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. ( )

The Vor Game is an entertaining - if rather light - space opera, from veteran SF author Lois McMaster Bujold.

A relatively early installment of her long-running Vorkosigan Saga (both in terms of publication and in terms of internal chronology), this book sees newly graduated ensign Miles Vorkosigan being sent to fill the post of chief meteorology officer on a remote artic base. His superiors express the hope that the experience will teach him to follow orders and treat his superior officers with the appropriate level of respect. Miles being Miles, of course, events soon lead to him being sent back to the capital under charge of high treason ...

Meanwhile, tension is growing in the Hegan Hub. With several intergalatic powers showing an increasing interest in the region, mercenary forces are gathering, among them the Dendarii Mercenaries, the company that Miles founded during the events of The Warrior's Apprentice. And the young Emperor of Barrayar has vanished from his rooms while on a diplomatic mission to Barrayan-run Komarr.

Given the extent to which the events of this book rely on the previous The Warrior's Apprentice, it doesn't seem the place to start for anybody new to the series. Nor, to be honest, is it the strongest of books in the Saga (while I've only read half a dozen or so myself, I'd say that Barrayar and Memory are stronger works, and the former in particular makes a much better entry point into the series). In particular, the origins of the first few chapters in a previously self-contained novella are not all that well disguised, with the focus of the novel expanding suddenly and rather disconcertingly. I'll admit to being slightly surprised when I realised that this book had in fact won the Hugo (in 1991); though on (not much) reflection I'd guess that this is indicative of not so much a change in the quality of the Hugo Award winners in the last few years as it is of a change in the Awards' scope.

But anybody who enjoyed The Warrior's Apprentice (as I did) can expect much the same from this instalment, and with the promise of better things to come, I doubt this will be the last Vorkosigan book I read.