Enjoyable but slight: I've enjoyed some of Bujold's other books, and this one had some good moments, but by comparison to "Brothers in Arms" and "A Civil Campaign" it felt rather slight, with more emphasis on the military/space opera side of things than I would like. A below-average Miles Vorkosigan book is still a Miles Vorkosigan book, though, so I can hardly complain too much about it. If you're bent on reading the series in order, or you're a big fan, I would recommend it, but I wouldn't recommend it to a casual Bujold fan.

The Fourth book of the Vorkosigan Saga. Don't start here.

Miles graduates from the Academy and gets his first assignment, which doesn't go so well. So he gets another assignment, which also doesn't go so well. He has to think fast to save Emperor Gregor and prevent a major military invasion. It's a good thing he functions well under pressure.

Another fun sci-fi adventure from Lois McMaster Bujold. ( )

'The Vor Game' is enjoyable, though nowhere as good as the brilliant 'Warrior's Apprentice'. The first part of the story, where Miles is sent to a remote northern outpost of the Barrayar military, feels very detached from the rest of the book - almost a separate story.

The level of coincidence also runs just a little too high overall.

However, if you're a fan of Blake's 7, there's a big bonus in the arrival of Servalan (under a different name, obviously, but you'll recognise her personality very quickly) and she gives Miles a run for his money. ( )

A little bit of a re-tread of The Warrior's Apprentice, this instalment allows Bujold to expand her viewpoint outwards from Barrayar to show the wider worlds within which Miles operates. There are a couple of pacing issues, and there are times when I wished that Bujold was a little more subtle with the characterisation points she was making, but this was still a fun, if rather light, space opera romp. ( )

The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Vorkosigan, Book 4; SF; audiobook; reread; 9/10
I love Bujold and I love this series. I started listening to the audiobook of The Vor Game and loved it all over again. Then I hit a stage where I couldn't concentrate on much of anything (a theme you've probably already seen in these comments) and started listening to shorter podcasts instead of the book. It had been languishing for a while when I added it to my books to finish list for the Wind-Up Book Chronicle challenge. That encouraged me to go back to it and I thoroughly enjoyed finishing it up. It was geat to go along on another crazy adventure with Miles and I like the look we get at Gregor in this book, where he becomes much more of a person to the reader and not just a cut-out emperor. I'm now tempted to move on to Cetaganda but I'm going to listen to a couple of other things first. I can't recommend Bujold's work highly enough and encourage anyone who hasn't discovered Miles Vorkosigan to give his first book, The Warrior's Apprentice, a try. ( )