Great pacing, enjoyable characters and a fun story. Miles is one of my new favourite fictional characters! ( )

I wish that there was a book in between this one, when Miles is a young man, and the previous book, which ended with Miles as a 5-6 year-old. ( )

At first I struggled with it. It's a bit jumpy at first. As I texted my friend when I was partway through, "Like he's failing out of school, now there's a party, now he's on Beta Colony, it wasn't clear to me what the book was actually about. But now that he is on his smuggling run with his weird crew it is super fun."

And indeed, groups of weird people who must work together to run a spaceship is basically my favorite genre of science fiction, and this is a particularly well-executed example of it. I like how Miles bluffs his way into a situation, and then is forced to escalate his bluffs again and again, and soon he supposedly runs a massive mercenary organization... and then he does run a massive mercenary organization! I loved his "inspection" of the mercenary ship he captures. Forward momentum! Miles himself is the kind of character I love, of course: logical, honorable, cunning, clueless. Basically Hornblower in space, how could I not like him?

I had some niggles, aside from the opening—a romance subplot didn't convince me too much, the stuff about a certain character felt a bit too icky but not handled sufficiently well—but on the whole this was a highly enjoyable book, one that gave me exactly what I want. As I write this, I have not yet got to my next Vorkosigan book, but I hope to do so soon!

This is an early book in the Vorkosigan Saga. As the story opens, Miles Vorkosigan is taking a physical test for entry into the Imperial Service Academy of Barryar (his father’s colony). He breaks his legs due to brittle bones and must determine a new course. He takes a trip to Beta Colony (his mother’s colony). At first this seems like an insignificant diversion while Miles figures out what to do with is life, but it quickly escalates into a major interstellar situation.

The characters are well developed. In addition to Miles, a charming potential leader, we meet the people surrounding him, including his bodyguard Bothari and Bothari’s daughter, Elena. They meet many people during their journey and encounter numerous challenges.

I feel like I am missing something that appeals to many others. This series has been described to me as a must-read classic. However, it seems to me more like a soap opera with lots of fortuitous coincidences. I found it reasonably entertaining. It should also be said that I am not fond of reading books in a series. I prefer standalones, so perhaps that is part of my disconnect. The other part is probably my preference for more science in my science fiction.
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I love Miles. That's all. ( )