This book introduces one of Lois McMaster Bujold's best characters namely Miles Vorkosigan.

I won't repeat the basic synopsis that you can find all over the net, but I will point out that this novel (and Author of course!) is perhaps one of my all time favourites and I've re-read the series at least 3 times by now while waiting for the author to add even more books to the series!

Character development is superb (especially if you follow the series) and Bujold has pure mastery in that she creates characters that you can't help but to enjoy /fall in love with /laugh at /cringe for /fear with etc.

It has humour, insanity, strategy, 'forward momentum', interesting plot developments and a background story/universe that was well thought out and keeps getting richer as you read the rest of the series.

Go pick up a copy at your book dealer or do the eBook thing and get ready to be entertained! ( )

Starting this book, I was basically expecting something light with charming characters. Unfortunately, the charm was just too unconvincing for me here. It's a 'how a less-skilled-in-the-areas-he-wants guy learns his true strengths and how to appreciate them' variety of story, in this case with a handicapped guy who can't be a soldier turning out to be a good leader and strategist.

It's an endearing formula, but the novel never really does much to show you how or why the main character is the supposedly amazing leader and strategist he is. What makes him inspire all this devotion people are tripping over themselves to give him? All we ever really see is that he's fairly nice and intelligent, but that really doesn't cut it. He goes through lots of huge that-should-not-have-worked undertakings and manages to get out because of pure random luck (only not so random, of course, because the author makes it happen that way and it happens ever time), and people pat him on the back like it was because of his excellent smarts. It gets difficult to really care about a character that never actually has to work or act intelligently in order to get things to work out for him.

The story here also sports the common Slightly Feminist Leanings While Still Managing To Privilege Male Characters Over Women Syndrome™. It's got it's token strong female character (extra points for her being an amazing fighter but still sweet and virginal!) whom the main character likes to go on short inner diatribes about since she has such amazing talents but will never get to take advantage of her abilities because of how women are excluded in certain ways in their society. In the end, though, she's effectively just there to be the (quite bland in comparison to the other characters) love interest, who doesn't even get much description of her actions in fight scenes compared to the males, despite supposedly being one of the most skilled among them.

The novel is swift and readable, and while on vacation I got within less than 100 pages of the end just because I didn't want to start reading anything else right before my trip ended. As soon as I was home, though, I quit before finishing without a second thought. There just really wasn't any point. I only read it for a little light enjoyment, but when a book is this empty and unconvincing, there's really not much enjoyment for me to get out of it, anyway. ( )

Lightweight novel about a rich kid (from an aristocratic military family, actually, in a fictitious planet) who is a brilliant strategist but whose body is plagued by genetic defects, so he is neve seen as suitable for a promising military career. The novel follows him as he, following his thirst for adventure combined with his desire to impress a girl, gets in progressively more complex trouble, in the end discovering through this a conspiracy against him and his family, and of course beautifully solving everything in the end. Nothing ever actually goes really wrong for him in the novel, which makes it quite light, and actually enjoyable. ( )

I've read this book at least three times over the years, but I'd forgotten just how fabulous it was. Reading it for the 4th (ish) time while ill this week, I found myself laughing aloud in pure delight.

Miles is cursed with a hyperactive, intelligent mind in a body that forever lets him down. Brittle bones break all too easily, and in a culture that values physical strength and perfection, that's a big problem.

His resentment at being unable to do the things he really wants to do leads him to help another desperate man, and suddenly he's in a situation where one thing piles on top of another and he's juggling eggs in an evermore complex pattern.

Here's where his upbringing comes in handy. Miles has always wanted the military life, he's inherited his father's gift for tactics, but this military life is a trap of a kind that he fails to spot until it is almost too late.

Bujold's characters are wonderful - each of her books usually works as a stand-alone (this one included), but it's great to have extra glimpses of characters whom we've met in the past or will see more of in the future. Her female characters are intelligent and capable of challenging the cultures that surround them.

The book is also funny. Mile's thoughts about his idiot cousin Ivan, his efforts at playing matchmaker, and many other scenes besides.

In a nutshell, the book is wonderful space opera, with great characters. Read it! ( )

Possibly a little too space opera for me, since I simply do not have the kind of brain which can easily follow written descriptions of battles—land, sea, air or space—no matter how clearly they are described for me. I also thought that some of the dialogue, particularly that at the beginning, was rather poorly observed. Still, I did quite like this introduction to clever, vulnerable Miles, who goes on holiday to get over the disappointment of not getting into the military academy and... accidentally starts his own mercenary army. As one does. The Warrior's Apprentice does improve as it progresses, and the ending unfolded neatly (though not tidily), and had some nice character moments. I will continue with the series for the next couple of books, at least. ( )

I seem to always end up re-reading these books around the turn of the year, and when I came to this one again, I blitzed through it as usual. If you asked me any other time, I wouldn't say it's one of my favorites in the series, as it takes Miles completely out of his Barrayaran milieu for 90% of the book and away from all the other characters I like best.

What I always forget, until I've actually opened it again, is that Miles doesn't need his supporting cast to make him compelling; as soon as the story really gets going, the reader is picked up and carried along by Miles' "forward momentum" and dragged helplessly and happily in his wake, just like everybody else within in few light-years radius of him, right to the breathless and perfect conclusion.

I still haven't figured out who the scantily-clad maiden and the dashing rogue on the cover of my edition are supposed to be, though. The only maiden in this book would never dream of being scantily-clad in public, and all the rogues are too concerned with not dying in combat to worry about being dashing. ( )

This is the book that introduced us to the inimitable Miles Vorkosigan. It is vintage Bujold, offering a deft combination of humor, action, and suspense with moments of touching insight into what makes us all tick. Add to this a smart yet vulnerable protagonist with an admirable capability to learn from his mistakes and an author who doesn't flinch from tackling hard truths and you have one of the greatest scifi series ever. The plot admittedly hangs on a couple of coincidences that strain credulity, but this is one of those cases where the payoff is sufficiently great that you should have no problem suspending disbelief. ( )

Discharged from the Barrarayan academy after flunking the physical, a discouraged Miles Vorkosigan takes possession of a jumpship and accidently becomes the leader of a mercenary force that expands to a fleet of treasonous proportions.

I'm a big Bujold fan, after a friend introduced me to the series - the same friend that recently had me avidly reading Kage Baker so while she's hard on my bank account I guess I'd better stay friends with her. This is the first of Bujold's Vorkosigan books and introduces Miles and his unstoppable "forward momentum". I've read it several times before this, and when I saw that Audible.com was releasing the series as unabridged audios I immediately renewed my membership and started budgeting.

It was interesting to listen instead of read, especially since listening to a book does take me a long time, so it gives me a whole different kind of pacing. Thanks to my CFS-ravaged memory, while I remembered the basics of the book, most of the details had slipped away from me, so I went into this unable to remember how Miles got the Dendarii fleet out of trouble (although I could basically remember how he got himself out of trouble on Barrayar at the very end). It made me increasingly nervous as the forward momentum just kept on rolling and rolling and I had no idea how Miles was going to stop it. (A different friend did offer to remind me, but I chose to keep going blind and be surprised all over again.) With a book, if I get too nervous I'm a bad girl and I skip forward to the end to check everything will be okay (I can't take the stress), but I wasn't able to do that with an audiobook, so I just had to trust the author and wait, a difficult proposition for an end-peeker like me. (I try not to end-peek, really I do. I don't like being spoiled, but for the reasons given above, sometimes I just have to check - all for the sake of my blood-pressure of course.)

This book contains a couple of my favourite lines of all time, and it was a delight to hear them spoken aloud instead of just reading them on a page. One at least, is surely worth repeating, as it shows Bujold's great ability to toss in comic lines without ever making the pacing of the book or the story itself comic.

Yet here he sat, a man with an imaginary battle fleet negotiating for its services with a man with an imaginary budget. Well, the price was certainly right.

Miles is a wonderful character. Poisoned by an assasination attempt on his father while still in the womb, his growth has been stunted and his bones are brittle and shatter easily. Despite that, he has a brilliant mind, a stubborn ability to give up and a strong need to prove himself equal to anyone else. When all that is put together, you have an underpinning character who weaves all manner of stories around himself.

But Bujold doesn't limit herself to Miles; all her characters are a delight. Tortured and tormented Sargent Bothari, Elena who finds herself able to find herself only by leaving home, that-idiot-Ivan, who while acting supremely idiotish in this volume, I still believe will prove himself one day.

This is a great start to a great series, and I'm going to enjoy slowly (okay, probably very slowly) listening my way through the Vorkosigan stories again. If you haven't discovered Miles yet, either read the book or listen to the audio, but don't deny yourself the pleasure. ( )

Disabled kid masters military and manipulation.

Miles Vorkosigan is a teenager afflicted with fragile bones and other physical problems because he mother was poisoned when he wasn't born yet.

Living on a gung-ho must look pretty for the part military world is a problem given he is a noble type.

A combination of military sf of the more Ender's Game or Phule's company variety than kill 'em all space marines, and period romance, which gets rather tedious at times when that part is overdone.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/06... ( )

Great characters and good solutions to problems. Still a little lite. ( )

The first Miles Vorkosigan book. Washed out of the military before he even started, Miles on impulse buys an old freighter by mortgaging his grandfather's radioactive land. Trying to make the payments, he accidently captures a warship. Than another one. Then a whole fleet. Oops.

A great start to a phenomenal series. ( )

The first Miles book of the Vorkosigan Saga. Miles's portrayal, and Bujold's writing, is passionate, nakedly honest, insightful, and always intelligent. Unrestrainedly recommended.