Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (Vorkosigan Saga)
Lois McMaster Bujold, 2012

BRAND NEW BOOK! WOO!

Premise: Ivan Vorpatril’s settled into his life. He likes his job, he’s found a certain peace with most of his relations, his old girlfriends are all married, and he’s okay with that too. That is, until assignment on Komarr brings him into contact with one sly ImpSec informer, one angry blue-skinned dancer, and one lovely woman in danger. It’s Ivan to the rescue, although he has no idea how far his gallant impulses will bring them all!

Yay! A new Vorkosigan Saga book! (This is either book 16, 15, or 14, depending on how you count them.) I loved this; it was completely adorable. Getting to spend an entire book with Ivan is downright restful in some ways, and you can really get into his subtle strengths as a character. Tej is delightful as well, although in the middle of the book I sometimes had moments where it was harder to relate to her. That’s just the kind of person she is, though, because of where she grew up.

Byerly Vorrutyer is back as a major player, and where By shows up, trouble can’t be far behind. Lady Alys Vorpatril, Simon Illyan, Duv Galeni and Emperor Gregor all get moments to shine in the supporting cast, as well as Admiral Desplains,  Ivan’s boss at Ops. Count Falco Vorpatril even pops in with a memorable cameo.

As a late entry in the series, there are plenty of little callbacks to earlier adventures, but with maybe one or two exceptions, that never holds anything back, just adds a fun layer. It’s certainly better to have read the books up to this point, or at least the books Ivan is in, but I could see someone picking this up blind and enjoying it. It’s adventure-romantic science-fiction! What’s not to love?

I more or less knew where this story was headed from early on, but was definitely surprised by the route it took to get there. As usual, the pace was gripping, the characters compelling, the humor laugh-out-loud-in-public funny.

Not much more to say really. I’ll have to read it again before I know whether it’ll become an all-time favorite, but it’s a solid entry in an outstanding series, so:

5 Stars - An Awesome Book