panguitch's Full Review: Lois MacMaster Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice
It ain't easy being short. Especially if you're a man. Studies have shown you make less money. Women find you less attractive. Men take you less seriously. And the height-deficient are one of the few minorities against whom discrimination remains more a matter of comedy than tragedy.
That's fact. But it also applies in Lois McMaster Bujold's science fiction novel, The Warrior's Apprentice.
Premise
Height is only the beginning of Miles Vorkosigan's obstacles. After a special dispensation allows him to compete for entry to the Barrayaran Imperial Military Service, he breaks both legs on the first station of an obstacle course. It hurts, as you might imagine, but Miles is long past crying over broken bones. As a fetus he was crippled by an assassination attempt on his parents, resulting in his diminutive body, oversized head, and exceedingly brittle bones.
In fact, his failure comes as a surprise to no one. But he had to try. He belongs to the ruling warrior caste of the planet Barrayar. His father and his grandfather before him were military heroes. More than that, he's simply stubborn. Miles refuses to let anything stand in the way of what he wants to do.
He's not alone in his frustrations. Elena, the childhood playmate for whom Miles delicately nurses a crush, chafes under the rule of her father Sergeant Bothari, Miles's dour bodyguard whose sole purpose in life is to see Elena married to an honorable officer. Miles and Elena could both use a vacation, and, with Bothari in tow, they take it on Beta, Miles's mother's exotic homeworld.
They hardly step off the transport before Miles finds trouble. On a whim he buys an obsolete freighter, enlists its soused pilot, recruits a Barrayaran deserter for an engineer, and to pay his debts takes on a suspicious cargo for delivery to a war zone. With Elena at his side and Bothari as Tin Man, the pilot as Scarecrow, and the engineer as Cowardly Lion, he traipses off on a whirlwind adventure.
Characters
Bujold is well-noted for her well-drawn characters. Miles is a prime example. His ferocious intellect propels him through the ever-present obstacles of his handicap. He's a curious hero, weak and unattractive, but good-humored. He can barely beat-up a drunken mercenary and nobody falls in love with him. His devil-may-care adventurousness puts him and his friends in tight spots where they have to do some bad things. As he digs himself an ever deeper hole with his scheming, guilt and anxiety gnaw at him. Underneath it all he's just a brokenhearted boy pretending to be something he's not, and succeeding.
Elena is also interesting, mainly for the complexity of her emotions for Miles. But overall, with the exception of Miles, I was slightly disappointed by the characterization. It's adequate, but simply not as strong as is typical for Bujold. Bothari, a favorite of mine from previous novels, gets plenty of face time but often lacks the charm that formerly tempered his darkness and made him likeable despite his monstrousness. Mayhew, the pilot, and Baz, the engineer, are good characters who display the impact of Miles's personality, but I didn't ever feel for them. The various mercenaries are serviceable but similarly uninspiring. It may be that Miles is too big a character. He overshadows every other personality in the book.
Plausibility
Or it may be that the action skips too quickly from one implausibility to another for the reader to grow attached to any other character. The scrapes and near-misses that Miles leads his friends through come hard and fast, each more daunting than the last until the tension starts feeling hollow. Some combination of chance and Miles's brilliance will pull them through, again. Take it for granted.
The intention is for things to seem out of control, as if Miles is swept up by the current of entertainingly preposterous events and must ride them out if he can. But when credibility is strained like this, it's hard to care about the characters. The arbitrariness of the plot is exposed, reminding us that the fate of the people moving through it is equally arbitrary, held in a capricious author's hands. The wizard behind the curtain is revealed and the spell broken.
Recommendation
Despite beginning to feel like I was being jerked around, I did enjoy The Warrior's Apprentice. It's exciting if you can swallow your disbelief. And Miles is a great protagonist, unusual and surprising, even if I did want to slap him once or twice. In fact, as time tempers my initial reactions and I read further in the series, The Warrior's Apprentice has become a book I remember fondly for its character concepts and for the beating Miles's conscience takes.
This novel can be read on its own or as part of the larger Vorkosigan saga. The context of the previous books adds needed depth to minor characters like Miles's parents, and helps make sense of the denouement. But this is where Miles's own story begins, and shouldn't be missed if only for that reason.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.