Another Hit For Miles: After the superlative "Mirror dance", "Memory" was almost bound to light up a little, but happily, it didn't :)

Miles has returned to active duty, working as Admiral Naismith, the ImpSec identity - but his crio-revival wasn't so succesful as formerly believed, and he bungles a mission... Illyan finds out about it - and about the lies in the report Miles presented - and gives our Lord Vorkosigan the boot. Unemployed, depressed - almost suicidal -, and going 30, Miles has to turn to other horizons for his hyper-active personality.
The only thing is, there is no need for his special talents, and the salvation, when it comes, is actually a huge problem: Illyan's eidetic chip has been sabotaged and Miles' former chief is about to lose his mind or die... So Gregor gives Miles the prop he needs - the Imperial Auditor rank - to solve the problem, and he does solve it, Miles-like: quick, neat, completely.

The story is action-packed, the characters well-developed, the rhythm flows...

A superb writing, another extraordinary Vorkosigan adventure!!
Highly recommended.

Link to a review on my personal website. ( )

Magnificent as usual. I haven't read Memory in quite a while, and as usual remembered the plot without remembering all the little things that make it so good. Some of Ivan and Miles' exchanges, for instance; the fishing scene; the Koudelka sisters, foreshadowing A Civil Campaign; Cordelia arriving home; Miles' reaction(s) to his home when it isn't full of his parents...lots of lovely bits. In many ways, this book tells the most about Vor society - in Miles recovering himself within Vor, in the Komarran (Duv and Laisa) and non-Vor (Illyan, Allegre, Haroche...) reactions to things - a lot of the assumptions underlying the Vor come out very strongly and clearly here.
There's a song that tells the story of this book - I actually heard the song before I ever read it. It's called Two Falls Out of Three, by Cat Faber of Echo's Children. It's a total spoiler - tells the villain's name, what he offered Miles, even the inspiration that Miles uses to catch him - and it didn't spoil the book for me at all. Of course it helps that the guy's name isn't spelled like it sounds at all, so I didn't recognize it when I read it. But still. Mirrors and smoke. ( )

This book is incredible. I read it in Miles-chronological order, so I'd been following him and adoring him for some time when I read it and--wow.

Just...wow. Miles outgrowing the admiral? Moving on and finding something to which he is so ideally suited? I want to write a book this good. (preferably more than one, but...) ( )

This is, for me, the most painful Miles adventure, marking the series' turning point from space opera adventure to character pieces. Miles' series of appalingly bad choices here are thoroughly cringe inducing (though thoroughly in character). Of course, being Miles, he still comes out on top and saves the Empire for Truth, Justice, and the Barrayaran way.

The mystery plot is excellent and well developed, and would carry the novel even without the character development. ( )