The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga, #2)

Miles Vorkosigan washes out military school and heads to another planetary system to spend time with his grandmother and her family. There he decides to bail out some down & outers using his name and a bit of family money and do some smuggling/inter system trade to recover the money. Things go poorly and the only way through each obstacle is bluffing, and at every step he succeeds but has to face every larger obstacles afterward.

As a sci-fi adventure plot, it's adequate. But Miles "I'm a nice guy using my position to try to get in the pants of the woman who reports to me" vibe really brought me down. At least the character who raped women in the previous book wasn't given a "I was just following orders and feel bad about" pass from the narrative. Which it seemed like it would. There's still some amount of "we still have to honor him for the good stuff he did" though.

With Cordelia and Aral's story mostly backgrounded, we now get to the Miles Vorkosigan stretch of novels. Miles washes out of military school due to his physical disabilities and easily broken bones; he ends up on a trip to Beta Colony as a vacation with his bodyguard Bothari, and Bothari's daughter and Miles' childhood friend Elena.

This was the first book in this series I ever read, and I almost bounced off of it the first time through. My partner also stopped reading two thirds of the way through and then came back and finished much much later. This book has big "it gets better in season 3 I promise" energy.

For me, it's a weaker book than the two Cordelia books prior in a number of ways, and honestly there's really only so much I can take of teenager Miles. It's partially his self-loathing--internalizing the way that Barrayar treats anybody who looks like a "mutant" or is at all disabled, and also coping with his own military failures in the eyes of his family. But it's also his constant teenage lusting after his friend Elena or even later with Elli Quinn. My memory is that Miles interacting with any women are a low point in other books too all the way up to Ekaterin, unfortunately. It's not "breasted boobily" levels of lecherousness, but there's a desperation for attention in all of his actions.

Positives, instead. The joy of this book is how instantly the chain of chaos starts when Miles is involved. An example: he makes it to Beta Colony and in the brief period of time that he is out of Bothari's vision after customs he immediately adopts a pilot (plus ship) as his armsman, and then must come up with a scheme to pay off said ship by sneaking weapons through a blockade. Cut to being in space and Miles hatches a scheme to pretend to be leader of the (fictional) Dendarii Mercenaries in order to recruit mercenaries that they had just captured (once they shape up, of course). This creates a wild chain of lies and fabrications as Miles tries to keep it all together, keep his actual identity secret, and keep himself and his people safe.

This book feels meant to be funny and ridiculous. Why does nobody suspect the 17 year old with no combat experience leading mercenaries into battle? I think it's almost believable that these folks are so down on their luck that the version of reality that Miles presents (and creates) is compelling enough that nobody asks too many questions (even if they give some side-eyes). And maybe they handwave past the age with a rumor of mythical Beta Colony rejuvination treatments that make him look really young.

The delight of Miles is his manic energy and the way that he energizes the people around him to be bigger and better than who they were; it's also the balancing flip side of his secret identity trying to keep Barrayaran politics in mind and trying to live with some aristocratic Barrayan honor.

I think this book is still a good introduction to Miles, and I'm glad that he quickly grows up a little bit after this one. The main gripe for me is that this book is just not as neatly plotted or tight thematically and it feels a bit off the rails (even if it sticks the landing with a delightful courtroom ending). I really don't know that I would recommend this book, but it also sets the initial trajectory for the series so strongly that it would be impossible to skip.

Dans ce troisième tome, papa et maman laissent enfin la place à leur difforme, mais génial, rejeton pour sa première aventure en solo.
Aventure qui commence plutôt mal avec deux jambes brisées (entraînant avec elles les espoirs du jeune Miles de servir l'empire). De dépit, il va aller se réfugier chez les betans plus modernes et se laisser entraîner dans des aventures qui le conduiront à l'invention de son fameux alter-ego : l'amiral Naismith, redoutable chef d'une armée de mercenaires totalement virtuelle (enfin, pas longtemps).
Comme je l'avais dit en parlant des aventures de sa mère, le personnage de Miles est ce qui fait réellement le sel des intrigues de ces romans, avec sa façon de tirer des idées de son chapeau plus vite que tous ses interlocuteurs, pour se sortir à chaque fois de ses problèmes avec un nouveau problème plus grave à résoudre, mais plus tard. Dit comme ça, il a l'air dingue, mais tout s'enchaîne dans ce tome avec un tel génie qu'on ne peut pas croire que ce soit uniquement de l'improvisation. Ce qui, d'ailleurs, donne tout le réalisme à ce personnage, c'est qu'à côté de ces authentiques délires mégalomanes, c'est aussi un petit bonhomme qui se pose des tonnes de questions typiques de la post-adolescence : est-ce que cette fille m'aime ? Est-ce que je peux réussir ? Est-ce que je ne suis pas en train de monter une sinistre farce qui va brutalement se retourner contre moi ? Et au bout du compte, si je précipite des hommes dans la mort, directement ou pas, est-ce que je ne suis pas juste un meurtrier ?
Bref, si Miles attire tout à lui, c'est sans aucun doute parce que c'est un personnage d'une densité incroyable. Et ça, c'est la toute première réussite de l'auteur : nous faire authentiquement croire à Miles, avec toutes ses qualités (et tous ses défauts). Comme si ça ne suffisait pas, l'univers créé est d'une richesse et d'un réalisme saisissant (enfin, selon les normes du space-opera, hein).
Je ne peux donc que vous recommander la lecture de cette première aventure du nabot galactique, qui se termine (et ça, c'est limite un bonus caché) par une jolie conspiration à la barrayarane aboutissant, pour Miles, à un résultat pour le moins inattendu ...