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A tale of two clone-brothers
Mar. 10th, 2025 11:50 amMy Vorkosigan Saga installment for March was Mirror Dance, which, in addition to being a regular novel and not a bunch of short stories, is over 500 pages long. This scotched my assumption that I could knock it out in 24 hours but I did get through it pretty quickly–three or four days, I think–because not only are these books pretty fast-paced generally, but this one was maybe one of the most gripping adventures yet.
Our hero, Miles, is… well, he’s actually dead for at least a third of the book. Which means the hero of this specific book is actually largely his clone-brother, now dubbed Mark. Mark was an antagonist in an earlier book, as he was a project of a Komarran terrorist cell. In this one, freed of the control of… well, anyone, for the first time in his life, Mark finds himself alone in the galaxy, with only his traumas for company. He does have one driving motivation, though, and it’s not the hatred of Barrayar that was so carefully cultivated in him for so long (although he’s pretty contemptuous of it)--it’s hatred of the clone-brain-transplant trade on the organized crime planet of Jackson’s Whole. To this end, Mark cooks up a plot to impersonate Miles in his persona as Admiral Miles Naismith, “borrow” the Dendarii Mercenaries, and go spring a bunch of teenage clones from House Bharaputra.
Things go very poorly on this raid, and Mark, with whatever allies he can muster, must spend the next 450 pages trying to fix the mess he created. This takes 450 pages because the mess includes things like “Miles is dead now.” There is also a lot of complicated Jacksonian politics, and some Barrayaran politics, and some personal politics within the Dendarii Mercenaries, and and and. At one point Mark even ends up having politics within himself, as his various traumas and identities get put through the wringer in some very disturbing ways.
This installment of the Saga features a lot of things that are designed to inflict maximum psychological damage on the characters, and thus might be triggering for readers as well–including sexual violence, eating disorders, child abuse, torture, and a lot of gruesome medical stuff–and while some of it betrays the book’s origins as having been written several decades ago (I wince a little every time we use “it” for Bel Thorne instead of the obvious “they”), Bujold is clearly a lot more interested in actual psychology and the effect of all these insane experiences upon people than your average midlist 20th century mil sci fi author. Mark is a very different character from Miles, and his slow and painful (VERY painful) journey toward coming out of Miles’ shadow and figuring out himself in his own right is fascinating.
We also get to see a good deal of Cordelia, who by now is at least in her sixties and still an incredibly fun character.
Overall, this one seemed a little more serious than some of the other installments in the series, and I think it did that pretty well. I am excited to see where the series goes next.
Our hero, Miles, is… well, he’s actually dead for at least a third of the book. Which means the hero of this specific book is actually largely his clone-brother, now dubbed Mark. Mark was an antagonist in an earlier book, as he was a project of a Komarran terrorist cell. In this one, freed of the control of… well, anyone, for the first time in his life, Mark finds himself alone in the galaxy, with only his traumas for company. He does have one driving motivation, though, and it’s not the hatred of Barrayar that was so carefully cultivated in him for so long (although he’s pretty contemptuous of it)--it’s hatred of the clone-brain-transplant trade on the organized crime planet of Jackson’s Whole. To this end, Mark cooks up a plot to impersonate Miles in his persona as Admiral Miles Naismith, “borrow” the Dendarii Mercenaries, and go spring a bunch of teenage clones from House Bharaputra.
Things go very poorly on this raid, and Mark, with whatever allies he can muster, must spend the next 450 pages trying to fix the mess he created. This takes 450 pages because the mess includes things like “Miles is dead now.” There is also a lot of complicated Jacksonian politics, and some Barrayaran politics, and some personal politics within the Dendarii Mercenaries, and and and. At one point Mark even ends up having politics within himself, as his various traumas and identities get put through the wringer in some very disturbing ways.
This installment of the Saga features a lot of things that are designed to inflict maximum psychological damage on the characters, and thus might be triggering for readers as well–including sexual violence, eating disorders, child abuse, torture, and a lot of gruesome medical stuff–and while some of it betrays the book’s origins as having been written several decades ago (I wince a little every time we use “it” for Bel Thorne instead of the obvious “they”), Bujold is clearly a lot more interested in actual psychology and the effect of all these insane experiences upon people than your average midlist 20th century mil sci fi author. Mark is a very different character from Miles, and his slow and painful (VERY painful) journey toward coming out of Miles’ shadow and figuring out himself in his own right is fascinating.
We also get to see a good deal of Cordelia, who by now is at least in her sixties and still an incredibly fun character.
Overall, this one seemed a little more serious than some of the other installments in the series, and I think it did that pretty well. I am excited to see where the series goes next.