Cetaganda (Vorkosigan Adventure.)

Miles Vorkosigan's adventures continue in this the sixth book* in the series. Miles and Ivan have been dispatched to the capital of Cetaganda to represent Barrayar at the funeral of the Cetagandan empress. Things start to go very strange as soon as they arrive. A priceless relic goes missing, and there is something odd about an apparent suicide. The young envoys are soon caught up in a Cetanandan internal power struggle. A series of puzzling and dangerous incidents cause Miles to suspect that he is being set up as a scapegoat. Plunged into a strange and intricate society and with nobody to trust, he must rely on his wits and find new allies. There are crimes to be solved and a mystery to unravel, but any misstep could be his last.

This book doesn't have quite the pace of the previous *The Vor Game*, but I think it is better plotted. I quite enjoyed it. 5 stars (4+ stars updated to 5 stars by Grover Gardner's narration).

* In internal chronological order.

Reading the Vorkosigan saga in the chronological order, this was the first book completely set in a single, and totally new, location: Cetaganda. There was no Elena, Cordelia, Aral or even Dendarii. Just Miles and Ivan and a big mess they needed to clean up.

Miles was lovely as always, and I really enjoyed having Ivan around so much. While it was an interesting read, it felt a bit more like a procedural drama than the usual high jinx I've gotten used to.

“You don't hire a genius to solve the most intractible imaginable problem, and then hedge him around with a lot of rules, nor try to micro-manage him from two week's distance. You turn him loose. If you need someone to follow orders, hire an idiot. In fact, an idiot would be better suited.”

This is a little speech given by Miles Vorkosigan.

There were a handful of things that I disliked about Cetaganda, but what really ruined it for me was the main character, Miles. I found him arrogant, rude, paranoid, childish, impatient, overbearing, condescending, and misogynistic. These are all fine flaws to have, in a well-built character! But Cetaganda is so deeply in love with dear darling Miles that these flaws are meant to be empathized with, accepted, if they can even be flaws!

For example, Miles habitually condescends to everyone, sneering with disdain and insulting them left and right if they cannot keep up with his superior intelligence, despite the fact that this exact strain of logic had been used against him, to hurt him and bully him, if you simply replace the ‘intelligence' with ‘physical state'. Miles also judges all women by their beauty before anything else, despite the fact that, again, the same logic has been used against him due to his disability. If Miles were aware of this internal flaw in his logic, that would be interesting. If the book itself were aware of this internal flaw of logic, that, too, would be interesting. But neither care enough about making Miles ever suffer for his poor behavior, except in the most glowingly melodramatic was possible, which absolves him of all his blame and drowns him in sympathy.

Miles has a boatload of flaws that would make him a fascinating anti-hero. He could be an amazing portrait of what growing up disabled in a viciously ablist and sexist society could do to his psyche, as he clings pathetically to his ego and intelligence, insulting everyone around him and making his own problems, dehumanizing women and them blaming them for finding him off-putting. But this is not the case, not by a landslide. That would require an understanding that Miles has flaws, instead of just quirky mean things that everyone forgives him for because he's oh! So! Smart!

Sadly, Miles is supposed to be a hero, the worst sort, the sort who are never wrong, for whom the world convulses around to aid at every turn. He ruins the book, no matter how clever the plot or nuanced the dialog (not that I found either particularly outstanding, but that's besides the point) by virtue of being the center of all morality. And, frankly, it's boring.