I remember the star trek and science fiction conventions I attended with Lois McMaster (now Lois McMaster Bujold) in 1973-1975. She was (and is) a fantastic writer and detail-oriented science and engineering enthusiast. Her fan fiction at that time was awesome. It was wonderful reading her first few professional works ("Falling Free," serialized in Analog magazine) and the Miles Vorkosigan books. I remember discussing them with my oldest children as they read them at the appropriate age (under 16). And it was more fun reading her new books as they came out because "I knew Louis when..." Now we're all grown up and so are her characters and the themes in her books.
This one has too little "awe and wonder" mysterious background C story science fiction for my personal (space opera) taste. It is a grown up book handling grown up topics that (I think) were better handled by the oblique hints in the earlier works as Miles, his mother, and other characters from Beta Colony discussed them. It does fill in a bunch of sordid story elements from the earlier books and I loved the mystery of the (very-brief mention!) of the power of the Cetagandans.
But it's still LMB writing and romping in her universe so it's still fantastic and a must-read for any fan.
4/5 Stars.
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