Science Fiction Book Review Lois McMaster Bujold Komarr

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1998 – Baen Books – Spoiler alerts. A Miles Vorkosigan story set shortly after his move away from masquerading as the admiral of a mercenary space fleet to a more open duty as an official audit-investigator for his people, the Barrayanan Empire. Barrayar conquered a galactic quadrant through its control of wormholes in space enabling contact with a network of planets. Though the original conquest was brutal and Barrayan forces guilty of war crimes, the Barrayanans have become more civilized over later generations but there are many who still can’t forgive their past. On the planet Komarr, which is still undergoing terraforming (being turned into an oxygen and water planet able to support life), a terraforming team space satellite is destroyed in what could be an act of terrorism. Miles is sent to find out the truth. During his investigation he witnesses the death of the husband of Ekaterin, who Miles then finds himself falling in love with. The story is told, unusually not just about Miles but also from Ekaterin’s point of view and while Miles has been the reliable hero of previous stories, he finds that when he goes to rescue Ekaterin from the terrorists (who genuinely see themselves as the good guys), she, and her elderly Aunt, the Professora, (wife to a physics professor assisting Miles in his investigations) have already straightened the whole mess out for him. A lovely story with credible desperate villains, who leave a trail of bodies despite their efforts to launch a bloodless coup and the beginnings of a love story for Miles that will evolve through later books in the Vor saga. An award winning novel in a series that started with Shards Of Honour from 1986 establishing Bujold as one of science fiction’s greatest female authors since Mary Shelley. Arthur Chappell