The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Heaps of fun after the first 80 pages of Miles playing Whiny McEmo. Honestly, Miles, you're a kind person, bright as a button and smart as a whip, a charismatic and inspirational leader with a powerful and relatively wealthy family who love you. Your readily compensated disability, in this context, fails to make me super-sad for you. Boo-hoo, your bones are brittle. You have learned not to jump off high walls, right? Because no little boys have broken bones jumping of high walls in the history of boys (and, it must be said, Anne Shirley, in the history of girls). Your lack of fabulous height and manly good looks likewise fails to inspire pity. Yes, tragic that you come from Planet Eugenics but hey, could be worse, you could have been killed as an infant. (See previous note re FAMILY LOVES YOU.)

Thank goodness he seems to get over it, because the rest of it is a bit of a romp. I'm sure I've read and enjoyed another book in this series. ( )

I flat-out love Miles. Even given my prejudice toward teenaged boys, Miles is special. He's a clueless clown who manages to save the day at the last possible second... over and over again. This book is a meditation about honor and truth and mission and yet it's hilariously funny and kind of a space opera too. I'm happy to be at the beginning of this series. ( )

The Vorkosigan books are, as I’ve documented quite well on this blog, my major literary find of the moment. The folks over on Sounis kept talking about them so I finally read the first one and fell in love instantly. While I definitely have favorites among the books, the whole series is marvellous and I’m creeping up on the Cryoburn waitlist. ANYWAY! Young Miles is the first book where we really see Miles as a character in his own right, which means it has an important place in the series and in my heart. Because Aral is great in the first two books, but MILES! Miles is awesome. [2010 in books] ( )

This is, in my opinion, what military SF should be, not the fetishy, father-issues-fueled CRACK that some people write *ahem*[author:DAVID FEINTUCH]*ahem*.
But hey, I'm a girl, what do I know. ( )

*sigh* I really wanted to like this book, but...



(That disappointed baby is effing adorable though, so I guess this review won't be ALL bad.)

Well, it wouldn't be ALL bad anyway. I wanted to like this so much. I liked the idea of this book much more than I liked the actuality of it, actually. I feel like I've been disappointed with almost everything I've read lately, and I was really hoping for this to just wow me, for it to make me want to put everything else on hold and read the series and just fall into this universe. I really liked the world-building, and the concept of biomech-enhanced jump pilots was really cool. I liked the idea of an accidental mercenary kid who's ballsy and smart. This story had a lot of potential, but just fell short for me on too many levels. I just felt like it was repetitive and unrealistic and... vanilla.

OK, so the main character, Miles, has a handicap. That's a plus for me because I like realistic characters who have to legitimately struggle to make it. But then he doesn't. At all. He's rich, his family is practically universally known and respected, he's bi-cultural, he has a lethal bodyguard who is more than willing and more than capable of protecting Miles from any and all danger, be it small armies or stubbed toes, unless ordered otherwise, and pretty much every success just falls in his lap. He stands on the shoulders of those around him, getting by on their ability and sometimes just blind luck, when his position as Vor isn't handy, and shit just falls into line.

It's just... boring. Boring to read about someone who only has to say "I'll think of something!" and then he does. Over and over... all these little episodic crises that never really felt serious or thrilling at all, because two paragraphs later Magic Miles has somehow won the fight, saved the day or whatever else was needed for victory. And did it all with this Mt. Everest-esque moral high ground. (And speaking of the action scenes, ugh, they were just terrible. I felt like I never really knew WHAT was going on, but a bunch of stuff was happening, and then bam, it's all over. Tally up another one for Miles.)

I wanted to know more about Bothari, but I feel like he was given really short shrift, both in character, and in how his situation was handled. I was so curious about him, and I really wanted to know who he was and what his history was and what he wanted and hoped for, etc... Maybe this is addressed in later (or earlier) books, but, well... the whole thing just felt like a cop out. An accusation and then that's it?



I just wanted more. More substance. More struggle, more realism. More. I wanted to really like this, and it sucks that I didn't, because a friend recommended it to me, and I respect her opinions. Oh well. Can't win 'em all. =",,,,,,0,,,,,
3227063,The Way of Shadows (Night Angel ( )