Mirror Dance

Mirror Dance is a wonderfully plotted book with great characters, madcap adventure, tons of tension and plenty of laughs. It won the Hugo Award and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1995.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/fantasy-author/bujoldloismcmaster/

I delayed buying and reading this book for years, because it sounded rather long and unpleasant, from the little I knew about it; and also because I'm not very keen on Miles's military career, nor am I very keen on his clone Mark, and the story is big on both.

However, in the end I decided to put myself through it, and it wasn't so bad after all; although there are some unpleasant patches in it. After just one reading, I can't give it a proper review or rating, so this is just a placeholder.

The story is certainly gripping, and I didn't want to put it down, but real life intervened; I rarely read a whole novel at one sitting these days.

It remains a book that I'm glad to have read not so much for itself, as for the background it provides for the later books: Miles's civilian career, in fact, most of which I've already read, and which I enjoy more.

It strikes me as odd how many diverse women are attracted to Miles, and in fact seem to fall in love with him. It happens again in this book. I can understand that his personality may be fascinating, but from the descriptions we get I'd have thought him physically quite unattractive to women; and the text never gives much explanation of what the attraction is.

Mark looks similar to Miles but fatter, and seems to have a less fascinating personality. He doesn't attract the same number of women, but Kareen seems to fall in love with him almost at first sight, and again there's no attempt to explain this phenomenon. I suppose you could say that love is inexplicable; but as a reader I prefer the plot of a story to seem plausible.

Really, really great. The books few problematic beats were overshadowed by immaculate character work and a perfectly paced narrative. Just gorgeously written. Now, on to Memory!