in Haut Rian Degtiar, the current "Handmaiden of the Star Creche" who is charged with the duties of the Empress until a new one is chosen. Miles then learns of the real plans of the Haut class-- to evolve beyond the merely human.

In short order, Miles solves the mystery and stops a plot to fragment the Empire into eight dangerously expansionist-minded parts and finds the forces behind the conspiracy, and stops them all. For his troubles, he gets awarded the Order of Merit- one of the highest Cetagandan honors by the Emperor himself.

Overall: Another great entry in the series--- it's going to be interesting to see if Bujold keeps these fresh and interesting going forward- though I realize saying that about a novel written in 1996 seems a little strange, this is my first time going through these. But for now, the magic of Miles is still potent. I loved that we got to actually see and explore Cetaganda. I loved the depictions of Cetaganda and how starkly different and alien it seemed compared to anything we had seen before in the series.

Another book review, another Vorkosigan Saga novel, and this time it's "Brothers In Arms."

This follows up the events set forth in 'Borders of Infinity' where Miles infiltrates a Cetagandan prison camp and leads one of the largest mass breakouts in history, drawing the ire of the Cetagandans in the process. On the run and in desperate need to repair damage to their ships and get some breathing room to get their feet under them again, the Dendarii Mercenaries arrive at Earth and Miles makes haste to the Barrayaran Embassy in London to try and get the Dendarii payroll to cover the expenses of their last mission.

His superior, unfortunately, turned out to be Captain Duv Galeni, who is a Komarran whose aunt was one of the victims of the infamous massacre that gave Miles' father the nickname 'The Butcher of Komarr'. Galeni dutifully sends word up the chain to try and secure the payroll for Miles but nothing is forthcoming, so he's forced to juggle two identities: Admiral Miles Naismith and Lt. Miles Vorkosigan while they try and figure out how to cover Dendarii expenses and some repairs in the meantime.

His cousin Ivan is at the Embassy as well and naturally, Ivan and Miles being together again mean that shenanigans follow in their wake. Miles has some growing suspicions about Captain Galeni, but those suspicions are seemingly confirmed when Galeni disappears- but Miles is abducted shortly thereafter and replaced by a clone!

Turns out Galen's father, Ser Galen is alive, well, and still a Komarran fanatic hell-bent on revenge against Barrayar. Miles eventually meets his clone and under the influence of fast penta almost connects with him- pointing out that under Betan law, they'd be brothers and his name would be Mark Pierre Vorkosigan. This almost works-- but initially doesn't- and it's up to Miles' subordinate and occasional lover Eli Quinn to rescue both he and Galeni from near death.

Galen kidnaps Ivan and draws Miles into one final showdown in the bowels of the Thames Barrier. Ivan is soon recovered, a connection is made between Miles and Mark, the latter of which ultimately switches sides and ends up killing Galen and they all evade a shootout between Barrayarans (after the clone) and Cetagandans (after Admiral Naismith) to make it to relative safety.

Miles gives Mark a decent sum of money and then invites him to claim his Barrayaran heritage if he dares and then lets him go.

The Dendarii get their payroll and their next assignment, but not before Commodore Tung announces his retirement to get married and live in Brazil, leaving Miles to run the fleet without his assistance- he also lets slip that he figured out Miles' real identity as well.

Overall: This isn't a miss. But, it's also not my favorite, because the arrival of Mark is just a little too... contrived for my liking. Miles invents a story about a clone to provide himself some cover for being both Admiral Naismith and Lt. Vorkosigan but holy shit, there's actually a clone for real? It stretched believability a bit, to me.

That being said: this works. It's gloriously simple, uncomplicated stuff and it just works really well. Bujold has a gift for making characters just work with little fuss or backstory. Galeni is a welcome addition to the Vorkosigan Pantheon and I'm assuming (since there's a volume called 'Komarr' coming up) that we're going to dig into the Komarr of it all at some point and that I am looking forward to reading.