Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

[sawyl]

Reading through the last few items on this year's Hugos shortlist, I've arrived at Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, one of her Vorkosigan Saga series of novels.

The story opens on Komarr, where Captain Ivan Vorpatril has been assisting his boss, Admiral Desplains, with a tour of inspection. After allowing himself to be talking into a side mission for Imperial Security, something that involves investigating the background of a mysterious and beautiful young woman, Ivan almost accidentally enters into a temporary marriage with the woman, a orphaned Jacksonian refuge called Tej, in an order to dodge kidnapping and murder charges. After returning to Barrayar, where they go endure a whirlwind series of social events, Ivan and Tej's temporary marriage is thrown into crisis by the arrival of the remains of Tej's clan — all of whom seem determined to do whatever it takes to make enough money to win back their position on Jackson's Whole.

Being brutally honest, I struggled with this book but I think the faults are mostly on my side. Firstly, I've only read one of the previous Vorkosigan novels and that was very long time ago. Consequently I don't have the requisite familiarity with the cast of characters who appear in brief minor roles to buy into them as serious players and lack the tolerance for Ivan's reminiscences about people we never get to meet.

Secondly, I didn't find the plot nearly engaging enough. The screwball comedy plot — man & woman marry in haste, gradually start to fall in love, find themselves confronted with a crisis that forces them to decide whether they want to separate, before finally deciding to stay together — was a little too familiar and the secondary caper plot didn't really have enough energy or tension to make up for it.

But that aside, the writing was perfectly good and the whole thing was technically accomplished — this isn't intended to be as damning as it sounds — but it just wasn't my thing.