Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Vorkosigan Saga Book 14)

You know who you are. You've read everything she's written since you first discovered her. Is this any different, just because it focuses on a different scion of the bloody, brilliant Vor aristocracy? No, it's not - it's fantastic.. Buy it now.

A fun story with a few twists. At first I was disappointed that Miles was such a small part of this story, but in the end, Ivan carried the story well on his own. The only quirk is that I would not recommend it for anyone who is not familiar with the Vorkosigan universe. Prior knowledge of the characters is required for maximum enjoyment.

The latest from the least ambitious Ivan, holy fool. It's a Russian folk tale space opera. Ivan, young in years,old in wisdom wanders from place to place. He finds I Don' Know What, I Don't Where and a Princess. It's a joyous romp !

This novel suffers in comparison to Ms. Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan adventures, but it is still fun to read. I enjoy her writing style very much. I recommend it for those who have already read her other novels.

It's not as fast-paced and thrilling as earlier Vorkosigan tales, but that might just be due to Ivan's comparatively bland approach to life. Still though, it introduces a number if interesting characters and has many gem-moments for those familiar with the series already.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (The Vorkosigan Saga)

I enjoyed the book. One of the better in the series. This character is still junior enough to have adventures that do not have to involve the fate of the planet.

I have read and reread the entire Vorkosigan saga and was delighted to find this book as enjoyable as the rest. Great characters, action, humor, and romance, add up to a well-written rollicking sci fi adventure. I highly recommend it.

Bujold delivered like she always does. I think the size of the book compared to a normal paperback is in really poor taste. It does not allow me to conveniently shelf it with the rest of the books from this author. That is a bad show on the part of the publisher.

This story about Miles's cousin Ivan gives a different slant to the series. It is told from Ivan's point of view and is rather engaging. I enjoyed the different viewpoint and the dealings of Ivan with his new in-laws.

Well written, solid characters and dialogue, exciting action and a happy touch of romance; what more could you ask for! Oh yes, you could ask for humor, and boy does Bujold deliver it! (I think the courtroom scene was my favorite part!)

Entertaining and fun to read, with some new characters and twists that add further colour to the already colourful Vorkosigan/Barrayar universe. Not really serious literature, but exactly what I wish for on a long flight.

This book dont disapoint you but that is nothing new for this writher!
besides that ,the addet insight in the playboy Vor and his bumbling into
matromynal blis make it a must have from this serie

McMaster Bujold is a consumate story teller but alas my eyesight slows it all down too much. So when Grover Gardner does the reading for me in the audio books I get to enjoy the very best of both worlds.

I've been a fan of the author for many years and really enjoyed this book which focused on a "supporting" character before this. It was a fun story. And in a time when I'm cleaning out my bookshelf, this book went on the bookshelf instead of the "get rid of"pile.

this was fun and it wrapped up the question of what happened to Ivan.
bujold can move on to the next generation now!
also touches on the dangers of bio-engineering leading to new forms of slavery although the baronne avoided that in the story.

I've been reading Bujold since her very first paperback, Shards of Honor, came out way back when. I've been a devoted fan of the Vorkosigan books ever since, and am myself now a published novelist for 20 years. I seldom write reviews because I know how much I dislike "negative" reviews (I don't check my own!) but in this case, I felt so sorely disappointed that I felt I had to give my own very contrary opinion.

For me, this book really failed to live up to expectations. It stands among my least favorite in the saga, along with Cryoburn and the one about Mark (a character I never liked.) I have some of the same issues: in Cryoburn, there was too little of Miles and too much about characters I simply wasn't that interested in.

It's not at all that I don't like Ivan. I love him. But I never felt he was even remotely the center of the story. Far more was about Tej and her family--a family I intensely disliked--and Ivan felt more like a secondary character along for the ride. I never developed any interest for Tej, who seemed like a placeholder female character to me, and while I thoroughly enjoyed Bujold's high developed worlds and cultures and the usual humorous byplay, I would have preferred much more about Ivan, much less about (to me) dull Tej and the (to me) unlikable Arquas.

I doubt I'll buy Bujold's next book in hardcover, though I've been doing it for years. I am rather astonished that some have actually called this the or one of the best of her books; I'd class it in the lowest three. I wish the book had been what I longed for when I pre-ordered it ... a story about what I thought would be the central character. And this book also pointed out something I hadn't really realized before ... that while Bujold's male characters are always beautifully realized, her female characters tend to be undereveloped and feel rather lifeless.

I really hope the next book in this series, if there is one, is more about Ivan.

Enjoyed this as I have all her Vor books. Unfortunately I had to buy the hardback. Last time I'll do that the Kindle is so much more convenient. From now on I'll just skip books until they come out in the Kindle format. I travel a lot and hardbacks are inconvenient. That's why I haven't bought Memory of Light and have stopped purchasing from the SF book club.

On the bright side, this book was miles better than Cryoburn (and, cross my heart, I had formed that sentence before it dawned on me that I was making a pun of sorts). However, since I really didn't like Cryoburn at all, that's not exactly high praise.

There were some parts that I really enjoyed, generally references back to things from other books. When Ivan shudders at the thought of Cetagandans meddling with animal and plant genomes at the same time, of course we remember what I call the pussy willow episode from his trip to Cetaganda, and since I pretty much fell for sweet, kindhearted Ivan right about then, that's a good thing. Ivan's grin when Tej calls him an idiot. Seeing old familiar characters through new eyes (though of course we got that when Ekaterin came to town, too).

Tej was a disappointment. Not at first, when she seemed quite intelligent and competent on Komarr (the situation into which she and Rish were sinking wasn't due to idiocy or incompetence, just overwhelming odds against determined adversaries). No, it was once she got to Barrayar that her IQ seemed to plummet and the impression I got was of a not-too-bright child saying naive things that make the grownups chuckle. "'It's really *hard*,' Tej protested. 'When you don't want to. Besides, it would hurt my hand.'" I mean, really! And that was before the - umm, lets call them off-planet visitors, to prevent spoilers - showed up, which made her even worse. Ivan, too, seemed to get dumber.

I'll have to re-read the older books, but Ivan's speech patterns sounded off here, too.

And, oh, how very tired I am of the whole skin-crawlingly creepy Betan sex trainers thread.

As I look back through the book, it seems to me that the Komarr part is good. After that - not so much. Right after Ivan said "Unhand Lady Vorpatril!" things started going downhill. Perhaps she should have stopped there.

Not the fault of the author so I didn't use this to decide how many stars to give, but good golly that cover art! I thought the book was about Ivan Vorpatril, not Boris Vorkarloff. And the bizarre and awkward and unlikely pose in which Tej is portrayed. And Rish is supposed to be odd-looking but beautiful, not just plain weird.

this was fun and it wrapped up the question of what happened to Ivan.
bujold can move on to the next generation now!
also touches on the dangers of bio-engineering leading to new forms of slavery although the baronne avoided that in the story.

I've been reading Bujold since her very first paperback, Shards of Honor, came out way back when. I've been a devoted fan of the Vorkosigan books ever since, and am myself now a published novelist for 20 years. I seldom write reviews because I know how much I dislike "negative" reviews (I don't check my own!) but in this case, I felt so sorely disappointed that I felt I had to give my own very contrary opinion.

For me, this book really failed to live up to expectations. It stands among my least favorite in the saga, along with Cryoburn and the one about Mark (a character I never liked.) I have some of the same issues: in Cryoburn, there was too little of Miles and too much about characters I simply wasn't that interested in.

It's not at all that I don't like Ivan. I love him. But I never felt he was even remotely the center of the story. Far more was about Tej and her family--a family I intensely disliked--and Ivan felt more like a secondary character along for the ride. I never developed any interest for Tej, who seemed like a placeholder female character to me, and while I thoroughly enjoyed Bujold's high developed worlds and cultures and the usual humorous byplay, I would have preferred much more about Ivan, much less about (to me) dull Tej and the (to me) unlikable Arquas.

I doubt I'll buy Bujold's next book in hardcover, though I've been doing it for years. I am rather astonished that some have actually called this the or one of the best of her books; I'd class it in the lowest three. I wish the book had been what I longed for when I pre-ordered it ... a story about what I thought would be the central character. And this book also pointed out something I hadn't really realized before ... that while Bujold's male characters are always beautifully realized, her female characters tend to be undereveloped and feel rather lifeless.

I really hope the next book in this series, if there is one, is more about Ivan.

Enjoyed this as I have all her Vor books. Unfortunately I had to buy the hardback. Last time I'll do that the Kindle is so much more convenient. From now on I'll just skip books until they come out in the Kindle format. I travel a lot and hardbacks are inconvenient. That's why I haven't bought Memory of Light and have stopped purchasing from the SF book club.

On the bright side, this book was miles better than Cryoburn (and, cross my heart, I had formed that sentence before it dawned on me that I was making a pun of sorts). However, since I really didn't like Cryoburn at all, that's not exactly high praise.

There were some parts that I really enjoyed, generally references back to things from other books. When Ivan shudders at the thought of Cetagandans meddling with animal and plant genomes at the same time, of course we remember what I call the pussy willow episode from his trip to Cetaganda, and since I pretty much fell for sweet, kindhearted Ivan right about then, that's a good thing. Ivan's grin when Tej calls him an idiot. Seeing old familiar characters through new eyes (though of course we got that when Ekaterin came to town, too).

Tej was a disappointment. Not at first, when she seemed quite intelligent and competent on Komarr (the situation into which she and Rish were sinking wasn't due to idiocy or incompetence, just overwhelming odds against determined adversaries). No, it was once she got to Barrayar that her IQ seemed to plummet and the impression I got was of a not-too-bright child saying naive things that make the grownups chuckle. "'It's really *hard*,' Tej protested. 'When you don't want to. Besides, it would hurt my hand.'" I mean, really! And that was before the - umm, lets call them off-planet visitors, to prevent spoilers - showed up, which made her even worse. Ivan, too, seemed to get dumber.

I'll have to re-read the older books, but Ivan's speech patterns sounded off here, too.

And, oh, how very tired I am of the whole skin-crawlingly creepy Betan sex trainers thread.

As I look back through the book, it seems to me that the Komarr part is good. After that - not so much. Right after Ivan said "Unhand Lady Vorpatril!" things started going downhill. Perhaps she should have stopped there.

Not the fault of the author so I didn't use this to decide how many stars to give, but good golly that cover art! I thought the book was about Ivan Vorpatril, not Boris Vorkarloff. And the bizarre and awkward and unlikely pose in which Tej is portrayed. And Rish is supposed to be odd-looking but beautiful, not just plain weird.

I'm a fan of the Vorkosigan series, so for me, this was a five star book. I bought the electronic version through Baen and have already reread it.

For non fans, I'm not sure how it would go, but probably 4 stars. Would people who don't know Ivan understand the complaint of Ivan's boss? The boss asked why Ivan's mother asked him about Ivan's personal life instead of asking Ivan. Ivan responded, "Experience, maybe."

There are gems all the way through the book for fans and non fans. It is mentioned that on Barrayar people were subjects, not citizens. Someone notes that the emperor is the only one on Barrayar that isn't a subject and wonders if that makes him an object. Humor abounds and all sorts of characters from previous novels make cameo appearances. Bujold sensibly keeps Cordelia, Miles, and Mark largely out of the picture, because they tend to dominate. The plethora of minor characters would be a problem for a new reader of the series, but are enjoyable to people who've met them before.

Bujold had a difficult task in this book. She has a hero that is not an overly ambitious man, and she made him sympathetic and enjoyable. Ivan is shown at his best. He is brave, loyal and chivalrous. He comes through when he needs to. He's not as bright as Miles or Cordelia, but he isn't stupid.

I would not advise people who haven't read Bujold before to start here, although her writing has never been better. If you haven't read the Vorkosigan series, there are a number of good books waiting for you.

Fairly predictable. Sometimes characters speak or act in ways that are not true to their personal experience. Characters reference other characters in the series but not present in the book as if the need to trot out characters is important to the editor and not the story. Overall it seems the author is tired of writing this series. It was a good run. Time to let it go.

I would suggest picking this one up at the library. It's worth the read, but is (in my opinion) ultimately disappointing.
Ivan has spent most of his years sliding thru and around any of life's obstacles, spectating for the most part. I think LMB allowed him to slide into his marriage and then avoided most conflict pretty easily...yet again. Not fair for those of us waiting to see his cosmic comeuppance.
I'm a total Bujold fan...I've bought everything...every single book ever.
I believe this may be the last Vorkosigan book, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But being disappointed with Cryoburn and now this one will make me stop future re-readings of the series with Diplomatic Immunity.

You can safely skip this one. It does not advance Miles' story one bit -- more of a side trip. The protagonist, Ivan, is a broadly drawn, not particularly interesting, and pretty conventional guy, borne largely by the current of circumstances beyond his control. That really contrasts with Miles himself -- the guy who makes his own fortune and squeaks out of nearly impossible situations by his own wit and magnetic personality. The evolution of Ivan's character over this novel is slight and rather trivial -- and unusually for Bujold, almost completely predictable. Of course, with the writer as extraordinarily good as Bujold is, there are a few situations and observations, mostly towards the end, that are amusing. There you get more of a sense of what makes nearly all of the other Vorkosigan saga novels so compulsively readable (i.e.: the beauty of her prose, her vast vocabulary, believable but intricate plot design combined with a natural flow, her excellent situational humor, and her insights into what motivates people's actions.) In sum = ignore this one; better re-read any of the other books in this series.

REVISION 6/18/13 - I've reread the Vorkosigan series again, with this book being last.
I have upgraded my rating from 2 stars to 3. I have been so use to Miles and his persona, I think the first time I read this I was expecting (hoping) for Miles. Having reread the book, expecting Ivan instead I found most of the book okay, even funny at times. There was a part in the middle that Ivan's dialog was just plain weak. He seems stronger at the beginning of the book and at the end.

I'm like many fans of Bujold. About every 2 years I take the Vorkosigan saga out, dust if off, and greet my good friends in Miles' family. I had high hopes for this book. I preordered it in hardcover. When it arrived I started reading almost immediately. The book is like Ivan (the main character) - it does not contain a lot of substance. Even with that, I am usually very entertained by Bulold's writing. I devour her other books. But I was disappointed, very disappointed, with this book.

Read any of Bujold's other books, and you will likely enjoy every moment of it. But don't bother reading this book.
Sorry Lois... you need to try harder next time.

It's really hard to discuss this tale without including spoilers, but I'll try. The only summation that I'll provide is an indirect one; this book takes large parts of the plots of Komarr and A Civil Campaign, mashes them together, turns them inside out, and twists - hard. This is not the first Barrayar story that has been centered on someone other than her main protagonist, Miles Vorkosigan, though he has been the focus of most of them. The events of Cryoburn left Miles with a very much restructured life, however, and it may be difficult for Bujold to write more about him entertainingly, so it's not surprising that she has shifted to Ivan here. He has been a background character since early on, and this is where he finally comes into his own. He's getting respect, he's lost his customary middle name (it has been a running gag across many volumes that he's usually called 'Ivan-you-idiot'), his career is solid and stable - and then Byerly Vorrutyer drops in to ask for a favor. That's where the toboggan run starts, and this one's got more than its share of unexpected turns. Along the way, we get a hefty dose of the ever-treasured one-line zingers that have increasing marked Bujold's writing, and some surprising supporting character development as well. It's clear that Bujold is not done with adding to her Barrayar series, and if this is any indication of what's to come, I hope there are many, many more!

This was my first disappointment with this series. It took me forever to read. I was not eager to return to the story. I would not have missed anything if I had not read this book. Felt like she tired to hard to make a story.

How can I say this (no spoilers)? I think Lois has lost her chops.

We had that long hiatus with Sharing Knife. So maybe she just wanted to try something really different. And then Cryoburn might be forgiven as a "getting warmed back up" kind of novel. It wasn't Mirror Dance but nothing is.

(side rant) Does anyone else think Tej is the galactic version of what's-her-name in Sharing Knife? Same silly idiosyncratic mannerisms (Ivan Xav Ivan Xav Ivan Xav...funny the first time), intermittent quivering helplessness, abused-position-in-the-family-power-structure, I don't do much but exist as an object of male desire plot purpose?

Do authors read reviews? If so, Ms. Bujold, here's my plea. Leave Cordelia on Sergyar. Let us merely imagine was Ista and Iselle and Ijada are up to these days. Don't ruin them.

Maybe it's just that the author is getting tired. The typical Bujold is so brilliantly written that I would re-read sentences and paragraphs the first time through to savor them. In CVA I was skipping pages. Some of the conversational sequences are just amateur (vis Ivan with his first private in-law meet). Except for the conversation that would take too much work and didn't happen (Lady Alys, the Baronne and her mama). Writing a book of The Paladin of Souls' caliber is hard hard hard labor.

The original Vorkosigan novels are gravity wells that suck you in and keep you there. Now we have the after-the-original-Vorkosigan novels. And frankly I'm not sure I'll pre-order the next one in hardback. I gave this novel 3 stars out of loyalty to the characters. The author deserves 2.

If you haven't read any other books in the Vorkosigan Saga, don't start here. And if you have, don't expect this to live up to the the earlier novels.

I was looking forward to this, having been a fan of the author since first reading the first book in the series when it first came out. The first book, Shards of Honor, is one of my absolute favorite books, a perfect blend of sci-fi/thriller/romance filled with insightful social commentary, with intelligent, memorable characters whose flaws and strengths make for a riveting read.

Comic supporting character the risk-averse "that idiot" Ivan is neck deep in intrigue and romance, mostly of his own making. The characterizations and diluted, contrived plot falls under the weight of the earlier stories (an irony if there ever was one). It feels as if the author was compelled to deliver a new addition to the Vorkosigan Saga, versus a story she deeply wanted to tell.

Like many fans of the series, I usually can't wait til the next book. So much so that I pre-ordered this the moment it was available on the store even after the disappointed previous book in the series. But now I'm convinced as much as I love the characters in the Vorkosigan saga, it's time to retire them.

It's always sad when an author stops working and starts harvesting what they can from what they've done in times before. "Dividend Writing." The author gets tired, the publisher insistent and the results.. is not much to write home about. The fire's banked, the sun is setting, and it's time to eat the bounty because after a long season I think Ms. Bujold's hungry days of writing are drawing to a close.

I have all of Ms. Bujold's Miles books on both Kindle and Nook -- and most of them in hardback as well. In my occupation hopeless situations abound under crushing pressures -- and Miles helps me THINK -- or at least helps keep me awake in long watches in thrown together control rooms in God Forsaken places. If he can pull it together, maybe I can as well. Miles belongs where I can get my mind around him when I need to....

Captain Vorpatril is a nice guy. I see people like him every day. But I don't invite them into my all too infrequent down time, and I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to relax with him. Actually I really wouldn't want him anywhere near anything critical in ANY control room. Kindle included. One has to wonder about IMSEC OPS people who don't take RUDIMENTARY security precautions of ANY KIND when dealing with nefarious kidnappers and slavers while tunneling UNDER THE NOSE of the most paranoid security people in known space? As Miles has often noted, Ivan is an IDIOT!!!!

Ms. Bujold phoned this one in. It's LAZY!!! I look at the really STIMULATING conversations that didn't happen because they would have been WORK to write (if they didn't write themselves!) The book REVERBERATES with the words not said that SHOULD have been said!!! The character were THERE with the right problems!!! The concepts were THERE ITCHING to ignite!! The book is a squib. Like the bomb.

What did The Emperor SAY to Illyan? What did Lady Alys SAY to the Haut Ghem?? What did the nameless Ensign deep in the bowels of IMPSEC SAY to his overwrought boss when a 35 year late bomb detonated during the tunnel fight that should have NEVER happened. "Uh.. sir? I think we're sinking...?" Rather like the book. Up to it's roof.

No wonder Tej's Jackson Whole house fell! I just hope Ivan doesn't bring down the entire Vorkosigan universe as well!

This Vorkosigan themed novel delivers on several levels. While the action and conflicts focus on 30ish Ivan Vorpatril and his effort to rescue Tej, a refugee from the Jackson Whole star system, there is plenty of wheeling, dealing and scheming in this novel. While relationships and the building of them occupy the first half of the novel, with few violent encounters, there is a steady building of "What's going to happen next?" expectation. The growing drama, conflict and potential deadly entrapment of Ivan occupy the last third of the novel, with the last 30 pages full of excellent, fast-paced action and denouements. Fans of Miles Vorkosigan will find him in the storyline, along with Emperor Gregor, Ivan's mother, retired spy master Simon, and the fascinating cultural milieu of the Barrayaran capital city. I really enjoyed this story. The writing is smooth, the scenes fascinating, the POV shifts very clear without being abrupt, and the 'stakes' at risk gradually grow larger and larger. As someone who has read most of the Vorkosigan novels, beginning with the original SHARDS OF HONOR, I really enjoyed this story. It takes place after Miles' marriage and Gregor's assumption of his emperorship, with lots of Barrayaran back history playing relevant roles. If you want a grown-up story, with grown-up characters with real emotions, conflicts, hopes and fears, read this novel. Highly recommended.

A tale in the Miles Universe is always a fun read. Bujold has that way with her writing to make it so. These later tales though have given us more of what she has always woven, a way to link her secondary characters to the story more intensely and give them all happy endings.

As we look back over the course of the series we see that nearly all the secondary characters peripheral to Miles Vorkosigan have had their own stories tied up yet not with a full novel. That Bujold gives us one of Miles long devoted family members a full book shows that Bujold likes and respects that character and now fleshing him out totally, we see the Ivan Vorpatril is a character to be admired, except in the end when he decides on a course that seems completely at a tangent to what we have come to expect and what he had been groomed for.

At this point in the tale of the Vorkosigan Universe there may never be another story, yet one hopes that there are. There are plot twists a plenty here and all to make a truly exciting, thundering tale that hooks you and becomes a true page turner.

I almost rated this as one of my very favorite reads of all time, a perfect book, but I thought the very last bit a little disappointing as well as some solutions that seem trite instead of right. (Really, Mark making a play at the very end to do something just for the sake of a humorous smile did not fit with the nerve wracking set-up of the situation before that.)

So more in the universe, and with nearly everyone wed, perhaps as we see in the Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan universe, a way for the older generation, our heroes becoming that, and their children growing up to hit their teenage years of rebellion, and then their young adult heroic passing of the baton...

Oh, this was so intensely satisfying! After so many books seeing Ivan getting lucky with the ladies and then getting so unlucky with getting a wife, I was pleased to realize his "alliance" was of a domestic kind. In order to protect a woman from police interrogation and possible kidnapping, Ivan offers her diplomatic immunity in the most direct manner: as the wife of a Vor. The pair proceed to try to solve the mystery of her pursuit, and of their own feelings, as they take steps towards their pre-arranged divorce.

Of course, Barryar has other plans. Or, more accurately, Ivan's MOTHER has other plans. And Alyss gets what Alyss wants.

After being generally dissatisfied with Cryoburn, this book brings us back to the hilarity and chaos Bujold produced in the fantastic "Diplomatic Immunity." I will say that it takes a bit to get into the story, but about the time you hit the false marriage, you'll be hooked.

"Ivan, you idiot!" If Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril has a catch-phrase, you just read it. Greeted or excoriated with that phrase by numerous other characters in the Vorkosigan saga, we've seen plenty of evidence over the years that Ivan, while not a towering intellect compared to some of the company he keeps, is no idiot. Ivan's been our handsome everyman witness and assistant, the Dr. Watson to Miles' Sherlock Holmes (without the narrative burden, of course). Tall, handsome, efficient, but more interested in chasing women and enjoying life than chasing his career, and as always, avoiding being controlled by his mother, we finally see this character get his chance to shine, and he does.

Ivan Vorpatril is temporarily on Komarr as part of a staff inspection, when he's approached by Byerly Vorrutyer, fulltime Vor wastrel, and fulltime ImpSec civilian operative, with a request to protect a woman who has come to the mysterious attention of certain unsavory individuals of By's interest. One thing leads to another, and an attempt to sweet talk a nervous, but beautiful young woman leads to Ivan being tied to a chair in her apartment after being ambushed by the woman's unusual handmaid/companion/bodyguard. One thing leads to another and Ivan finds himself in an entirely unexpected alliance with mystery woman Tej, but is it an alliance against mysterious foes, or what can be even scarier, family on both sides?

Witty, funny and light-hearted, Bujold, again shows what a master wordcrafter she is, crafting her lightest novel since "A Civil Campaign." While not reaching the stratospheric quality of that romantic comedy of manners and biology, Bujold fully earns her usual 5-stars, as we follow Ivan and Tej back to Barrayar, with meetings with a number of previous cast members and the complications that can arise from family and friends, to an in-depth encounter at ImpSec HQ. This is very much a change of pace compared to the deathly serious (pun-intended), dealings with death that we experienced in "Cryoburn."

This is very much Ivan's (and Tej's) story, but we get nice supporting turns from By and, happily, Simon Ilyan (and a good bit of Lady Alys, of course). Gregor, Duv & Delia Galeni, are just some of the past cast we meet again. Miles? He gets a memorable cameo along with Ekaterin and Gregor in Chapter 10, with most of it from Tej's point of view, with Miles being "the Coz" in her internal thoughts, and Emperor Gregor "The Gregor." As much fun as it is to see Miles, we get him for just the one chapter, and toned down enough that he doesn't even take over the chapter, in itself a remarkable achievement of writing.

Set 5 years after "A Civil Campaign" and 4 years before "Cryoburn," this novel continues Bujold's willingness to go back and forth across her timeline. The novels have always been stand-alone successes, although, as she correctly points out, there are certain arcs that improve reading enjoyment when read in order. "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" is yet more evidence that Boujold is one of the best writers alive.

I have long been a fan of the Miles Vorkosigan series (or really, ANYthing by Bujold), and if you share that enthusiasm this is an easy book to recommend. I admit that I was a little unsure about a story about Miles' cousin Ivan -- I think it was all those books in which everyone referred to him as "Ivan, you idiot!" -- but Ivan turns out to be rather clever in his own right ("merely" in the 95th percentile of IQ, rather than Miles 99.999). And, I think, kind of a cutie.

It's almost impossible to summarize a Bujold book without giving something away. This all starts when a friend in ImpSec (that's the spy organization) asks Ivan to check out a woman they have their eye on, and Byerly doesn't know or say much about her. She's gorgeous, so this isn't a hardship. But it doesn't take long for the mystery to change from "Who is this woman and why does anyone care?" to something else entirely, and I will NOT spoil your fun by telling you anything about it.

Nominally you could read this book on its own, without having read any of the previous Vorkosigan novels, but I think you'd miss a lot of the historical references. I won't insist that you read all of them first, however. In fact, this book might be great if you read a few of the books and then sort of lost touch with Miles (or, as one friend did, lose interest in him), and you want something in the same universe but not Miles-dominated. ESPECIALLY if your favorites in the series were the books that were largely love stories, such as Cordelia's Honor. (Because I'm a fool for SF/F that's also romance.)

The bottom line: I stayed up WAY past my bedtime reading this. It's great.

The title of this book is a bit of a tease, which is not necessarily a bad thing, in that it refers to a marriage alliance made by Lord Ivan Vorpatril (best known for being comic relief in much of the Vorkosigan saga as a secondary character). Here, in this novel, Ivan gets to stretch out and enjoy his own adventure. Naturally, this particular adventure relates to both the nobility of Ivan’s character (in particular a strain of gallantry that leads him into a sudden marriage to help save a woman in danger that leads him on a dramatic caper that extends across several planets). In many ways, this particular story is a lot like Komarr, with a gallant man dealing with corrupt Komarran officials and a damsel in distress. Here we see, in a vivid and fast-paced account, what Lord Ivan is like when he steps up to his responsibilities as a man and as a husband.

The results are heartwarming, as we see Ivan struggle in his relationships with his family (including Simon, his sort-of-stepfather) and struggle to show his wife his love and keep her from leaving him. We see humorous scenes about Ivan fretting over what others think and see a particularly disastrous attempt to divorce that shows Ivan and Taj (a refugree from a hostile corporate takeover in Jackson’s Whole) do not meet any of the grounds for a divorce. Ultimately, we see Ivan, who had lurched between short relationships with a fear of commitment and a fear that he would always be alone, learning how to be comfortable in dealing with the ups and downs of a relationship.

In the midst of all of this Ivan is faced with a massive and complicated plot wherein his in-laws seek to uncover some long-lost treasure in order to give them the seed capital to take back their House and their place at the pinnacle of Jackson Whole society. In the end, despite a rather stunning disaster in the heart of the capital city, the story ends gloriously happily, if in a somewhat complicated way. As a heartwarming story of a belated coming of age, of the way in which apparent disasters serve for the better, and a way in which decency and love triumph over greed and cynicism, this is a story that offers a rich and warm picture of a life that might have often been viewed as frivolous but which is seen to have been a response of fear. The triumph of love over fear offers a hope for those whose life is frivolous and dissipated, a hope that this is only a temporary state and that maturity comes to most, at least those who are decent and upright people.

Lois McMaster Bujold is the 2d most honored Sci-Fi/Fantasy author after the late Robert Heinlein and she is a better writer than him. And she is my favorite living writer. This book is a supplement to her Vorkosigan Saga series starring one of the most popular characters in Sci-Fi, Miles Vorkosigan (introduced in Warrior's Apprentice The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga)).

Ivan Xav Vorpatril is a cousin of Miles who has appeared in several earlier stories. In this book, he is an admiral's aide on Komarr, one of the few planets in the Barrayarian Empire. An undercover agent asks Ivan, a famous womanizer, to pick up Tej, a refugee in order to protect her from an eminent assassination or kidnapping. Tej is a daughter in a powerful House that was recently decimated and scattered in a violent takeover and the new rulers want to kill or capture any surviving family members.

Ivan manages to help the refugee and her friend survive the anticipated attack. But as a result, he and she soon get in trouble with the police, immigration, and Imperial Security. Uncharacteristically, Ivan quickly thinks of an ingenious plan to postpone their trouble with the authorities. And that leads him and her back to the home world of Barrayar and trouble with his family and Imperial Security.

A totally unexpected development leads to divided loyalties, galactic politics, smuggling, and catastrophic danger.

The writing, as always, has humor, sadness, tension, and gladness. The conclusion has a satisfying resolution of a very complicated situation, in spite of a few latent plausibility flaws. A new reader should be warned that anyone reading this book risks an addiction to the Vorkosigan Saga. Readers familiar with the series will enjoy the book, but may pick up hints that this might be one of the final books of the series.

LMB is my all time favorite author, and I am a huge fan of the Vorkosigan's. Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled when I heard that she had a new book on its way, and it was about IVAN of all people. I love Miles** (the main character of most of the other books in the series) beyond reason, but I've also always had a very soft spot for Ivan. None of his family has been able to figure out that just because he's-not-like-Miles doesn't mean he is less-than-Miles, and I was glad to see him get a story of his own.

I managed to avoid all spoilers about this book, and refused to be tempted by the e-ARCs that was available from Baen Books months ago, all because I wanted to be able to read this for the first time in hardcover. I was not disappointed. This was a very satisfying visit to the world of the Vorkosigan's and it had plenty of good cameos from nearly all of my favorite characters.

Having said that: I'm not sure I would recommend this is as a point of entry in to the series. I think a new reader would enjoy it, but there are so many references that were made more meaningful to me because I knew the rest of the story. I'm die-hard enough about this series that I really think you should start all the way back at the beginning with Cordelia's Honor and then work your way forward.

And know that I am jealous of you, starting these books fresh, because as much as I love re-reading them, I would dearly love to go back and read them all again "for the first time" -- they are that good.

Yes, I know they are space opera, but that doesn't really matter. They are good stories with amazing characters.

**As proof of my adoration: I named my cat Miles....

Ivan's got his book, and it's a good one.

We've seen lots of Ivan over the series, from the point of view of his more obsessive relations ("Ivan, you idiot!"). Ivan has always been the underachiever of the Vorkosagin clan and their allies. Sure, he's tall, handsome, athletic, bright, and competent, with a solid military career and success with the ladies, but unlike Miles, Mark, Aral, Cordelia, Gregor, Simon, Alys, et al, he has no particular desire for anything more than an enjoyable life with as little responsibility as possible.

This is the book where we get inside Ivan's head. He's on an assignment on Komarr when an old "friend" Byerly (last seen in "A Civil Campaign") shows up with an urgent request to protect a contact, who happens to be a gorgeous woman. And before you can say "Impulsively brilliant actions run in the family", Ivan's up to his ears in Jacksonian politics, Cetagandan plots, Barryaran secrets, and a romantic entanglement capable of ensnaring even Ivan.

It's a fun book - a fast paced mix of heist/caper and romantic comedy. Ivan finds love, and although she's not what I would have expected, she's a good match for him. Simon Illyan plays a strong supporting roll, with good effect.

A quick note - if you're not familiar with the Vorkosigan series, this might not be the best place to start, but it's more stand-alone than the last few books. Chronology wise, it's set between "Diplomatic Immunity" and "Cyroburn". It's one of the lighter Vorkosigan books - the stakes are lower than the heavier books, and there's a good bit of humour. Think "A Civil Campaign" rather than "Memory".

This latest novel in the "Miles Vorkosigan" universe provides at long last a story centred on Miles' cousin, and often his reluctant sidekick, Ivan Vorpatril.

Although at the time of writing (Feb 2013) this is the sixteenth and most recently published book in the series it is chronologically the fifteenth and penultimate story: it is set around a year after the conclusion of "Diplomatic Immunity" and about four years prior to "Cryoburn SC (Miles Vorkosigan Adventures)."

Captain Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril came over, most unfairly, as a bit dumb during most of the previous books of the series because they were told from the perspective of his brilliant cousin Miles. Throughout his life he has never had the opportunity to forget how dangerous politics can be: his father was gunned down on the day he was born, (for the story of the "Vordarian Pretendership," an attempted coup in which Ivan's father was killed, see "Barrayar)" with the result that Ivan's birthday has always included a commemoration of his murdered dad. For the third of a century following his birth, until his cousin Emperor Gregor married in "A Civil Campaign (Miles Vorkosigan Adventures)" and started producing children, Ivan was never more than three heartbeats away from the throne of Barrayar, and therefore had to be constantly watched by Imperial Security. In self defence he has developed a persona designed to stop him looking like a threat, keeping his nose as clean as possible while avoiding any distinction which might get him promoted above the rank of Captain, building an (inaccurate) reputation for having no great intelligence and a (largely accurate) one as a ladies' man.

At the start of this book Ivan is just coming up to his thirty-fifth birthday and has accompanied his present boss, the Admiral who is Chief of Operations for the Barrayaran Navy, to the Komarr system. There is a knock on the door of the apartment where Ivan is staying: Byerly, (By), a distant relative who works for Imperial Security, has a favour to ask. The criminals By is trying to catch are taking an interest in a beautiful woman who may know something about them or may need protecting from them. Can Ivan try to make friends with her, protect her and find out what if anything she knows?

Unfortunately By has not told Ivan the full story: this assignment is both a lot more complex and a lot more dangerous than Ivan realises - getting through this one may require the sort of quick reactions and outragous tactics more often associated with Cousin Miles ...

Up there with "A civil campaign" as one of the most hysterically funny books in a very amusing series: this book had me laughing out loud more than once.

At its best, as it is in this volume, the Vorkosigan SF saga is one of the most amusing comedy science fiction series ever written.
It currently consists of ten full length Miles Vorkosigan novels, five other novels including this one set in the same fictional Universe, several novellas and short stories, and "The Vorkosigan Companion".

All these novels and stories can stand on their own. But several of them, of which this is one, will give you something extra if you have read the books set earlier in the same timeline.

In particular, you will get more out of this book if you have previously read "Barrayar," "Cetaganda (Miles Vorkosigan Adventures)" and "A Civil Campaign."

The full sequence of books in this Universe is as follows. The tale of the bioengineered quaddies and how Leo Graf helped them free themselves from slavery, which happened about 235 years before this book, is given in

"Falling Free"

The story of the romance between Miles' parents is given in the two books:

"Shards of Honour"
"Barrayar"

and these two books have also been published together in one volume as "Cordelia's Honor."

The Miles Vorkosigan adventures are:

"The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan)"
"The Vor Game"
"Borders of Infinity" which is a set of 3 linked novellas
"Cetaganda"
"Brothers in Arms"
"Mirror Dance"
"Memory"
"Komarr"
"A Civil Campaign"
"Diplomatic Immunity"
"Cryoburn"

And finally this book, "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" set between "Diplomatic Immunity" and "Cryoburn" is one of two novels in which the central character is one of Miles' friends. The other is a solo adventure for Miles' friend Elli Quinn, in which she meets a doctor from a planet whose population consists entirely of gay men. That story is called

"Ethan of Athos"

All the books in the Vorkosigan Universe prior to this one and "Cryoburn" have been republished in six compilation volumes, each of which contains two or three of the individual novels or novellas.

I have already mentioned "Cordelia's Honour" and the other compilation volumes are

"Young Miles"
"Miles Errant"
"Miles, Mystery and Mayhem"
"Miles in Love" and
"Miles, Mutants and Microbes."

I enjoyed all these books and strongly recommend them, just be careful if you are trying to complete the set that you don't accidentally duplicate the books you own by purchasing a compilation volume consisting of books you already have!

As the many fans of the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan know, Miles has reached the age of forty (in _Cryoburn_) and is about to enter upon a new and very different phase of his life. (No spoiler details for new readers, sorry.) His days as the Little Admiral are far behind him and probably even his work as Imperial Auditor is going to be affected. But, of course, Miles isn't the only inhabitant of the dozen or more novels about him. Throughout the series, in fact, one of the most entertaining supporting characters has been his loyal but leery cousin, Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril, who, like Miles, is a descendant of the emperors of Barrayar -- although, unlike Miles, he's not in direct line for a countship, for which he is profoundly grateful. The setting for this latest installment in the series is about five years before _Cryoburn_, which may be how Bujold now plans to expand the story -- thickening it up instead of just lengthening it.

Ivan and Miles are of similar age and pretty much grew up together (along with Gregor, now emperor, who is five years older) and have long been mutually supportive semi-rivals. Ivan, now a captain in the military (there aren't a lot of career choices for someone in his position), has a reputation for an idle and sybaritic lifestyle and other people often regard him as a bit thick, just a pretty face with good manners. (His nickname is "That Idiot.") He's certainly a (usually) successful ladies' man. But he's also very, very far from stupid, beneath that carefully cultivated and protective exterior, and his closest relatives and friends are quite aware of it.

When they were younger, Miles was the default heir to the throne, more or less, with Ivan a step or two behind him. But it was questionable whether Miles, with his physical limitations, would ever be accepted by the conservative Vor council, should such an event ever become necessary. And that would put Ivan on the succession hot spot. Ivan knows this full well and has always been extremely careful to never be thought to have any ambitions in that appalling direction. But now Gregor has married and produced a couple of kids and Miles and Ivan are both extremely relieved. Miles also now has a family, which puts extra distance between Ivan and the top of the heap he doesn't want any part of. But at thirty-five, he's gotten into the habit of things. Presently, he's serving as aide and general assistant to the admiral in charge of operations for the fleet (and doing a first-rate job of it, too) and so he finds himself accompanying an inspection team to Komarr. And there he's approached by a distant relation, Byerly Vorrutyer (well, nearly all the vor are related, one way or another), who works for Imperial Security -- ImpSec -- an organization which has been responsible for most of the trauma in Ivan's life and from which he tries always to maintain a careful distance. But By drafts him to try to protect a young female fleeing from a political takeover of her House on Jackson's Whole -- a very unpleasant place, as Bujold's readers know. Ivan is nothing if not chivalrous (and a sucker) where damsels in distress are concerned, so he agrees, reluctantly, to help out. And so, willy-nilly, he finds himself custodian of Tej and her odd-sister Rish (who is very odd indeed). But in his desperate efforts to hold off the local cops and Komarr's immigration authorities, he finds himself -- to his consternation -- getting married. That makes Tej a Barrayanan citizen, Ivan's dependent, and immune to local harassment. Besides, it's only temporary; they can organize a quick divorce as soon as Ivan gets his new wife back home. Right?

You can see where this is going. It all has certain aspects of Shakespearean (as well as Wildean) comedy to it and Bujold has a terrific time spinning out all the plot threads. And, for some reason, the author finds not-unwelcome opportunities for various characters to recount incidents and explain relationships from throughout the earlier books in the series. But you'll definitely find yourself grinning as Ivan tries to retake control of his suddenly overturned life. And you absolutely don't want to miss witnessing the final fate of ImpSec in Chapter 23. Memorable, to say the least. In fact, my only gripe with this book is the terrible cover illustration. It makes Ivan look like a cross between David Schwimmer and Jimmy Durante.

I think this was the most enjoyable Vorkosigan Saga book since "A Civil Campaign", for many of the same reasons that book was fantastic. It is a light-hearted look at family and balancing the obligations of family, friends, and society. Ivan had not been doing a good job of balancing those obligations, and he receives his long-awaited karmic reckoning.

The last 30 or so pages are an absolute riot.

Captain Ivan Vorpatril is exactly where he wants to be - safely ensconced in the Barrayaran military as aide-de-camp to an admiral on the outlying world of Komarr, well away from his mother and the non-stop politics of Vorbarr Sultana, and completely happy that Emperor Gregor Vorbarra and Empress Laisa are having children - each one of them putting him further down the line of imperial succession.

And then Byerly Vorrutyer shows up.

From there, it all goes downhill for poor Ivan, who is the befuddled star of "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance", the latest novel in the Vorkosigan Saga. Ivan is, of course, no match for his more famous cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, when it comes to dealing with strategy and intrigue, which makes Lois McMaster Bujold's choice to feature him in this novel perfect.

Ivan is drafted by Byerly to protect two incredibly attractive women, both of whom belong to the fallen House Cordonah based on Jackson's Whole and are running for their lives. When Ivan does the only thing he can think to do, in the face of Komarran authorities trying to recover his charges - he marries Tej and hires Rish as her right hand - it sets the stage for a return to Barrayar, a failed attempt to get divorced, a meeting with the new in-laws, and a potentially deadly gambit involving lost treasures from a previous Cetagandan occupation.

Unlike "Cryoburn", the novel published just prior to "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance", Ivan gets the benefit from interplay with characters familiar to those who know the Vorkosigan series, including his mother Lady Alys, former Imperial Security chief Simon Illyan, current ImpSec chief Guy Allegre, and Emperor Gregor himself. The Vorkosigans are all off-world for this particular story, though they get a lot of airtime in terms of references. And in a nod back to "Cetaganda", an earlier novel in the series, we find out exactly why the haut-women of that empire are ensconced in force bubbles.

This is not a frenetic story. It moves along at a more leisurely pace, mainly because Ivan moves along at a more leisurely pace. To compare this story to the other stories that center around Miles is a bit disingenuous, but it is a natural comparison to make. But it definitely has its good points, notably that Ivan has, like Miles, found his soulmate.

Bujold redeems herself for "Cyroburn" with this novel. This was a fun read that was long overdue, in terms of giving Ivan a chance to stand out.

While this isn't a top-class LMB book, an average book for her is better than most people can write on their best day.

She sets herself some challenges upfront. Unlike most other books in the Vorkosigan series, this one isn't told from Miles' point of view, which instantly drops the frenetic, mad pace that only Miles can bring. He does get a brief cameo, and looms over the action in his absence. It's not the book with which to start reading the series, by the way, since it's full of unexplained references back to the events of the other books, some of which I missed myself because it has been a while since I read them all through.

It's told from Ivan's third-person limited POV (and that of a new character), and Ivan, while not actually an idiot, is dedicated to the principle that if you keep your head down and wait things out and insist that the mad events are not your fault, things will go much better. He's also resolutely unambitious, since he has a tenuous claim to be Emperor which he has never remotely wanted to assert. All this makes him an unpromising protagonist.

Because LMB is such a good (and well-practiced) writer, she manages to make him a protagonist anyway, by giving him something he cares enough about to fight for. He shows competence, courage and even, by Ivan standards, cunning. And, of course, in her trademark style, the author throws at the characters exactly what they least want to happen, which ramps up the stakes and the tension and drives them to show their essential qualities.

The other viewpoint character (the two switch more-or-less scene by scene) is a Jacksonian Baronette, the daughter of a House Major. She calls Ivan by his first and middle names, Ivan Xav, and I think this is mainly so that we can tell whose point of view we're following at the time. Their voices are not otherwise particularly distinct, so a device like that is needed. She's apparently led a very sheltered life, considering that her parents are basically a cross between gang kingpins, bandit chieftains and warlords; at one point she refers to one of her father's old mercenary mates, apparently unironically, as "a very bad man". She comes across as rather naive for a 25-year-old, in fact, and that didn't completely work for me. In fact, she has a weakness shared by many romance heroines (this isn't solely a romance, but there's a very strong romance plot): it's hard to see in her the positive qualities which are captivating the hero so much. I would have liked to see her with some skill or character strength that makes a clear difference to the resolution of the other parts of the plot, makes her stand out to Ivan from his other girlfriends, and clearly explains the different relationship that he develops with her.

My overall verdict: good, but not great.

Bujold has written many (N>14, as she explains in a note to the latest) books, novellas and stories about the world of Barrayar, its expanding empire and its military mad (but not militaristic) culture. Most of these have been about Miles Vorkosigan: a unique and memorable creation - not that I'm going in to that now. Most of the Miles books have also included his much-abused, much-used, much put-upon and much-underestimated cousin Ivan, who now - and I never imagined I'd say this, finally - gets a book of his own.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance opens with cousin Ivan on Komarr, Barrayar's gateway to the universe, doing the kind of work he loves: predictable, stimulating, and entirely without physical risk. Under other circumstances it would also leave him plenty of time for socialising, but the planet's nights are too short for that. Best of all, his cousin Miles is a world away: happily married, newly a father and unlikely to drag Ivan into another adventure. But of course there are other relatives more than willing to take advantage of Ivan's good nature, sense of honour, and weakness for a pretty (and pneumatic) girl. As a result, Captain Vorpatril finds himself making an unexpected and increasingly complicated alliance, digging for buried treasure, gambling for the fate of worlds and - most surprising of all - making his mother happy.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance has no grand battles, few spaceships (serving only as transport), and little of the intrigues and politicking of the other Barrayar books - although this being Barrayar, and Bujold, there has to be a bit of both. It's more reminiscent of A Civil Campaign than the other Barrayar books, being as much a comedy (truly) of manners and morals as anything else. It's a far more likeable and readable book than Bujold's last, and all the more welcome for being so. I'd even go so far as calling it a return to form: cleverly and tightly written, amusing in places, insightful throughout. The pace isn't exactly breakneck but neither does it drag: it draws you in on a pleasant ride to a satisfying, somewhat predictable (but no less satisfying for being predictable) conclusion.

Like I said, I never thought I'd see or welcome an Ivan-centred book. Of course Miles Vorkosigan gets a look in - Bujold wouldn't dare not give him a walk-on role - but as I think I've said, in many ways his story is done. It's hard to see where else Bujold could take that wonderful character, short of backfilling imagined gaps in his imagined history. But Barrayar the world and the panoply of characters Bujold has populated it with do offer scope for more. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance makes me hope for more - in a way that Cryoburn most definitely didn't.

DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU'VE READ MOST OF THE REST OF THE MILES/BARRAYAR NOVELS. Or it will seem very thin fare indeed; if I didn't already know Ivan, and didn't already wish him a happy ending, this book would not have been nearly as satisfying.

The novel centers around Miles' big, less intelligent, very good-looking cousin Ivan, and it's obvious early on it's really centered on Ivan's big romance, and nope, this isn't going to be Anna Karenina.

Summary (no spoilers): Ivan isn't as much of an idiot when Miles isn't present and thinking of everything first; Ivan accidentally gets a woman who suits him quite well; Ivan has good friends.

(Outline - very mild spoilers): The book starts out in a fun, somewhat Miles-like case of subterfuge and shenanigans, but unlike a Miles plot (where more and more layers are always discovered) things fairly quickly get sorted out, and then it's time for Ivan's girl to meet his family and friends (everyone's perfect) and later for Ivan to meet her family (everyone's a snake, but a pack of snakes that loves Ivan's girl, even if she is oddly un-snake-like.) No surprise, the un-snake-like girl finds Ivan even more attractive when she hangs out with her relatives.

All of which makes this book sound like a terrible read, but I liked it. The first half of the book is very pleasant, the second half...not so much, but still quite readable.

There were a couple of plot holes that were only partially filled in; it would give away too much to discuss them in detail and exactly why I didn't feel they'd been resolved. I find their existence a bit alarming appearing in the normally solid explanations I expect from Bujold.

Just so reviewers know, I love Bujold's Barrayar books to begin with, so I went into this expecting to be enchanted -- and was!

Our hero this time out is Ivan Vorpatril, who has been a very nicely developed character through the series, but not one that we're as familiar with as we are with his cousin Miles. It was a refreshing change, even if it does seem to be a one-off story, sadly. Ivan's girl-chasing ways have been well-documented in the series, as has been his lack of desire to reach higher professionally, and those traits are played against well in this story. Ivan finds himself in a situation that changes his life, and forces him to make choices he probably wouldn't rather make. It's a great story from beginning to end, a wonderful tale of romance, politics, revenge, honor and duty. The characters are deep, the story pure fun. And Bujold also makes sure that there are lots of cameos from other characters that series readers have come to know and love, of course.

My only thought is that readers who aren't familiar with the Barrayar books probably won't get as much entertainment from the story. I would recommend starting with the first book in the series, and would definitely recommend reading the series, but even without reading everything that has gone before, Bujold does a really good job explaining the world she's creative and I think that the book would be a good read without the multi-book background. Just not AS good.

I loved the book, and can't wait to see what Bujold has in store for us next!

"I think I was six before I realized that "That Idiot" was not Ivan's first name" - Miles Vorkosigan
This is a story in which the main character is the fellow that has, before this, played the comic-relief sidekick in all of his previous appearances.
I've been following the Vorkosigan Saga for a long time, since reading "The Weatherman" in Analog Magazine in 1990. We've seen Ivan grow from a squalling babe, born into the howling chaos of a Civil War, growing to manhood as the son of a widow, playing the buffoon so as not to become a focus of political strife - and finally, he is free of that.
The Succession is assured, his Cousin Miles is no longer in the Service...the only flaw is that Ivan is, for the first time in his life, lonely. He's finally ready to find a nice girl and settle down, but there's a shortage of suitable women.
And so, like any Bujold Hero, his dilemma is solved for him - by having a crazy situation dumped in his lap.
A simple favor for his cousin Byerly turns into a kidnapping, along with an investigation into the theft of Government equipment, and -oh, the pretty girl he's helping is an illegal immigrant, as well as being chased by alien bounty hunters.
Like any Bujold Story, the situation is totally unpredictable - and do not bother to read the last page, as you will NEVER guess how Ivan got from page one to the last page.
In fact, I invite you to try that - read page one, then read the last page - and THEN read everything in between...in a good book, that INCREASES the anticipation - "how the heck did he -?"

Ever-chivalrous and easy-going Ivan Vorpatril agrees to rescue a damsel in distress and ends up in a most hilarious, totally unexpected relationship. This alliance involves not only the damsel, but a merry band of avaricious Arquas from Jackson's Whole. The plot's chain of events leads to a climax every bit as spectacular and unforeseen as the famous dinner scene in "A Civil Campaign." The wrap-up is a combination of fascinating scientific principles in action and the unplanned but inevitable consequences of said principles. Enjoy!

Finally, Lois has written a book for those of us who wanted to learn more about Ivan Vorpatril, one of her more amusing and interesting side characters. As the book opens, Ivan is on Komarr as the aide to an important admiral. In his mid-30's he's still the bachelor playboy he has always been but is perhaps just a bit tired of it all. One day he is approached by his sort-of friend and covert ImpSec operative Byerly with a simple request: Romance a beautiful woman. What could be easier for a guy like Ivan? But very quickly this simple request goes amusingly, and dangerously, sideways. Soon Ivan finds himself at the center of kidnapping plots and galactic politics as he must struggle to save both the fair damsel in distress and his career. At the same time his personal life is upended in ways he never expected.

And through it all Ivan is revealed as a far more three-dimensional character than in previous books. No longer just Miles' foil, he is revealed as highly competent, clever, resourceful and able to think quickly under pressure. While I was at first just a little skeptical that an Ivan story would be able to carry an entire book I'm happy to report that my concerns were unfounded as Lois comes through once again for her readers.

The book ends with a note by the author concerning the order in which the books should be read. This, coupled with the fact that her characters are now comfortably domesticated leads me to believe that she has wrapped up the Vorkosigan saga with this novel. If so, thank you Lois for a great ride and for leaving us these wonderful books to be reread and savored.

This is one of Bujold's Georgette Heyer romances (the light comedic ones, not the melodramas). It has some science fictional elements (biological/genetic division) mostly Macguffin-ish, some space opera (colonized planets, spaceships) that's mostly window dressing. At its heart, it's the story of an unambitious aristocrat, Ivan Vorpatril, and his marriage of convenience, which leads to true love, to Tej, refugee from a coup and daughter of one of those families whose eccentricities and machinations the hero has to contend with--in this case as they seek to obtain the financing needed to regain their position by undermining the fearsome Barrayaran ImpSec (pun intended). Though there are counterparts to this family in Heyer and other, chiefly English, writers, I was most reminded of the Lampreys from Ngaio Marsh's A Surfeit of Lampreys (U.S. title: The Death of a Peer). Various characters from the Vorkosigan universe put in cameo appearances. The first half of the book had me grinning a lot; the second half bogged down a little; the ending was satisfying. I read the e-book edition, bought directly from the publisher. Note to Georgette Heyer wannabes: This is how it's done. You don't need the Regency or Georgian background; not every hero has to be a Byronic duke. You do need the sense of humor.

Ivan finally gets his own adventure and Mile's hapless cousin/sidekick is hap-full in this romantic comedy turned heist. With touching insights to what makes Ivan tick - a burning desire to stay as far from the Imperial Campstool as possible included - CVA is an endlessly delightful opportunity to see Barrayar through his eyes. And, while there are so very many gifts for long term fans, this is an entirely self-contained side story.

Captain Ivan Vorpatril is exactly where he wants to be - safely ensconced in the Barrayaran military as aide-de-camp to an admiral on the outlying world of Komarr, well away from his mother and the non-stop politics of Vorbarr Sultana, and completely happy that Emperor Gregor Vorbarra and Empress Laisa are having children - each one of them putting him further down the line of imperial succession.

And then Byerly Vorrutyer shows up.

From there, it all goes downhill for poor Ivan, who is the befuddled star of "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance", the latest novel in the Vorkosigan Saga. Ivan is, of course, no match for his more famous cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, when it comes to dealing with strategy and intrigue, which makes Lois McMaster Bujold's choice to feature him in this novel perfect.

Ivan is drafted by Byerly to protect two incredibly attractive women, both of whom belong to the fallen House Cordonah based on Jackson's Whole and are running for their lives. When Ivan does the only thing he can think to do, in the face of Komarran authorities trying to recover his charges - he marries Tej and hires Rish as her right hand - it sets the stage for a return to Barrayar, a failed attempt to get divorced, a meeting with the new in-laws, and a potentially deadly gambit involving lost treasures from a previous Cetagandan occupation.

Unlike "Cryoburn", the novel published just prior to "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance", Ivan gets the benefit from interplay with characters familiar to those who know the Vorkosigan series, including his mother Lady Alys, former Imperial Security chief Simon Illyan, current ImpSec chief Guy Allegre, and Emperor Gregor himself. The Vorkosigans are all off-world for this particular story, though they get a lot of airtime in terms of references. And in a nod back to "Cetaganda", an earlier novel in the series, we find out exactly why the haut-women of that empire are ensconced in force bubbles.

This is not a frenetic story. It moves along at a more leisurely pace, mainly because Ivan moves along at a more leisurely pace. To compare this story to the other stories that center around Miles is a bit disingenuous, but it is a natural comparison to make. But it definitely has its good points, notably that Ivan has, like Miles, found his soulmate.

Bujold redeems herself for "Cyroburn" with this novel. This was a fun read that was long overdue, in terms of giving Ivan a chance to stand out.

While this isn't a top-class LMB book, an average book for her is better than most people can write on their best day.

She sets herself some challenges upfront. Unlike most other books in the Vorkosigan series, this one isn't told from Miles' point of view, which instantly drops the frenetic, mad pace that only Miles can bring. He does get a brief cameo, and looms over the action in his absence. It's not the book with which to start reading the series, by the way, since it's full of unexplained references back to the events of the other books, some of which I missed myself because it has been a while since I read them all through.

It's told from Ivan's third-person limited POV (and that of a new character), and Ivan, while not actually an idiot, is dedicated to the principle that if you keep your head down and wait things out and insist that the mad events are not your fault, things will go much better. He's also resolutely unambitious, since he has a tenuous claim to be Emperor which he has never remotely wanted to assert. All this makes him an unpromising protagonist.

Because LMB is such a good (and well-practiced) writer, she manages to make him a protagonist anyway, by giving him something he cares enough about to fight for. He shows competence, courage and even, by Ivan standards, cunning. And, of course, in her trademark style, the author throws at the characters exactly what they least want to happen, which ramps up the stakes and the tension and drives them to show their essential qualities.

The other viewpoint character (the two switch more-or-less scene by scene) is a Jacksonian Baronette, the daughter of a House Major. She calls Ivan by his first and middle names, Ivan Xav, and I think this is mainly so that we can tell whose point of view we're following at the time. Their voices are not otherwise particularly distinct, so a device like that is needed. She's apparently led a very sheltered life, considering that her parents are basically a cross between gang kingpins, bandit chieftains and warlords; at one point she refers to one of her father's old mercenary mates, apparently unironically, as "a very bad man". She comes across as rather naive for a 25-year-old, in fact, and that didn't completely work for me. In fact, she has a weakness shared by many romance heroines (this isn't solely a romance, but there's a very strong romance plot): it's hard to see in her the positive qualities which are captivating the hero so much. I would have liked to see her with some skill or character strength that makes a clear difference to the resolution of the other parts of the plot, makes her stand out to Ivan from his other girlfriends, and clearly explains the different relationship that he develops with her.

My overall verdict: good, but not great.

I have to say that Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my absolute favorite authors. I have read and reread many of her books and know that I will again. This is definitely one that I will reread.

Ivan has always been in the background, but he started making his way to the foreground in A Civil Campaign (probably my VERY favorite Miles story). In this one, he has come into his own, along with Byerly Vorrutyer. The story starts out moving right along and doesn't slow down until you hit the end (which had me giggling quite a bit). I won't tell you any more, as I hate when reviews tell you the whole story line.

Bujold makes you laugh and think, which I think are two of her greatest strengths as an author. If you like your sci fi mixed with some humor and lots of adventure/misadventure, then this is the story for you. If you don't know the Miles books, read this one. At the back is a chronology so that you can read them all in order. If you do know the Miles books, I think you will love this, even though Miles is only a peripheral character.

Thank you, Lois McMaster Bujold for a super read, and thank you Mom and Andrea for getting me all the books that I wanted this Christmas!

Bujold has written many (N>14, as she explains in a note to the latest) books, novellas and stories about the world of Barrayar, its expanding empire and its military mad (but not militaristic) culture. Most of these have been about Miles Vorkosigan: a unique and memorable creation - not that I'm going in to that now. Most of the Miles books have also included his much-abused, much-used, much put-upon and much-underestimated cousin Ivan, who now - and I never imagined I'd say this, finally - gets a book of his own.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance opens with cousin Ivan on Komarr, Barrayar's gateway to the universe, doing the kind of work he loves: predictable, stimulating, and entirely without physical risk. Under other circumstances it would also leave him plenty of time for socialising, but the planet's nights are too short for that. Best of all, his cousin Miles is a world away: happily married, newly a father and unlikely to drag Ivan into another adventure. But of course there are other relatives more than willing to take advantage of Ivan's good nature, sense of honour, and weakness for a pretty (and pneumatic) girl. As a result, Captain Vorpatril finds himself making an unexpected and increasingly complicated alliance, digging for buried treasure, gambling for the fate of worlds and - most surprising of all - making his mother happy.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance has no grand battles, few spaceships (serving only as transport), and little of the intrigues and politicking of the other Barrayar books - although this being Barrayar, and Bujold, there has to be a bit of both. It's more reminiscent of A Civil Campaign than the other Barrayar books, being as much a comedy (truly) of manners and morals as anything else. It's a far more likeable and readable book than Bujold's last, and all the more welcome for being so. I'd even go so far as calling it a return to form: cleverly and tightly written, amusing in places, insightful throughout. The pace isn't exactly breakneck but neither does it drag: it draws you in on a pleasant ride to a satisfying, somewhat predictable (but no less satisfying for being predictable) conclusion.

Like I said, I never thought I'd see or welcome an Ivan-centred book. Of course Miles Vorkosigan gets a look in - Bujold wouldn't dare not give him a walk-on role - but as I think I've said, in many ways his story is done. It's hard to see where else Bujold could take that wonderful character, short of backfilling imagined gaps in his imagined history. But Barrayar the world and the panoply of characters Bujold has populated it with do offer scope for more. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance makes me hope for more - in a way that Cryoburn most definitely didn't.

DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU'VE READ MOST OF THE REST OF THE MILES/BARRAYAR NOVELS. Or it will seem very thin fare indeed; if I didn't already know Ivan, and didn't already wish him a happy ending, this book would not have been nearly as satisfying.

The novel centers around Miles' big, less intelligent, very good-looking cousin Ivan, and it's obvious early on it's really centered on Ivan's big romance, and nope, this isn't going to be Anna Karenina.

Summary (no spoilers): Ivan isn't as much of an idiot when Miles isn't present and thinking of everything first; Ivan accidentally gets a woman who suits him quite well; Ivan has good friends.

(Outline - very mild spoilers): The book starts out in a fun, somewhat Miles-like case of subterfuge and shenanigans, but unlike a Miles plot (where more and more layers are always discovered) things fairly quickly get sorted out, and then it's time for Ivan's girl to meet his family and friends (everyone's perfect) and later for Ivan to meet her family (everyone's a snake, but a pack of snakes that loves Ivan's girl, even if she is oddly un-snake-like.) No surprise, the un-snake-like girl finds Ivan even more attractive when she hangs out with her relatives.

All of which makes this book sound like a terrible read, but I liked it. The first half of the book is very pleasant, the second half...not so much, but still quite readable.

There were a couple of plot holes that were only partially filled in; it would give away too much to discuss them in detail and exactly why I didn't feel they'd been resolved. I find their existence a bit alarming appearing in the normally solid explanations I expect from Bujold.

Just so reviewers know, I love Bujold's Barrayar books to begin with, so I went into this expecting to be enchanted -- and was!

Our hero this time out is Ivan Vorpatril, who has been a very nicely developed character through the series, but not one that we're as familiar with as we are with his cousin Miles. It was a refreshing change, even if it does seem to be a one-off story, sadly. Ivan's girl-chasing ways have been well-documented in the series, as has been his lack of desire to reach higher professionally, and those traits are played against well in this story. Ivan finds himself in a situation that changes his life, and forces him to make choices he probably wouldn't rather make. It's a great story from beginning to end, a wonderful tale of romance, politics, revenge, honor and duty. The characters are deep, the story pure fun. And Bujold also makes sure that there are lots of cameos from other characters that series readers have come to know and love, of course.

My only thought is that readers who aren't familiar with the Barrayar books probably won't get as much entertainment from the story. I would recommend starting with the first book in the series, and would definitely recommend reading the series, but even without reading everything that has gone before, Bujold does a really good job explaining the world she's creative and I think that the book would be a good read without the multi-book background. Just not AS good.

I loved the book, and can't wait to see what Bujold has in store for us next!

"I think I was six before I realized that "That Idiot" was not Ivan's first name" - Miles Vorkosigan
This is a story in which the main character is the fellow that has, before this, played the comic-relief sidekick in all of his previous appearances.
I've been following the Vorkosigan Saga for a long time, since reading "The Weatherman" in Analog Magazine in 1990. We've seen Ivan grow from a squalling babe, born into the howling chaos of a Civil War, growing to manhood as the son of a widow, playing the buffoon so as not to become a focus of political strife - and finally, he is free of that.
The Succession is assured, his Cousin Miles is no longer in the Service...the only flaw is that Ivan is, for the first time in his life, lonely. He's finally ready to find a nice girl and settle down, but there's a shortage of suitable women.
And so, like any Bujold Hero, his dilemma is solved for him - by having a crazy situation dumped in his lap.
A simple favor for his cousin Byerly turns into a kidnapping, along with an investigation into the theft of Government equipment, and -oh, the pretty girl he's helping is an illegal immigrant, as well as being chased by alien bounty hunters.
Like any Bujold Story, the situation is totally unpredictable - and do not bother to read the last page, as you will NEVER guess how Ivan got from page one to the last page.
In fact, I invite you to try that - read page one, then read the last page - and THEN read everything in between...in a good book, that INCREASES the anticipation - "how the heck did he -?"

Ever-chivalrous and easy-going Ivan Vorpatril agrees to rescue a damsel in distress and ends up in a most hilarious, totally unexpected relationship. This alliance involves not only the damsel, but a merry band of avaricious Arquas from Jackson's Whole. The plot's chain of events leads to a climax every bit as spectacular and unforeseen as the famous dinner scene in "A Civil Campaign." The wrap-up is a combination of fascinating scientific principles in action and the unplanned but inevitable consequences of said principles. Enjoy!

Finally, Lois has written a book for those of us who wanted to learn more about Ivan Vorpatril, one of her more amusing and interesting side characters. As the book opens, Ivan is on Komarr as the aide to an important admiral. In his mid-30's he's still the bachelor playboy he has always been but is perhaps just a bit tired of it all. One day he is approached by his sort-of friend and covert ImpSec operative Byerly with a simple request: Romance a beautiful woman. What could be easier for a guy like Ivan? But very quickly this simple request goes amusingly, and dangerously, sideways. Soon Ivan finds himself at the center of kidnapping plots and galactic politics as he must struggle to save both the fair damsel in distress and his career. At the same time his personal life is upended in ways he never expected.

And through it all Ivan is revealed as a far more three-dimensional character than in previous books. No longer just Miles' foil, he is revealed as highly competent, clever, resourceful and able to think quickly under pressure. While I was at first just a little skeptical that an Ivan story would be able to carry an entire book I'm happy to report that my concerns were unfounded as Lois comes through once again for her readers.

The book ends with a note by the author concerning the order in which the books should be read. This, coupled with the fact that her characters are now comfortably domesticated leads me to believe that she has wrapped up the Vorkosigan saga with this novel. If so, thank you Lois for a great ride and for leaving us these wonderful books to be reread and savored.

This is one of Bujold's Georgette Heyer romances (the light comedic ones, not the melodramas). It has some science fictional elements (biological/genetic division) mostly Macguffin-ish, some space opera (colonized planets, spaceships) that's mostly window dressing. At its heart, it's the story of an unambitious aristocrat, Ivan Vorpatril, and his marriage of convenience, which leads to true love, to Tej, refugee from a coup and daughter of one of those families whose eccentricities and machinations the hero has to contend with--in this case as they seek to obtain the financing needed to regain their position by undermining the fearsome Barrayaran ImpSec (pun intended). Though there are counterparts to this family in Heyer and other, chiefly English, writers, I was most reminded of the Lampreys from Ngaio Marsh's A Surfeit of Lampreys (U.S. title: The Death of a Peer). Various characters from the Vorkosigan universe put in cameo appearances. The first half of the book had me grinning a lot; the second half bogged down a little; the ending was satisfying. I read the e-book edition, bought directly from the publisher. Note to Georgette Heyer wannabes: This is how it's done. You don't need the Regency or Georgian background; not every hero has to be a Byronic duke. You do need the sense of humor.

First and foremost, I really, really enjoyed the book and pretty much read it in a couple of sittings over Christmas break.
Bujold not only is a good author, she is a smart author - rather than go to the well one more time with Miles Vorkosigan she instead writes her latest novel about a lesser character in the Vorkosigan universe: his "n'er-do-well" cousin Ivan. "N'er-do-well" is a relative term -- anyone in comparison to the hyper overachieving Miles might suffer in comparison. Still, Ivan meets and rescues a "princess" and her guardian fleeing from enemy forces who have overthrown the family's "kingdom" on -- wait for it -- Jackson's Whole. (Shades of Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress"...) It gets better: there is a Cetagandan tie-in. The novel is a great romp, and to avoid spoilers, I'll stop here. However, Bujold introduces enough new characters and enemies to provide material for two or three new novels in the Vorkosigan saga while keeping things fresh. And as always with her novels, the novel is focused on people rather than theneat technology they use, which is why she has a pile of writing awards.

Totally awesome. I love this series and Ivan's book was such FUN. I spent most of the book with an ear to ear grin. Just one scene with Miles (which is good, or he would have taken over) but some lovely character moments with Lady Alys and Simon Illyan, plus the reappearance of Byerly Vorrutyer. And, OMG the scene with Count Falco... And the ending, and, and, it's killing me not to give spoilers. Loved this book. If husband wasn't reading it, I'd probably be rereading my fave scenes right now.

"Ivan, you idiot!" is the way that most of the other characters in the Vorkosigan series address Ivan Vorpatril, Miles Vorkosigan's cousin. Ivan isn't as sharp or as ambitious as his cousin Miles, but he isn't stupid. He's smart enough to realise that he's a potential claimant to the throne if anything happens to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra. On Barrayar, that makes him a magnet for plots: those who want to use him for their own ends, and those who want to prevent others from using him. He lacks enough wealth and power in his own right to protect himself, so he disguises himself as a non-entity: a Vor class playboy lacking ability and ambition.

In previous Vorkosigan Saga novels, he's been absent or merely a bit player, a tall handsome Vor cousin to Miles, acting as comic relief and contrast to his brilliant cousin. He takes centre stage in this novel. Ivan's abhorred cousin Byerly Vorrutyer (previously appearing in A Civil Campaign IIRC) ropes Ivan into one of his plots. Shortly afterwards, Ivan is kidnapped by a pair of beautiful women and marries one of them, with the aid of a box of breakfast cereal, to prevent them both from getting arrested (trust me, it makes sense in the book). After that, things start to get complicated. The climax is a twist you will never see coming, but in retrospect makes perfect sense. It is at its heart a love story, and I found it a bit frustrating in parts, yelling "Just tell each other how you feel already!" at the screen (I read the Kindle edition). Not the strongest book in the series but still satisfying.

Having read every book Bujold has written, I didn't hesitate to grab the hardbound edition of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance as soon as it became available. I figured it would keep me well-occupied on a cross-country plane trip, which it surely did. The problem came about a quarter of the way into the book when I kept breaking out into uncontrollable laughter, which I was sometimes able to choke down into mild chortling. This provoked a bit of curious staring from other passengers on the flight, but since my own attention was concentrated on the book it didn't really concern me.

I was originally leery about Bujold devoting a whole book to Ivan Vorpatril. It seemed a stretch to elevate him into a major character, and I half-expected that she'd have Miles Vorkosigan sweep in at some point to salvage the situation. WRONG! Bujold instead demonstrates what a brilliant writer she is, creating one of the cleverest and most enjoyable books in the series. As much as I like Miles, this proves that he doesn't have to always be the focal point of the Vorkosigan universe. There are lots of other stories still out there, which I devoutly hope Lois McMaster Bujold will tell to us in coming years.

Ivan Vorpatril is one of Barrayar's most eligible bachelors and notorious rakes, but now in his mid-thirties he is finding his life of chasing women and partying is no longer as satisfying as it once was. On assignment to Komarr, his path crosses of that of two fugitives from a coup on Jackson's Whole and his attempts to help only make things worse...and change his life forever.

The most interesting thing about the Vorkosigan Saga has been Lois McMaster Bujold's willingness to experiment, switch protagonists and POVs and generally not sit still and bash out a load of action-adventure novels. Her willingness to put the series on hold for years at a time until she has a good idea for a new book has also helped it retain a high level of quality.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is one of the lighter novels in the series. It is a romantic farce with an underlying adventure story and also dwells on the notion of ageing, growing up and maturing, a theme of Bujold's that she returns to repeatedly in the later books in the series. Using Ivan, Miles's womanising cousin with no interest in settling down, to explore this theme is extremely effective. It would have been easy to have done a "growing and learning" story in which Ivan suddenly mans up and accepts responsibility, but this would not have been true to the character. Instead Bujold develops Ivan's character (and, we realise, how she's been developing it subtly in the background all along) naturally and much more convincingly, by having him fall for a woman who seems to be right up his street (superficial and pretty) but whose hidden depths and complex background make her a lot more interesting.

These elements of growth and change are accompanied by some quite uproariously hilarious scenes, some nice catching-up moments with old characters who we haven't seen for a while (most notably Simon Illyan) and some more musings on the changing nature of Barryaran society, which are all handled quite well.

On the downside, the novel is a bit too long (over 500 pages) to support a slight premise and the lack of some well-motivated villains (we never even meet the bad guys who set the whole story in motion) and there are a few too many scenes of Tej's family scheming or Ivan feeling overwhelmed. A bit more of a serious editing pass to streamline the book would not have gone amiss.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (****) is not one of the best books in the series and could be a bit better paced, but it remains well-written with a refreshing focus on the characters and how they have evolved over the years, with some nice SF flourishes and very funny moments.

At the prodding of an ImpSec agent, Ivan "You Idiot" Vorpatril, cousin, sometime boss, sidekick, and victim of Miles Vorkosigan, rescues a pair of ladies in distress - who turn out to be "nobility" (mafia princesses?) from the lawless world of Jackson's Whole.

His homeworld, Barrayar, subsequently invaded by their Adams-like family looking to "save" their daughters and round up some loot. Naturally, they engage in a contest with Ivan's family and friends to see who is more wily, underhanded, and casually bloodthirsty. Poor Ivan, who is not an idiot, is caught in between.

It is a great read - very funny, no one dies on-stage, and yet stuff STILL manages blow up!

I *love* the rest of the Vorkosigan series, but this one needed some stronger editing. There were a handful of sentences that literally didn't make sense, but most of all, I felt the book often got bogged down by needless begats and detailed descriptions of historical events. While it needed a firm hand to scrape out several unnecessary bits, and to trim some slow spots, it was still charming and worth reading. Bujold has a knack for making lovable, interesting characters, and it's interesting to see these side characters being given center stage after so many years.

Captain Ivan Vorpatril's not sure he wants to open the door. In his split second of hesitation, the informer for Imperial Security slips into his apartment, dragging another new scheme with him. "I'd like you to pick up a girl."

It's delicate work in a nexus city lousy with smugglers. Mistakes are embarrassing, especially if they involve accusations of principals with powerful relatives. The girl in question may be in mortal danger, Byerly blithely tells his friend, but By doesn't have time to deal with such "side issues".

The lady is question, sherry-eyed Tej, knows she's being stalked. Seconds later, a stun beam knocks Ivan flat. The groggy Aide-de-Camp finds himself face to face with the strangely beautiful blue Jewel, Rish, Tej's brave defender. Dragged bodily upstairs to their apartment, Ivan is bound to a chair as his captors contemplate what to do with their uninvited guest.

This latest adventure from Louis McMaster Bujold explodes in a marvelous entanglement of alliances, family loyalties, passions and greed. Sarcasm, subtle humor, and riotous comedy pepper the novel. Lively scenes propelled me through amazing escapades in a universe rife with political intrigue.

A most ingenious and moving read!
Kate Calina

The latest installment in this long running series. In this book, Bujold switched protagonists by making the unambitious but dutiful (and chivalrous) Ivan Vorpatril the hero. As readers of this series know, Ivan usually appears as a hapless straightman for the usual hero, Ivan's hyperactive cousin Miles Vorkosigan. The latter does not appear in this book, which may disappoint some but this book is probably better than the last couple of novels starring Miles Vorkosigan. Bujold, who has real talent as a comedic writer, successfully incorporates some farcial elements into this book. There is an enjoyable expansion of her future history, and like all her books, the quality of writing is quite good.

This book is a delight.

I've been tracking Ivan through the Vorkosigan Saga, from the early "Ivan You Idiot" references. Yet he never actually did anything idiotic, after he was a kid. In a family of driven geniuses, a merely clever unambitious fellow doesn't shine.

But there is a moment in Civil Campaign which promised that Ivan's story would be told, and Bujold has made good.

One problem that is showing up in series, is the author finds herself compelled to put her character through worse and worse situations, to the point where the reader, as the empath, is subjected to torture, assault, and misery from one end to the other. (An example is the excellent Nevada Barr series, where Anna Pidgeon at this point has been driven to the point of a nervous breakdown, and had to leave her employment as National Park Ranger which was the fuel of the stories).

Bujold has the ability to leaven the pain and passion of her stories with joy, which is what makes them so readable.

Ivan is catapulted into an adventure of deception, romance, intrigue, treasure-hunting, and detective work that is hard to put down. Seeing the Vorkosigan menage from Ivan's point of view is a sideways take on the world that offers an intriguing and enjoyable new perspective.

How did I get into this mess? Miles isn't even here
...and done!

As for review: this is a book about Ivan Vorpatril - if you don't know who Ivan is, go get a book from Bujold's Vor-saga - it's one of the best space opera/comedy out there. If you do know Ivan, then you don't need another reason to buy it - because everybody loves Ivan (if you don't like Ivan then you are probably a heartless Cetagandian).
Alliance is a romantic comedy/adventure, a bit like Civil Campaign, except without Miles, who makes only a brief appearance, but with a lot of other familiar characters from Byerly to Gregor. Includes bounty hunters, renegade Jacksonians, hidden treasures and a lot of Ivan. The only disadvantage that it's too short.

I'm a huge fan of the Vorkosigan series, and with the exception of a few "side stories" (Winterfair, Ethan of Athos)I've loved every one. Of course the best Vorkosigan books have plenty of Miles in them, but the pre-Miles books were good, too. I've always found Ivan to be an interesting character, so I was kind of excited to see what Lois might do with him as the star of his own title. I wonder if she is still wondering what to do with him, because she did little or nothing with him in this book.

It starts out with an interesting premise, and the "accidental" marriage could have been--should have been-- full of sparks, but when Bujold wrote Ivan like oatmeal and Tej, his new bride, like wall-paper paste, and then threw in a tedious family plot that went on forever with a climax that was hardly a climax at all, and then a "wrap up" that went down uninteresting side trails and probably the most boring epilogue ever written, I was left saying, "What the hell, Lois?"

Is this a case of getting too famous to listen to an editor or did her editor go on vacation?

Lois knows how to write Miles--maybe she better stick with him.

Before I even start, I'd like to point out that, despite the immense amount of respect I have for Ms Bujold as a writer of fiction, this is about the worst cover I've ever seen on a novel. I have no idea how much control she has over such things (and maybe she even liked this) but it looks like a mishmash of garish SF, torrid romance novel and a little bit extra added for people who have a blue person fetish. As the pharaoh said to Darth Vader in that movie set in the museum, "There's just too much going on." And how is the girl on the right laying with putting her spine out of joint? Goodness, people!

Okay, end of aesthetic critique. Fortunately, the contents do not really reflect the cover and make a better case for themselves. As a number of people have probably already pointed out, this could be construed as a standalone story, but at the same time isn't the best place to start. For the first time, Miles' cousin Ivan takes center stage and with Miles off doing other stuff for ninety-nine percent of the book, Ivan and a bunch of the less well known supporting characters take center stage and have a chance to engage in their own semi-hilarious hijinks. People who read it for the hijinks are probably going to come away thinking this is an above-average space opera effort with a protagonist who seems to be going out of his way to not be a hero. People who have been reading all along are going to find the waters running much deeper here, and for good reason.

One of the pleasures of reading a long string of these novels has been watching not only the main character grow and change, but also what happens to everyone around him. When Ivan was first introduced, he often functioned as comic relief, the polar opposite in terms of ambition and drive to his more hyperkinetic cousin, constantly getting entangled in Miles' schemes either though the short man's machinations or simply out of familial loyalty. But Bujold always made clear that Ivan's fondest desire was to amount to little more than the next conquest and a steady paycheck that didn't require him to sweat too hard, he was a capable person in his own right, smart when he needed to be and possessed of his own moral compass. Anyone looks like a dim bulb compared to Miles but Ivan was given plenty of opportunities in subplots to prove that not only he could he function on his own but that there was a reason why Miles often trusted him enough to dump the crap jobs on him.

Ivan initially worked as a womanizing pleasure seeking contrast to Miles but with the gradual aging of the characters, what seems awesome at twenty-five becomes much less awesome at thirty-five, especially when the pool of eligible ladies starts to dry up. With everyone around him getting married, it was clear in "A Civil Campaign" that Ivan was starting to suffer a crisis of conscience, wondering if chasing the fine, fine ladies was all he was meant to do for the rest of his life.

Here, Bujold gives him a chance to do all of his growing up at once. On a mission with his admiral to Komarr, he runs into his cousin Byerly, who is a deep cover secret ops agent. Byerly, Miles-style, entangles him in a vaguely sketched out scheme where Ivan has to keep track of two beautiful ladies for reasons that don't matter too much when Ivan figures out that they're beautiful. It's a nice diversion from his regular duties, until they stun him. Then he finds out people are after them. Backed into a corner, Ivan does the thing that clearly makes the most sense at the time: he marries the hotter one. Hey, wouldn't you?

The consequences of this play out throughout the novel, and as typical with the later period Bujold novels the plot falls by the wayside a bit as she explores the character interactions and examines how the addition of someone new shifts the dynamics in the loose circle of friends and family that make up the rather extensive (by this point) core cast. She gets a lot of mileage out of everyone's reactions to Ivan bringing an actual girl back to the homestead that is going to stay more than a night, even as both parties insist that the marriage is only temporary and of convenience. Raise your hand if you believe this is possible. At times she seems to be making up for lost time and apologizing for having most of the cast missing from the last two novels by cramming in every secondary character she can to play against Ivan. As smooth as Bujold's writing is and as entertaining as these interactions are, at times it feels like we've done this kind of thing before, most recently with Ekaterin (like her, Tej is a fairly nice, somewhat shy outside person who we get a different perspective on the cast, understandably dazzled and finding them all a bit nuts) and there's not much new to add here except we get to check in on these people a few years since we last saw them. For new readers, these sections are going to feel a bit "inside baseball", as it were, alternating between exposition that the oldtimers are already familiar with and asides that work like in-jokes that the more experienced will laugh at, but the newbies will scratch their heads at. This far into it, it seems like Bujold is still trying to figure out how to balance these concerns, to keep it accessible without boring the core audience.

Still, she's able to keep it light-hearted and fun for the most part, as you'd expect with anything involving (all together now) Ivan-you-idiot. People who had been waiting for a true followup from the tragic news that ended the last novel are going to be disappointed as this is set a few years before, so we're not treated to a glimpse of what the new status quo will be, and I wonder if Bujold went this route because she's not sure where to go from there without drastically changing the series. Or maybe she just wanted to turn Ivan into a functioning adult, finally.

And she succeeds, honestly. As the plot worms its way back into the book, with Tej's family reappearing with their own agenda, Ivan is forced to assess what he wants to do with his life and how he expects to see himself. This leads into several nice moments and at least deeply emotional one, as Ivan and Tej finally sit down to have a "what-are-we-doing-here" chat, showing a surprising amount of depth to a character who previously had been treated like a comical pack mule with a slight case of claustrophobia. He gets to rise to the occasion without breaking character, and if anyone's been reading all along it shouldn't come as a surprise. While his arc doesn't directly parallel Miles', it's clear that he has an arc of sorts and part of the joy of reading this is watching someone who is inherently decent figure out what he wants and then achieve that simply because he's capable and decent (even as it seems that Bujold is saying everyone's ultimate goal in life is to be married, or at least partnered). As I said, this is definitely a light-hearted entry into the series, as there never really seems to be a sense of menace or urgency and in fact nobody in the book is really "bad" in the classical sense, which works because it's Ivan's story. Miles is a deeper character and with him she can explore deeper and heavier concerns. With Ivan, you can take pleasure in simply watching someone win, even if he can't quite explain how he pulled it off. It's worth it for those reasons, and essential in watching the evolution of these people. They hardly remain static and yet stay themselves, which after all these years is a feat in itself. I suspect the next novel is going to be rough-going emotionally, however. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

This book is a gloriously fun romp through Komarr, Barrayar and (tangentially) Jackson's Whole, with the apparently hapless Ivan Vorpatril at the center of events. It is enormous fun to watch Ivan -- who is not nearly as dumb as he goes to great length to appear to be -- try to make nice with the family of his offworld paramour. This might be one of my favorite Bujold books, although there are five or six contenders for that title -- if that's not an endorsement of this author, I'm not sure what is. Give her a try. You will very quickly get sucked in, but in the nicest possible way.

Great story, great narration! I read the book, but then when I listened to Grover Gardener's masterful reading of the book I found whole levels to the story that I had missed the first time around. Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the best story crafters out there, with a fantastic ability to make believable characters and put them in situations that (in their core) are real life - all while set in some far off future reality.

Love it, love it, love it! I've been waiting for a new Vorkosigan book for what feels like forever, and this was definitely worth the wait. It's a great story, it's about Ivan-you-idiot, who as it turns out is not such an idiot, and it's a great romance. If you're worried about not having read any previous books in the series, don't be - I think you could jump right in and enjoy this just as much, but then do go back and read the others to catch up. Bujold writes science fiction with such a human touch that I think even those who "don't read science fiction" will enjoy her books, especially from Komarr on. Read it, read it, read it!

Georgette Heyer's Cotillion meets the Addams Family -- an Addams family that has Godfather tendencies. A hero and heroine who are perceived as feckless and useless by their nearest and dearest seek their own happiness amid intergalactic family war. Add the cockiness of The 39 Steps to the banter of plays by Tom Stoppard or David Ives, as well as a bit of military adventure a la Indiana Jones, and you might approach the fun of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. If you know any of the works I've mentioned -- or know other Bujold books -- you'll enjoy the references. However, no past reading is required to recognize and laugh with these characters, as we all know that the true term for inlaw is outlaw.

Sorry I couldn't think of a better title for this wonderful story from LMB, but it fits. For a man who has been little more than an occassional, unwilling side kick to his cousin's crazy adventures, this great story does Vorpatril proud. Conned into helping a mysterious girl, and fumbling his way though as usual, we finally see Ivan caring about someone, actually wanting to help and becoming the Vorpatril, he was destined to be. I don't give away scenes or spoilers, you have to read this one. It is clearly another great Vor Story by the "McMaster" I loved it.

I've always liked Ivan; I never thought he was an idiot. He's just not a hyper-competitive, hyper-aggressive, palace intrigue plotting genius. So, by comparison to everyone else on the Barrayaran scene he seems a little slow. In this book, we learn that a little slow can be good for you, in the end.

This book continues Lois' trend, as seen in the last three or so Vorkosigan novels, to play-up the romance and downplay the action. I'm a sappy guy, so I'm mostly good with the romance; Tej is certainly a sweet character and a great romantic interest for Ivan. Her quirky family adds comedic elements and Galactic hooks that make the story more complex. I do, though, wish there was a bit more action in this and the last few Vorkosigan books--thus the four stars.

Otherwise, it was great (and warm and comfy) to be back in the Vorkosiverse, with some of our favorite people--Lady Alys, Simon, Emperor Gregor, Duv, Byerly, etc. We only encounter Miles and Ekaterin during one scene, but that really is quite enough; this is Ivan's story. I enjoyed seeing Ivan handle, in his own laid-back way, the problems, and unexpected delights, he encountered as the story unfolded.

If Lois is inclined to write more stories in this universe from the POV of characters other than Miles and his immediate family, that would be fine with me. An empire with three planets and agents and embassies spread among tens of other worlds gives a lot possibilities.

I liked this book, but I only give it four stars since there wasn't enough Miles in it. I know, I know. Not every one of her books can be all about Miles.

The book showed a lot of aspects of Ivan that we haven't seen before, and that was good. We also got a good dose of Simon, and that was good too. It was a very pleasant plot line as it unfolded, but for me it was about the characters rather than the plot.

I was stunned. I have loved the VK serie for ever as well as anything Bujold has written (except for Ethan of Athos, which I thought fell short of her usual quality).
Ivan is the usual side kick. It was good to see him in the front line. It was also good to see him as not "an idiot".

The book was slow to start but gained momentum.
It was as complicated as Bujold's other books which may explain the slowness.
I recommend this highly

Ivan has always been a favorite of mine - Simon and Gregor too, so a book that was Vorkosigan-free didn't bother me. I thought this book was fun and light, but it got a bit bogged down (slow) in the middle. Normally I'd be bummed out that I just finished the last book in a series I love, but Bujold recently announced she's working on a book about Cordelia so everything is OK!

If you're a fan of Lois already you want to get this book. Yes it is way better than Cryoburn. This book is mostly romance so it is more like Shards of Honor and A Civil Campaign than some of the other books. Miles only makes a brief appearance in this book. The only bad part of the book is the middle when other characters are introduced. The book kinda drags for a bit but then picks up again and has a satisfying ending.

Like other fans of the series, I wondered what I was getting in a Vorkosigan novel without Vorkosigan. But the plot develops quickly and Bujold's characters continue to shine as they develop new wrinkles. Ivan has been a mostly humorous character in the past. The humour is played down here (although not entirely) and the sense of frustrated romance is played up. This has a similar feel to A Civil Campaign and Winterfair Gifts. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This, under the stunner fire, is a love story.
It is very well told, with many surprises, and many just well done words. As a writer I am trying to learn how she does it. One thing I noted is that she does not do cliffhangers: she resolves each chapter in a way that you want to know what comes next,
but with that chapter firmly resolved.

The usual high rating for books in this series for me. I've followed the series from the beginning and this is a very good addition. Clever development of a character who has been a minor supporting character throughout the series mostly distinguished by the phrase "Ivan, you idiot" to a mature, well rounded individual with surprising depth.

I've been a Bujold fan since the beginning. Damn how I've missed the madcap adventures of hers. Living inside Ivan's head for most of a book is grandly entertaining. The others involved in his adventure are probably less enthralled with his wit and competence than I am, but damn this was fun.

This has pushed it's way into my top 5 fave favorite Bujold books.

I love the Miles & family adventures that Bujold pens. It was well worth the price I paid for the Kindle edition.

This book explores more of Bujold's universe from Miles Vorkosgian cousins viewpoint. You finally get to look at the world through that idiot Ivan's viewpoint.

I am a big fan of the Vorkorsigan books and usually read new books in the series very quickly-- a week or less. This book took me about eight months to finish. It just did not capture my attention nearly as much as the other books. If you are just starting the Vorkorsigan series, you probably don't want to start with this book. I assume that people who are reading this review are somewhat familiar with the series.

I really liked the idea of a novel about Miles' "idiot" cousin Ivan. Ivan has always been sort of a comic sidekick who has made an appearance in many (most?) of the previous novels. This book focused on Ivan's coming to age as he tries to balance many different responsabilities and does not do a very good job of it. But neither does he do an idiotic job of it. As with most of Bujold's books, the writing is light and the story has a sense of humor. It does not take itself too seriously. I liked the use of the two first person narrators-- flipping between Ivan and his "alliance," Tej.

I like Miles' cameo apperance as well as the participation of Gregor, the Emperor, who has always been one of my favorite characters.

I look forward to seeing how the Ivan at the end of this book meets the Miles at the end of Cryoburn (The Vorkosigan Saga).

Having said, all of that, I just found the story slow and it was hard for me to get involved with it...at least until about halfway. It was well enough written that I was not tempted to put it down, I just did not feel that compelled to read it. I hope that Ms. Bujold can give us another book in the series.

I definitely recommend this book. I think it would work well as an intro to the rest of the "Vorkosiverse", but knowing the other characters really enhances the pleasure. And, many of the other friends and relatives make appearances here: Miles, Ekaterin, Gregor, and Duv & Delia. I especially enjoyed seeing the view of Lady Alys and Simon at home, and at ease. BUT, this book is about Ivan, and exhibits him at times as: heroic, competent and loving. Ivan also learns that his own relatives may not be half as bad as Lady Tej's relatives at getting him into trouble!

Lois Bujold's Vor series are usually filled with quick-witted characters with surprising depth. Unfortunately, choosing a humdrum main character makes for a humdrum book. Ivan, the main character of Vorpatril's Alliance has always been the dullest character in the other novels, playing the straight man to the smart and savvy Miles, Elena, Aral, Illyan, Cordelia - pretty much everyone. It's no surprise, then, that this book is filled with comments such as "Huh?" and "What?".

Ivan and Tej, both beautiful people that have always been surrounded by others smarter than themselves, end up at the center of a Jacksonian mess. Sadly, it doesn't make them seem any smarter or more interesting. At least Ivan understands that he isn't smart, and he seems to be fairly good, if unimaginative, at what he does in the military. Tej, the other main character, describes sex as the only thing she was better at than her siblings. In fact, we get a long list of things she is not good at, and isn't interested in. And that list just keeps getting longer as Ivan and Tej stumble around blindly through the entire plot, constantly having other characters sigh and shake their heads when the two fail to make painfully obvious connections.

One of the things that I have always loved about Lois Bujold books is the characters' sense of introspection, how they strive to be better, to have others see them as being good or worthy. This is the first book of hers I have seen characters strive for mediocrity and achieve it with stunning success. There is really no sense of emotional connection between the characters or from the reader to the characters. This book feels like something she whipped up quickly to keep her audience quiet while she figures out how she wants to deal with the emotional storm she created at the end of Cryoburn. I recommend only getting it if you are desperately missing a taste of the Vor series, but don't expect her usual high-level characters.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012) is the fifteenth SF novel in the Vorkosigan series, following Cryoburn. The initial work in this series is Shards of Honor.

In the previous volume, Miles was visiting the planet of Kibou-daim for a conference on Cryonics. Roic was so bored that he is having trouble staying awake. He was starting to believe the rumor that Lady Ekaterin and the empress have cooked up this job to get his master off planet.

Then Miles disappeared one day and wouldn't talk about it until back in the hotel room. After setting up the previously unused bug jammer, Miles mentioned that someone has tried to bribe him. Apparently this break was important to his master.

Then an anti-cryogenics organization took several hostages in the hotel. Roic practically threw some conventioneers into the elevator and told them to flee. But he was captured and taken away.

The group had also captured Miles, but they used a soporific spray to which he is allergic. He became manic and escaped his abductors. But now he was lost in the cryo-storage tunnels under the city.

In this novel, Ivan Xav Vorpatril is a Captain in the Imperial Service. Unlike his cousin Miles, Ivan is tall, handsome and charming. But he is not very ambitious.

Byerly Votrrutyer is a Barrayaran civilian. By is an acquaintance of Ivan, but not a close friend.

Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua is a fugitive from a dynasty change in Jackson Whole. Tej is working on Komarr under an assumed name.

Lapis Lazuli is Tej's companion. Rish has a blue skin.

In this story, Ivan is visited by By and asked to pick up a woman for a date. By shows him a picture of the woman and assures him that it is urgent. The woman is working for a shipping firm, so Ivan buys a cheap vase and has the woman send it to Miles.

Ivan asks her for a date, but she is not interested. She and a fellow worker flee the scene while Ivan goes over to her house and sits on the front steps. When the woman comes him, Ivan talks her into letting him come in.

When Ivan enters the foyer, Rish stuns him lightly. Both Tej and Rish strain to move him up to their apartment. Ivan keeps talking to them.

The women tie him to a kitchen chair and he keeps talking. They turn out the light and go to bed. Ivan keeps working on the bindings to get free.

Then two men come into the apartment through the third floor window. Ivan calls out to them and says that the women have fled. Then Tej and Rish stun the intruders.

Ivan convinces the women to go to his apartment to hide. On the way, he calls in a complaint to the Dome police. Then they take a bubble car to his place.

Tej and Rish hide in the apartment while Ivan goes to work. He is the aide de camp of General Desplain and handles many classified messages for the general. When he starts to leave for the day, a clerk tells him that the local police want to talk to him.

After lying to the police, Ivan goes home to his apartment with food. He describes his day to Tej and Rish and feeds them. They agree that they will stay a while longer.

By comes to asks what happened with the woman that Ivan was supposed to date. Ivan introduces him to Tej and Rish. By decides that he likes the looks of Rish and they converse.

This tale has Ivan marrying Tej and hiring Rish as a maid to protect them from the police and immigration officials. Ivan and his new wife are returned to Barrayar. Then Ivan is taken to face his mother.

This story is funny and full of action. The marriage was supposed to be temporary, but his mother is very pleased with it. Count Vorpatril is so pleased at the marriage that he refuses to annul it.

Ivan soon finds that he likes being married to Tej. The next installment in this sequence has not yet been announced on the store.

Highly recommended for Bujold fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of interstellar politics, military affairs, and true romance. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

Captain Vorpatril meets his match in more ways than one and accidentally is connected to a mysterious and beautiful young lady. His heart is kind and cannot turn down a damsel in distress. There are many references to his cousin, Miles, and even a cameo appearance in the book. It is full of humor, in-laws, and family. I really liked this book. I would read another book about Ivan. Especially if she can match the humor in this book.

I had really looked forward to this one--Ivan has always been a favorite of mine, and I hoped for some fast-paced fun. Unfortunately, this is without doubt the most uninteresting book of the Vorkosigan saga. There are nice moments, for example the scene of Alys and Ivan burning the annual death offering for poor Padma, but most of the plot fails to deliver...anything. There is no spark whatsoever to Ivan or By, not a single delightful turn of phrase or amusing plot twist. And seriously, I could see the divorce part coming from the moment Ivan proposed the possibility in chapter 5. I wish she had made this a novella rather than a full book.

Unlike the rest of his family, the ambition gene skipped Captain Ivan Vorpatril. He enjoys working as an aide to General Desplain in the Barrayaran military on Komarr as that planet keeps him away from his mother Lady Alys and other imperial relatives. Barrayaran civilian Byerly Votrrutyer visits Ivan to ask a favor of him. She wants Ivan to take out Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua on a date. By fails to inform Ivan that Tej is in hiding from a change in power on Jackson Whole in which her House Cordonah fell; her companion Rish is her bodyguard.

However, when Ivan arrives at Tej's house, Rish welcomes him with a stun gun before tying him up. Two men invade the apartment, but Ivan's warning enables Rish to stun them. They flee to his home while he calls the police about the intrusion. When Komarran immigration authorities demand he hand over the women to them, Ivan marries Tej instead and hires Rish to protect her. His mother rejoices at the news, but his attempts to annul their marriage are disallowed while Tej's House welcomes the dupe their style.

The latest Vorkosigan Saga science fiction (see Cryoburn) is a fabulous fresh frolic due to the comedic missteps of the hero; as mellow Ivan is the polar opposite of his heroic cousin Miles. Lois McMaster Bujold captures Ivan's intrigue avoidance laid-back personality as the antihero just wanted a "Blind Date".

Harriet Klausner

Rather than a review , since , despite YEARS of waiting for Ivan's story, I have not been able to read it yet ...this is an invitation to Ms Bujold , or to her publisher , to seriously consider making a Kindle version available as soon as possible . I am aware that this issue has already been raised by another reader but I would like also to underline my own severe disappointment. While it is true that it would have been perfectly possible for me to order the hard-back version OR to enrol and download the audio book for free OR have pre- ordered it OR have got it from marketplace or any other solution , that it is NOT what I wanted .. I wanted to read Ivan's story the moment it became available , meaning for an ex-patriate like me "on my Kindle" , download time 35 seconds from America and reading a nano-second after !Price was not an object...but, given that it is only the VERY rare book that has its publishing date marked on my calendar , I'd really have appreciated being able to give myself that treat .
Only hubris would imagine that I am alone in feeling that such choices by the publisher/ author in the end leave readers feeling disatisfied , deluded or defrauded :in the sense only of being denied emotional connection with characters they have grown love and whose continuing story brings a sense of completion . Ms Bujold's greatest skill lies perhaps in that ..in making her readers not only willing "to suspend disbelief" but eager to do so in order to live the story with her protagonists, characters who truly become people whose destiny we care about .
So , if any one else feels the same way, would they like to add their voice to mine ?
Lynn Tamalio Wright

We all know that Ivan is anything but an idiot, a favorite descriptor (Ivan-You-Idiot) of cousins and compatriots, but he manages to skate through life by doing as little and committing as little as possible, perhaps due to a couple of overachieving family members which include Emperor Gregor and the Little Admiral “Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing to Excess” Naismith. Or is it because he’s too close to the throne? To his loving, but sometimes helicoptering mother?

Ivan is on his own when he falls into a somewhat Miles-like complication. In an effort to save a damsel from arrest and deportation (or death), Ivan makes use of his handy breakfast groats and marries her. It’s a funny, frantic romp with in-laws, outlaws, bioengineered humans and bacteria, and the odd moment of murderous peril.

An enjoyable read and a great addition to the Vorkosigan universe. I recently rebought all the Vorkosigan books as in Kindle format. (I know, it’s OCD, since I have them all in hardcover, but…) I meant to start at the beginning and read my way through just for the fun of it, but I was distracted by remembering the humor and wit in this novel where Ivan of “Ivan, you idiot!” was finally allowed to star in a story of his own. Yep, it’s just as fun as the first time I read it. Highly recommended along with all the other Vorkosigan novels, plus Shards of Honor and Barrayar, which are Cordelia’s story.

I found this to be a very surprising book. Ivan has been around longer than Miles and he has always been a bit player. Comic relief even. I am sure we have all mouthed the phrase "Ivan you idiot."

So I walked into this not expecting to find a hero. And I was correct. Ivan is not a classic hero, he is just a guy trying to get along. What I appreciated was his sense of duty. This book sheds a light on how Ivan looks at the world. I always thought he followed Miles out of loyalty. It seems I was only partially correct. He has a devotion to duty that I can really appreciate. I think he also understands more than he knows. He see's crisis and finds the simplest plan that guarantees success. He leaves the falling chips to be cleaned up by others.

In short I really enjoyed this book and I hope we see another. I should add that I laughed for ten minutes at the end of the book when Ivan's mother is quoted as saying "I knew he couldn't be an idiot." LMAO Now that's a Mother. :)

Update~~ I have re-read this 4 times now the last two back to back over Christmas. Something I have not done with any other work from Lois McMaster Bujold. I have enjoyed it every time and found there were parts I missed the first time and some parts I was able to savor .
This is a really good effort and I hope she continues with Ivan's story.

Lois Bujold's Vor series are usually filled with quick-witted characters with surprising depth. Unfortunately, choosing a humdrum main character makes for a humdrum book. Ivan, the main character of Vorpatril's Alliance has always been the dullest character in the other novels, playing the straight man to the smart and savvy Miles, Elena, Aral, Illyan, Cordelia - pretty much everyone. It's no surprise, then, that this book is filled with comments such as "Huh?" and "What?".

Ivan and Tej, both beautiful people that have always been surrounded by others smarter than themselves, end up at the center of a Jacksonian mess. Sadly, it doesn't make them seem any smarter or more interesting. At least Ivan understands that he isn't smart, and he seems to be fairly good, if unimaginative, at what he does in the military. Tej, the other main character, describes sex as the only thing she was better at than her siblings. In fact, we get a long list of things she is not good at, and isn't interested in. And that list just keeps getting longer as Ivan and Tej stumble around blindly through the entire plot, constantly having other characters sigh and shake their heads when the two fail to make painfully obvious connections.

One of the things that I have always loved about Lois Bujold books is the characters' sense of introspection, how they strive to be better, to have others see them as being good or worthy. This is the first book of hers I have seen characters strive for mediocrity and achieve it with stunning success. There is really no sense of emotional connection between the characters or from the reader to the characters. This book feels like something she whipped up quickly to keep her audience quiet while she figures out how she wants to deal with the emotional storm she created at the end of Cryoburn. I recommend only getting it if you are desperately missing a taste of the Vor series, but don't expect her usual high-level characters.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012) is the fifteenth SF novel in the Vorkosigan series, following Cryoburn. The initial work in this series is Shards of Honor.

In the previous volume, Miles was visiting the planet of Kibou-daim for a conference on Cryonics. Roic was so bored that he is having trouble staying awake. He was starting to believe the rumor that Lady Ekaterin and the empress have cooked up this job to get his master off planet.

Then Miles disappeared one day and wouldn't talk about it until back in the hotel room. After setting up the previously unused bug jammer, Miles mentioned that someone has tried to bribe him. Apparently this break was important to his master.

Then an anti-cryogenics organization took several hostages in the hotel. Roic practically threw some conventioneers into the elevator and told them to flee. But he was captured and taken away.

The group had also captured Miles, but they used a soporific spray to which he is allergic. He became manic and escaped his abductors. But now he was lost in the cryo-storage tunnels under the city.

In this novel, Ivan Xav Vorpatril is a Captain in the Imperial Service. Unlike his cousin Miles, Ivan is tall, handsome and charming. But he is not very ambitious.

Byerly Votrrutyer is a Barrayaran civilian. By is an acquaintance of Ivan, but not a close friend.

Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua is a fugitive from a dynasty change in Jackson Whole. Tej is working on Komarr under an assumed name.

Lapis Lazuli is Tej's companion. Rish has a blue skin.

In this story, Ivan is visited by By and asked to pick up a woman for a date. By shows him a picture of the woman and assures him that it is urgent. The woman is working for a shipping firm, so Ivan buys a cheap vase and has the woman send it to Miles.

Ivan asks her for a date, but she is not interested. She and a fellow worker flee the scene while Ivan goes over to her house and sits on the front steps. When the woman comes him, Ivan talks her into letting him come in.

When Ivan enters the foyer, Rish stuns him lightly. Both Tej and Rish strain to move him up to their apartment. Ivan keeps talking to them.

The women tie him to a kitchen chair and he keeps talking. They turn out the light and go to bed. Ivan keeps working on the bindings to get free.

Then two men come into the apartment through the third floor window. Ivan calls out to them and says that the women have fled. Then Tej and Rish stun the intruders.

Ivan convinces the women to go to his apartment to hide. On the way, he calls in a complaint to the Dome police. Then they take a bubble car to his place.

Tej and Rish hide in the apartment while Ivan goes to work. He is the aide de camp of General Desplain and handles many classified messages for the general. When he starts to leave for the day, a clerk tells him that the local police want to talk to him.

After lying to the police, Ivan goes home to his apartment with food. He describes his day to Tej and Rish and feeds them. They agree that they will stay a while longer.

By comes to asks what happened with the woman that Ivan was supposed to date. Ivan introduces him to Tej and Rish. By decides that he likes the looks of Rish and they converse.

This tale has Ivan marrying Tej and hiring Rish as a maid to protect them from the police and immigration officials. Ivan and his new wife are returned to Barrayar. Then Ivan is taken to face his mother.

This story is funny and full of action. The marriage was supposed to be temporary, but his mother is very pleased with it. Count Vorpatril is so pleased at the marriage that he refuses to annul it.

Ivan soon finds that he likes being married to Tej. The next installment in this sequence has not yet been announced on the store.

Highly recommended for Bujold fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of interstellar politics, military affairs, and true romance. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

Unlike the rest of his family, the ambition gene skipped Captain Ivan Vorpatril. He enjoys working as an aide to General Desplain in the Barrayaran military on Komarr as that planet keeps him away from his mother Lady Alys and other imperial relatives. Barrayaran civilian Byerly Votrrutyer visits Ivan to ask a favor of him. She wants Ivan to take out Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua on a date. By fails to inform Ivan that Tej is in hiding from a change in power on Jackson Whole in which her House Cordonah fell; her companion Rish is her bodyguard.

However, when Ivan arrives at Tej's house, Rish welcomes him with a stun gun before tying him up. Two men invade the apartment, but Ivan's warning enables Rish to stun them. They flee to his home while he calls the police about the intrusion. When Komarran immigration authorities demand he hand over the women to them, Ivan marries Tej instead and hires Rish to protect her. His mother rejoices at the news, but his attempts to annul their marriage are disallowed while Tej's House welcomes the dupe their style.

The latest Vorkosigan Saga science fiction (see Cryoburn) is a fabulous fresh frolic due to the comedic missteps of the hero; as mellow Ivan is the polar opposite of his heroic cousin Miles. Lois McMaster Bujold captures Ivan's intrigue avoidance laid-back personality as the antihero just wanted a "Blind Date".

Harriet Klausner

I had really looked forward to this one--Ivan has always been a favorite of mine, and I hoped for some fast-paced fun. Unfortunately, this is without doubt the most uninteresting book of the Vorkosigan saga. There are nice moments, for example the scene of Alys and Ivan burning the annual death offering for poor Padma, but most of the plot fails to deliver...anything. There is no spark whatsoever to Ivan or By, not a single delightful turn of phrase or amusing plot twist. And seriously, I could see the divorce part coming from the moment Ivan proposed the possibility in chapter 5. I wish she had made this a novella rather than a full book.

Rather than a review , since , despite YEARS of waiting for Ivan's story, I have not been able to read it yet ...this is an invitation to Ms Bujold , or to her publisher , to seriously consider making a Kindle version available as soon as possible . I am aware that this issue has already been raised by another reader but I would like also to underline my own severe disappointment. While it is true that it would have been perfectly possible for me to order the hard-back version OR to enrol and download the audio book for free OR have pre- ordered it OR have got it from marketplace or any other solution , that it is NOT what I wanted .. I wanted to read Ivan's story the moment it became available , meaning for an ex-patriate like me "on my Kindle" , download time 35 seconds from America and reading a nano-second after !Price was not an object...but, given that it is only the VERY rare book that has its publishing date marked on my calendar , I'd really have appreciated being able to give myself that treat .
Only hubris would imagine that I am alone in feeling that such choices by the publisher/ author in the end leave readers feeling disatisfied , deluded or defrauded :in the sense only of being denied emotional connection with characters they have grown love and whose continuing story brings a sense of completion . Ms Bujold's greatest skill lies perhaps in that ..in making her readers not only willing "to suspend disbelief" but eager to do so in order to live the story with her protagonists, characters who truly become people whose destiny we care about .
So , if any one else feels the same way, would they like to add their voice to mine ?
Lynn Tamalio Wright