Mirror Dance

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.

The Vorkosigan books have mostly been sci-fi adventures, lots of action with clones, pirates, princesses, culture clashes, and a few Big Ideas, like the patriarchal society in Ethan of Athos. This book has all of that stuff, but takes a sharp turn into psychological horror. Mark's journey was masterful storytelling, and also deeply uncomfortable. Bujold is excellent at character, and the awards she has won are well deserved. But if a book ever needed to come with ALL the trigger warnings, it is this one.