Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

A Civil Campaign is the most recent book in the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. There are currently 10 (or 11 depending on how you count these things) books in the series which is centered around the culture clash when an almost medieval styled empire suddenly becomes exposed to modern galactic technology and cultures.

The central character of this book (and most of the series) is Miles Vorkosigan. In this particular book he sets out to win the heart of Ekaterin who he met in the previous book in the series, Komarr. Entwined in this central plot are a series of other stories involving the many characters that have been introduced over the course of their series, includign Miles’ clone twin Mark and the result is a wonderful comedy of manners, errors and romance which reminds me almost of some of Shakespeare’s comedies.

It’s not something I do a lot, but this book did actually have me sniggering out loud in places. Particularly painful/hilarious is Miles disastrous dinner party where everything that can go wrong does in fact go wrong and then several other things go wrong too.

Bujold has always gone out of her way to make every book in the Vorkosigan series stand alone and I can testify to that since I started reading the books with Memory which is (again depending on how you count) about the 8th book in the series and have since jumped backwards and forwards as I found the other books.

That said, this is possibly the worst book in the whole series to start with as it calls on so much from previous books. Almost every significant character here was introduced in a previous book and Ekaterin who is the romantic heroine had a large part of the previous novel, Komarr, devoted to her.

Even so, this is a great science fiction book, that focusses on character not science. One of the strongest features of the series is how the protagonist has aged, changed and grown over the course of the series. A Civil Campaign features a Miles who is both the same and very different to the one in say Warriors Apprentice.

My advice, if you’ve read the previous book in the series, Komarr, buy this now it’s great. If not. Still buy it, because it’s great, but at the same time you might want to buy Komarr so you get a better feel for the whole story.