Cetaganda
4 stars
One of the qualities that I love about the Vorkosigan series is that because it is so long, it allows Bujold to play with different genres between books. If The Vor Game is military SF, then Cetaganda is a mystery novel. Pedantically, this book is not really a mystery proper in the way that a reader could piece together the whodunit independently; however I think this is an example of "detective Miles" mode, and one that we'll see again in Memory and Komarr especially.
This book features Miles and Ivan on a diplomatic visit to Cetaganda for the funeral of the Cetagandan empress. Miles has to juggle investigating a plot that's trying to frame the Barrayarans (but why? and by whom?), hiding things from his superiors (by implying he's a higher level spy), trying to interface with the Cetaganda police about a murder investigation (while not giving things away to …
One of the qualities that I love about the Vorkosigan series is that because it is so long, it allows Bujold to play with different genres between books. If The Vor Game is military SF, then Cetaganda is a mystery novel. Pedantically, this book is not really a mystery proper in the way that a reader could piece together the whodunit independently; however I think this is an example of "detective Miles" mode, and one that we'll see again in Memory and Komarr especially.
This book features Miles and Ivan on a diplomatic visit to Cetaganda for the funeral of the Cetagandan empress. Miles has to juggle investigating a plot that's trying to frame the Barrayarans (but why? and by whom?), hiding things from his superiors (by implying he's a higher level spy), trying to interface with the Cetaganda police about a murder investigation (while not giving things away to them or to his superiors), and stopping a plot that would cause chaos to Cetaganda (while also trying to work towards Barrayaran interests).
One thing I think this novel does well is to portray the Cetagandans in a sympathetic and interesting light, and to dig into the interesting social structure they have going on. In previous novels, the Cetagandans have been the historical invaders of Barrayar and also aggressive expansionists into the Hegen Hub, and the reader doesn't know much about them other than their military bent. This book could be a bit more subtle about weaving all this background info in without as much of an info dump, but in a broader sense it adds a lot of nuance and fills in a lot of detail.
Ok, ok. I know I'm leaning on the horn here (pun not intended), but holy moly this book is still stuck in horny Miles brain mode. He is still not over Elena (who doesn't even appear in this novel) and he loses it over the haut women who ensconce themselves behind opaque bubble forcefields. There is one brief, minor moment where Miles realizes these feelings are clouding his judgement; Ivan comes up with a plan Miles hasn't considered because it wouldn't let him play the hero in front of haut Rian. This is as far as it goes, though.
(It's funny how much this quality sticks out for me on this reread. Am I just older and ace-er? Is this how books airquotes of the time all were and I haven't noticed because I haven't been reading books that are thirty five years old? Is this a deliberate writing decision for a twenty year old protagonist? Did I just forget that's how these books were?)