Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen discussion

If you're thinking, "I wonder who Jole is?" or "Jole ... that sounds familiar." I compiled all of the previous references to Jole (no first name known) to remind myself, and thought I'd share.

Spoiler Warning: contains enough information to guess major spoilers for The Vor Game and Cryoburn. Minor spoilers for those books plus Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. I suppose also spoilers in the form of confirming various people live through various other books to appear in later books. In short, the intended audience is people who have already read all the books, and are eagerly awaiting the new one.


The Vor Game (Miles is 20)

Chapter 6 - Illyan debriefs Miles after the latter returns from Kyril Island

[Aral] was flanked by his aide, a tall blond lieutenant named Jole. Miles had met Jole on his last home leave. Now, there was a perfect officer, brave and brilliant—he'd served in space, been decorated for some courage and quick thinking during a horrendous on-board accident, been rotated through HQ while recovering from his injuries, and promptly been snabbled up as his military secretary by the Prime Minister, who had a sharp eye for hot new talent. Jaw-dropping gorgeous, to boot, he ought to be making recruiting vids. Miles sighed in hopeless jealousy every time he ran across him.

Chapter 17 - Aral and Miles meet aboard the Prince Serg, in Vervain local space

Jole glanced back over his shoulder, quirked a pensive brow, and followed Yegorov out. Miles just glimpsed the blond lieutenant drape himself across a chair in the antechamber, head back in the relaxed posture of a man anticipating a long wait, before the door slid closed. Jole could be supernaturally courteous at times.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Miles is 35) (note: from my e-ARC edition, final edition could be slightly different?)

Chapter 5 - Byerly and Ivan discuss By's current assignment: uncovering smuggling among Vor officers in the Sergyar Fleet

"Sergyar Fleet is Commodore Jole's patch," said Ivan.

"Desplains likes springing little surprises like that, though I bet it wasn't a surprise to Jole. He'll likely reciprocate, next chance."

Chapter 8 - Ivan sorts Ops mail while returning to Barrayar from Komarr

As Ivan had anticipated, the uncovering of the theft and smuggling ring had generated a load of new traffic, though not yet the interesting explosions that would no doubt ensue when word had finally made it all the way to Commodore Jole's Sergyar Command and back.

Epilogue - Ivan, at his new post, reads a letter from Cordelia

"[...]now Aunt Cordelia switches to telling me all about Commodore Jole's new sailboat [...]. He took them all out for a sail, good. And no one drowned."

Cryoburn (Miles is 39)

Chapter 20 - The Funeral

The pallbearers were six: Ivan, Illyan, and Koudelka, of course; Duv Galeni for Komarr; Admiral Jole for Sergyar. And one other.

For those keeping score at home, he's a lieutenant in his first appearance and an admiral 19 years later. This is faster than the promotion plan Illyan sketched out for himself when he was 20 ("ship captain by thirty, and admiral by fifty", A Civil Campaign, Chapter 13); but considerably slower than Aral's history (admiral at 36). Sounds about right for a brilliant officer in Aral Vorkosigan's orbit without any major wars to speed his promotion.

Please let me know if I missed anything!

INTERESTING

Impressive.
Do we know if the new book focuses on the time during which Jole was closely working with Aral?
Jole's predecessor in the aide-de-camp function should have been Koudelka, right?
Knowing that Aral was (according to Cordelia's words) bisexual before he became monogamous, I wonder how did that work out for the three of them (Aral, Cordelia and Jole). We will know when we know I guess.

Brzk wrote: "Do we know if the new book focuses on the time during which Jole was closely working with Aral?"

I remember Bujold saying somewhere that the new book is post-Cryoburn. But since I can't find where at the moment, it's possible I made that up.

"Jole's predecessor in the aide-de-camp function should have been Koudelka, right?"

I think so, yes. Nothing explicitly says that Koudelka is still Aral's aide-de-camp in Warrior's Apprentice, but he does seem to be filling that role in Chapter 2 (e.g., "Koudelka--what did you think of those ship cost figures of Admiral Hessman's?"). Koudelka is a captain in WA, the same rank as Ivan is as Admiral Desplains' aide-de-camp, so no reason Koudelka can't still be Aral's aide-de-camp. I don't find any mentions of Koudelka between when he's a captain in WA and when he's a commodore in Mirror Dance 11 years later (not too surprisingly, I don't think any action takes place on Barrayar between those two books).

Thank you for the quick synopsis of who Jole is. I was wondering myself.

Here's some spoilers for the first chapter

http://servantofclio.tumblr.com/post/...

I absolutely hated the big spoiler but I'm sure some people going to enjoy that.

(view spoiler)[I can't believe that after loving this totally devoted to each other, monogamous couple for so long, I'm suppose now to cheer the fact that Aral had a boyfriend for years and that Cordelia was just on the sideline finding it romantic. If you're a bisexual man, you just have to have a boyfriend too, I guess/sarcasm (hide spoiler)]

Thanks for the synopsis. Adds to the anticipation.

Now, Lois, having read all the spoilers, I must say - I was looking forward to this exact story, exactly this one, I wanted to hear it told. Thank you so much for so many things. You can ask more than half of my kingdom, any time, anywhere.

Thanks for the info Kai.

I'd have to agree, this seems to directly contradict Barrayar quite a bit, but maybe there'll be something of a justifiable reason?

Its not like Cordelia probably cared very much.

I'm not sure that it does contradict Barrayar. She said that her husband was monogamous, at the time. If Aral and Jole and Cordelia became involved years later, what's the problem?

The eARC is now available at Baen Books:


HIGHLY recommended - I loved it.

Awesome! Thanks for the tip!

Read it twice. I'm dying to discuss this book!