Yay! A Vorkosigan novella

Loved this novella featuring Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan, with Dr Enrique Borgos as side-kick. I’ve already read and reviewed the ebook a few weeks ago. I really hope Bujold is moved to write more in this world.
I love strong, intelligent women characters, which Bujold excels at writing. She also excels in strong plots and logic. I have all the audios of her books and have been acquiring any ebooks I’m missing. I’m always amazed at how much I underline or clip audio in her books because she makes so many good points.
Yes, I feel they are worth the time and money and I can recommend all her books, wholeheartedly.
I think Grover Gardner is one of the best narrators out there. Though I wish he had kept Enrique’s charming and funny accent.

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10 people found this helpful

A Thoughtful Look at Miles’ District

Grover Gardner does an awesome job narrating these very fine books by Bujold. I enjoyed hearing this story told from Ekaterin’s point of view and could quite happily have listened to it continue...if only there had been another chapter or two or ten. The conclusion was satisfying; I just always want more!

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a nice mini-story

Nothing groundbreaking here, but enjoyable story and a good read. Always good to get to know some of these characters better.

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another vorkosigan book

its a vorkosigan book. its lois mcmaster bujold. nothing more need really be said. buy it.

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1 person found this helpful

pretty good entry in the Vorkosiverse

I didn't realize when I bought it that this is a novella, but I love all of LMB's books in the Vorkosiverse & narrator Grover Gardner, so that was ok. I've actually not been a huge fan of Ekaterin up to this point, but wanted to give it a try. I liked her much better in this book. She is the focus of it and she's shown in a better light; her intelligence and courage are more clear & less tortured by memories of her upbringing & her late husband. The 'calm' that Miles so loves is more of a settled centeredness than the former sort of withdrawal/social awkwardness that typified her in the earlier books. We get to see more of Enrique, and he's a bit less of the nutty, absent-minded intellectual type, & not quite so goofy. This is both good & bad; he's more of a 3-D character, but his goofiness could certainly be entertaining. We see a much different portrait of life in Miles' district and it's a tragic but extremely interesting look. I did find myself wondering at the end how the district folks were going to manage in their days ahead, & feeling rather dubious.

I absolutely love Gardner; he's been one of my favorite readers since the first time I heard him & I've several times bought books I would otherwise have passed on just because he read them. So...it pains me to say that his performance this time isn't as outstanding & utterly captivating as the dozens of other books I have that he's read. He's certainly not bad-- GG at less than his best is still better than most other readers, he just sounds almost...tired. It's still very easy to identify who's talking; his voices for each character are clearly individual. His rendering of the non-dialogue parts is good, as usual. I was sort of surprised that Enrique has completely lost his Escobarran* accent for some reason, & since I've listened to all the previous books multiple times that took a bit of getting used to. Gardner still did a good job, but this is the first time I've ever not given him 5 stars. Still love his voice, tho.

I'd recommend this to anyone who's a fan of LMB's Vorkosiverse, but if you haven't read any of the previous books in that universe you're likely to be confused by this one. I'd recommend starting at least with "Shards of Honor," which introduces Cordelia & Aral Vorkosigan. I rather envy anyone who has the joy of discovering this series ahead of them, but I can keep re-listening to them & enjoy them all the same.

*I've only ever encountered all the Vorkosiverse books in audio form, so am not entirely sure of some of the spellings.

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Lovely story of lovely characters

I fell in love with Ecatherin together with Miles, now I get to know her better and spend time with her and her friends.

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Dear Lois, please keep writing!

The only thing I found disappointing about this was that it is a novella rather than a novel.

And that's only because I want more, more, more. The story the author chose to tell fits perfectly into the novella form. It's neither to short nor to long to tell this story. I just want the story to keep going! And I hope that at some point, she does pick up on the beginning she's made here.

One of the joys of this novella was that it focuses on characters that haven't been focused on before. Ekaterin, Lady Vorkosigan, has of course, been an important character in several other books, but by the very nature of Miles Vorkosigan as a character, he pretty much always steals focus. Ekaterin was free to shine in this story. And while Enrique Bogos has always been presented as clearly insanely brilliant, he's also been (in context) more of a clown than anything else. Here we get to see a more fully fleshed out picture of him as a person in a way that doesn't in any way invalidate what we've seen of him in the past.


It's also a tiny slice of things. In a series that spans literal space empires, it was nice to have everything take place in a relatively small and intimate setting. It's one that not only fits into the universe Bujold has created, but actually fleshes out a part of it that has in many ways been central to the rest of the series without ever having been visited.

As always, Grover Gardner is supremely brilliant as a reader. Not only in his own right, but as an incredibly consistent voice of the whole Vorkosigan series. He doesn't disappoint in any way.

I wouldn't try to start the series with this story. No particular reason not to, but I'm not sure that without knowing the characters and the setting and why they're important, it would make nearly as much sense to a new listener unfamiliar with the series. For those who know and love the series, it's a delightful addition.

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14 people found this helpful

Beauty

Haunting. Funny. Touching. Insightful. In other words, typical excellent Lois. There is meaning on so many levels, and beauty in fractal scale, echoing down and up the story, characters, plot, and metanarrative of this work of prose poetry. The language and symbol is too packed with truth to call it anything else. I consent to this lie. This fiction is more true than many facts. And more factual than many beliefs.

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3 people found this helpful

Catching some rays while gardening

The Flowers of Vashnoi is a Lois McMaster Bujold novella set in the Vorkosigan universe. Miles is tied up in meetings while his wife, Ekaterin takes on a project of reclaiming the radiation contaminated region on Miles estate. The scientist from the earlier bug butter escapade has produced insects that concentrate the radioactive materials. But their bugs go missing and a search turns up squatters living hidden in the area. In addition to learning more of the history of the region, Ekaterin rescues some children and begins to finally bring closure to a tragic piece of Barrayar history.

While the brevity makes for tight writing, the application of engineered insects to concentrate radioactive material is an intriguing concept. At the same time, Bujold manages to extract gems from bits of randomly inserted history in her previous Vorkosigan installment ensuring plenty of ongoing adventures without needing to continually age her characters.

As usual Gardner's narration is superb. Pacing is brisk and never lets up. Expect to complete in one sitting (or walking).

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1 person found this helpful

A fun little adventure of progress

It’s pretty hard for me to dislike anything that’s part of the Vorkosaverse. So it’s no surprised that I do like this little story.
It is nice to see Miles‘s wife growing in confidence and losing her internal doubts more and more, as she handles potentially dangerous and difficult situations.
It is also interesting to finally get a glimpse of Vashnoi, which we have heard about in approximately 17 other books and stories, but never visited.
This makes me wonder about the area around Chernobyl. I have seen TV specials about the strange mutated animal life that lives around there, and I have to wonder if there are any groups of people in the area in similar situations to this fictional one.

Grover did a good job narrating, although he forgot to use the pseudo Spanish accent he had previously used for Henrique, which was kind of disappointing. Also, he seem to be talking slower in this one—I don’t know if it’s just because he’s 10 years older than when he read most of the other books or what, but I had to listen to some of this at 1.1X.
Also, it may have been a little over compressed, or almost at the red line for clipping. Something about the audio just seemed a little punchy.

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1 person found this helpful