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mburnamfink 's review for:
A Civil Campaign
by Lois McMaster Bujold
For one of the previous books, I asked "when will Miles mess up?" A Civil Campaign is when he screws the pooch. Miles wants to marry Ekaterina, and goes about it in much the same way that he'd go about assembling a mercenary fleet: a lot of fancy footwork, a little deception, and careful winnowing of options to force the opponent to submit to your will without conflict (Miles follows Sun Tzu and Liddell Hart on strategy). Of course a relationship is not a battle, and after the Worst Dinner Party of All Time, Miles finds his life in ruins-with vomiting, and has to rebuild everything.
'Comedy of manners' is not really my genre, but A Civil Campaign seems like a worthy part of the canon of Austen and Bronte. The genre as whole rests on the absurdity of elaborate social mores; of which there are plenty on Barrayar, and the necessity of the two protagonists getting over themselves so they can fall in love; also true of Miles and Ekaterina. The thoughts on reputation and honor are quite nice, and Miles' apology letter is simply epic.
There are also some good sideplots: The best one was the interactions of the trans Lord Dono Vorrutyer and the arcana of primogeniture inheritance law. Mark Vorkosign pursues a relation with Kareen Koudelka while trying to start a new business founded on insect-produced food, with a lot of of comedy. There are weddings aplenty by the end.
But where this book drops is the lowness of the stakes. Even at the worst points of the courtship, I never doubted that they'd end up together. Bujold's characters are just too fundamentally decent and right for each other. The threat is slander that Miles had Ekaterina's husband killed, which lacks credibility since we all know (along with the important characters) the real story of what happened. Even the worst slander couldn't damage Miles' career or stick to Ekaterina and her son. The foes are just so petty and incompetent compared to the galactic spies of the rest of the series that Miles and co. barely slow down running them over. Well, maybe you can't have everything.
'Comedy of manners' is not really my genre, but A Civil Campaign seems like a worthy part of the canon of Austen and Bronte. The genre as whole rests on the absurdity of elaborate social mores; of which there are plenty on Barrayar, and the necessity of the two protagonists getting over themselves so they can fall in love; also true of Miles and Ekaterina. The thoughts on reputation and honor are quite nice, and Miles' apology letter is simply epic.
There are also some good sideplots: The best one was the interactions of the trans Lord Dono Vorrutyer and the arcana of primogeniture inheritance law. Mark Vorkosign pursues a relation with Kareen Koudelka while trying to start a new business founded on insect-produced food, with a lot of of comedy. There are weddings aplenty by the end.
But where this book drops is the lowness of the stakes. Even at the worst points of the courtship, I never doubted that they'd end up together. Bujold's characters are just too fundamentally decent and right for each other. The threat is slander that Miles had Ekaterina's husband killed, which lacks credibility since we all know (along with the important characters) the real story of what happened. Even the worst slander couldn't damage Miles' career or stick to Ekaterina and her son. The foes are just so petty and incompetent compared to the galactic spies of the rest of the series that Miles and co. barely slow down running them over. Well, maybe you can't have everything.