Audio book re-listen. Narratyed by Grover Gardner
I shouldn't have... I really shouldn't have. For a start I didn't have time and there's the fact that I've already read it and there are so many other books waiting for my attention... But I went along to Audible and...well it was there. Even so I could have just downloaded it and kept it for later... but I listened to the first sentence and I was hooked.
Yes, I've read this before but it remains one of my favourite Miles Vorkosigan books and a perfect introduction to the maddening, hyperactive, totally brilliant little runt. Miles is 17, trying to get into the Barrayaran military academy on his own merits, which means competing against, or training with, the perfect physical specimens who are ideal for the Barrayaran war machine. Miles, barely four feet six inches tall, crook-backed and brittle boned due to a Soltoxin gas attack on his mother while she was pregnant with him, doesn't stand a chance of passing the physical, but he's petitioned for his test results to be aggregated, so if he can score close to 100% on the written, he's in. All he's got to do is get round the obstacle course without breaking anything.
He falls at the first hurdle, literally, and washes out with two broken legs.
So his parents send him off-world to visit his Betan grandmother with the faithful (if psychopathic) Sgt Bothari and Bothari's daughter, Elena, in attendance.
You've just got to love Miles. Things HAPPEN to him... or happen because of him. Or both. Firstly he picks up a couple of strays, Baz, a Barrayaran deserter on the skids, and Arde Mayhew a jump ship pilot who is desperately trying to preserve the last working jump ship that his implant will fly. Miles picks up the same said jump ship... on an impulse to help Mayhew keep flying. Once he's got a ship, a pilot and an engineer (Baz) he needs a cargo, because of course he's now also got a debt, which he's secured against some land that he owns back on Barrayar. Unfortunately, the land is radioactive and likely to be so for the next few hundred years at least, so Miles' creditors are not going to be very pleased when they find out.
With me so far?
The only cargo available is a load of agricultural implements (OK, they're weapons really) destined for the losing side in an interstellar turf-war. In order to deliver then he needs to get to the other side of a blockade run by a bunch of mercenaries.
It's all going do well... and then Elena is threatened and the whole plan starts to swirl down the toilet. But Miles is in overdrive. One thing leads to another and a small untruth turns into a bigger lie and then the whole thing escalates into a huge bloody fantasy. Miles, using his mother's surname, Naismith, finds himdelf an admiral in charge of a mercenary fleet, flying the whole operation by the seat of his pants, manipulating people cleverly to cover the gaps in his knowledge and searching for a way out that will allow him to retain some semblence of personal honour while not letting down his crew.
This book is a wild ride, at times laugh out loud funny and at other times heartbreaking. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read any Vorkosigan books. It's a superb introduction to one of Bujold's best characters.
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jacey
