I’m at the tail end of a cold here, so it felt like the perfect time to bundle up on the couch with a Bujold book. I’ve read this a couple times before, but the last time is at least 15 years ago, so I remembered virtually nothing about this book.
And it’s just what the doctor ordered. It’s a delight to read — amusing, exciting, well-written. It’s all that good stuff. And now my cold is gone!
One thing I did notice this time around was how utterly dependent on happenstance and coincidence Bujold was in this novel. I mean, the protagonist goes halfway across the galaxy and just happens to meet up with [redacted], like one does. And then happens to meet a spaceship piloted by [redacted]. And so on. It’s so shameless that it almost reminds me of (early) P. G. Wodehouse — sometimes he really couldn’t be bothered to think out anything resembling a plot, so he’d just have everybody stumbling over each other in various cities.
I mean, I’m not complaining — the random coincidences add a certain something to the proceedings.
It’s good fun — I was smiling the entire time I was reading this.
The Vor Game (1990) by Lois McMaster Bujold (buy used, 4.27 on Goodreads)