The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga, #2) in Beyond Reality

May 26, 2013 mark monday rated it liked it

Shelves: scifi-60s-70s-80s, x-vorkosigan-saga

so i was engaging in a favorite pastime on friday night, namely verbal one-upmanship slash sadistically using the power of my oh so mighty intellect to tease my poor innocent friends, when the very drunk birthday boy said "You know you are going to get smacked if you keep on talking like that." i couldn't help myself: i reached up and gave him a very light & friendly tap on the cheek with the palm of my hand while dropping another dazzling bon mot. sadly, in the middle of my witticism, birthday so i was engaging in a favorite pastime on friday night, namely verbal one-upmanship slash sadistically using the power of my oh so mighty intellect to tease my poor innocent friends, when the very drunk birthday boy said "You know you are going to get smacked if you keep on talking like that." i couldn't help myself: i reached up and gave him a very light & friendly tap on the cheek with the palm of my hand while dropping another dazzling bon mot. sadly, in the middle of my witticism, birthday boy enacted a decidedly non-verbal response and proceeded to smack the shit out of me. later, as i walked drunkenly home, ear still ringing from the horrific attack, it occurred to me that this would never happen to one of my recent heroes, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan of the the space opera lite The Warrior's Apprentice.

ah, Miles. what a great creation he is! clever and sharp-tongued, vaguely ambitious, shorter than most, the opposite of a physical threat, kind and even-tempered, clear-eyed in his self-assessments, a little bit self-sacrificing but not in an eye-rolling way, queasy at the thought of causing others harm, full of both self-doubt and ego, always the girl's trusted best friend rather than the object of her passion, the wittiest man in the room and he knows it but he is going to try to keep that to himself so that you don't get upset and take it out on him in surprise smack-attacks. and he talks and he talks and he talks. i love Miles. his character is usually the supporting character, the hero's best friend, the brother who dies, an amusing cameo. it's a great thing for me to know that there is a whole series practically devoted to this lil' guy. he's endearing i suppose, but i personally don't see him as "endearing" because i don't see him as a cute character type. he feels very real to me. part of that may be due to reading all about his parents in the prior books - i know where Miles comes from, i understand the context, i get how his background informs his present. part of that may be due to how much i empathize with him and his various personal travails.

the novel itself is about Miles leaving his home planet of warlike Barrayar and inadvertedly creating a mercenary army. oops! for me the plot is really secondary to just sitting back and enjoying Miles. the writing is fine, nothing special but certainly nothing problematic either. Bujold veers towards the bland. style is not the selling point in her skill set - readers come to her for the surprisingly grounded and rich characterization. and so The Warrior's Apprentice may have space battles, mercenaries, revolutionaries, mechanized war-suits, etc, but that's almost besides the point. Miles is the point.

Miles - and Bothari. the latter character - a former brainwashed rapist and sadistic torturer who now acts as Miles' bodyguard - is the other big selling point of the novel. Bujold does not downplay his past or excuse it - although in some ways it can be excused (i would say that brainwashing excuses many things) - nor does she overplay his redemption. she gets the character right, she doesn't leave out the ugly or disturbing parts, and yet she still allows the character grace and dignity within his tragic arc. Bujold definitely knows how to write characters that the reader can feel. i felt Bothari, i felt Miles, i felt Elena and Ivan and i am looking forward to feeling the rest of the characters that will be introduced to me in this saga. ...more

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Jul 23, 2015 Oni rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, space-opera

For anyone who wants to read Vorkosigan Saga, I would recommend this book as the first read. It is the introduction proper to our main character, Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of the saga. The first book in the series, Shards of Honour, is merely the background story of our hero, which make it more like a prequel than the first novel.

It begins with our hero, Miles, in the middle of recruitment test for the Barrayar military academy. Being born with congenital disability, he is really having For anyone who wants to read Vorkosigan Saga, I would recommend this book as the first read. It is the introduction proper to our main character, Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of the saga. The first book in the series, Shards of Honour, is merely the background story of our hero, which make it more like a prequel than the first novel.

It begins with our hero, Miles, in the middle of recruitment test for the Barrayar military academy. Being born with congenital disability, he is really having a tough time for all the physical test, which he happily supplemented by his genius aptitude test. But accident cannot be avoided, and he failed to pass the test. As the result, he was sent to his mother's system to visit his grandma, more or less a vacation. Being a loose gun, he cannot let an opportunity gets away. And therefore he embarked a dangerous adventure, accompanied by his longtime guard Sergeant Bothari and his daughter, Elena Bothari. Their adventure is caught by an impossible situation that nearly caused their life. Miles has to think and act quickly, not just to save their life, but to get some profit, if possible.

Before our beloved Tyrion Lannister, Miles would have been a remarkable dwarf character in the fictional world. To be exact, maybe he is not a dwarf, just someone that is a bit too short, being born with brittle bone that cannot support a taller body. He is intelligent, good-natured, disobedient, insubordinate, and having to much initiative, all in all, a nightmare for any commander. He is young, inexperience, physically challenged, but very bright. All of that combinations makes us fall in love with him, with all of his shortcoming. He is indeed a remarkable character.

The adventure is also very interesting with many plot twists that makes it impossible to guess. Miles always tried to outsmart the situation, but the situation also outsmart him most of the time. Well, he just has to make the best of it, from the resource that he had. A bit of lying, coercing, baiting, and bluffing, here and there, and lots of luck.

The other remarkable character is his personal guard, Sergeant Bothari. There is a little hint of the background of Bothari. But if you want the full detail, you will have to read the two previous novel in chronological order, Shards of Honour and Barrayar.

All combined, I think that this book should be the first book in Vorkosigan Saga series, given it gives a better start that the actual first novel in the series. A solid 4 stars.
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Feb 22, 2011 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: sf

This series belongs to a sub-genre that I don't often read, and I think I've unfairly pigeon-holed it. When I think of space opera I think of Star Wars, but this is really closer to Firefly. The main characters are engaging and flawed and very human. There are no aliens. There is drama and humor and loads of good action, all of which services the plot. I'll enjoy reading the rest of the series, as suggested by lots of people I should have trusted not to steer me wrong. ...more

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May 10, 2013 Banner rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

Best one so far. We are introduced to Miles in this book (well the adult Miles). He is quite unique in the science fiction protagonist category. Kind of a hero / anti hero, he doesn't solve his problems by his fist but with his wits. However he uses his fist when necessary, but not with you typical science fiction action tale's results.

This is a series and has all the feel of a continuing adventure. But no real cliffhanger here. Looking forward to continuing on through the series. ...more

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Nov 21, 2009 Kerry rated it really liked it

Shelves: reread, 9-out-of-10, 2007, 2009, ebooks, audio, sf

REREAD: 1 June, 2007 - 17 August, 2007 (9/10) (Audiobook)

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 he REREAD: 1 June, 2007 - 17 August, 2007 (9/10) (Audiobook)

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.

[Copied from LibraryThing.]

REREAD: Finished 23 November, 2009 (9/10) ...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Joy H. marked it as to-read

Shelves: recommended-by-a-reader-friend

To be read third in the series.

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Jun 22, 2008 Staci rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

I listened to the audio version of this. I've really enjoyed Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion fantasy series and have been wanting to try her Miles Vorkosigan books. I thought this was Ok. I did not enjoy it as much as her fantasy. But it was still enjoyable. I will continue with this series. Reread in Aug/Sept. 2009. Enjoyed this more the second time around after having read the first two books in the series. ...more

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