Cryoburn

A Miles Vorkosigan Adventure

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove—he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp—an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future—attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter, Miles, to check it out.

On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of “generation” past repair. Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to rewrite her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning “Don’t mess with the secretary.” Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping—something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. And Miles is in the middle—of trouble!

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most honored writers in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, having won five Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. Her second novel, The Warrior’s Apprentice, introduced young Miles Vorkosigan, one of the most popular characters in science fiction. The mother of two, she lives in Minneapolis.

Hi-fi sci-fi: listen to more in the Vorkosigan saga.

©2010 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Fans…will not be disappointed by this thoughtful tale…Deft and absorbing writing.” (Publishers Weekly)

Brilliant

The author at her brilliant best.
Superbly narrated.
Some other narrators please take note; this guy has at least a passing acquaintance with punctuation.

More Miles makes for merriment

In the latest installment of the Vorkosigan saga, Miles is investigating the business side of human cryopreservation because of potential future political issues for Barrayar. As is typical, Miles stumbles onto nefarious shenanigans and stops at nothing to follow this through and see that justice is served, while at the same time performing his imperial auditorial duties to the consternation of everyone around him.

Bujold is never heavy on the sci-fi components, but the extent and degree is more than sufficient to drive the plot forward without being forced. All in all, a fun read. There is also a sad element injected at the very end that suggests Bujold is ready for Miles to hang up his auditorial seal for good. Let's hope that Bujold has another direction to take him (he does have 4 children now), rather than an end to this thoroughly enjoyable series.

As usual Grover Gardner deserves special kudos for his fantastic rendition. Gardner has a unique ability to inflect his voice such that the spoken versus the thought can be distinguished which allows for the full appreciation of all the humorous elements.

Another wonderful Miles story

I have checked every time I log on to this site for a new book from Lois and when i saw that it had finally happened I bought it right away. I agree with another review that it wasn't as gripping as some of her stories have been but it is still a wonderful story. The surprise at the end was totally unexpected and I being a guy will admit that I got chocked up and shed a few tears. I hope that Lois doesn't make us wait another 9 year for the next story. If you are new to this series I agree with others Start with Shards Of Honor or Warriors Apr, You will be sucked in and will never escape Lois attraction,

Wonderful entertainment

Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan is as irreverent, as charming, as fascinating and as human as ever. The characters change, grow -- but never become predictable or stale. Great fun.

Hunting for a Gold Ring in a Cryogenics Privy

Cryoburn (2010), the 16th entry in Louise McMaster Bujold's entertaining Vorkosigan space opera series, begins with Miles on Kibou-daini, a planet far from his Barrayaran Empire, drugged, hallucinating, and lost in hundreds of kilometers of cryogenic catacombs ("Cryocombs") packed with frozen "cryo-corpses." Luckily 11-year-old Jin Sato, who's living in a community squatting in an abandoned cryo-facility, takes Miles under his wing. Where are Jin's parents? And what happened to Roic, Miles' armsman (bodyguard/butler)? And why did Miles really come to Kibou-daini? It can't have just been to attend the conference on cryogenics which ended in his near-kidnapping. . .

Bujold answers those questions in page-turning, pointed, and poignant ways, organized around her science fictional exploration of the technology, economics, ethics, and politics of cryogenics. On Kibou-daini giant cryo-corps (corporations) compete with one another to get the most clients, wielding the frozen people's "democratic" votes so as to favor their business interests. The competing cryo-corps employ different strategies to appeal to clients (whom they’d rather keep frozen than revive). New Egypt, for instance, offers a faux Egyptian look, complete with genetically modified "sphinxes" and monumental temple-like cryo-facilities. The plot, then, involves cryogenics, a bribery, a powerful corporation, a resistance ("Burn the Dead!"), an orphan boy, a crusading woman, and Miles doing his improvisational best to fulfill his Emperor's mission as Imperial Auditor (detective/representative/troubleshooter), "jumping into the privy and pulling out a gold ring."

Bujold tells her story by rotating among a few point of view of characters. Miles is still brilliant, charismatic, and resourceful, and although at 39 he's perhaps less desperate to over-achieve while over-compensating for his dwarfish physique than in his younger days, he's still an unstoppable force once put in motion (a "hyperactive lunatic"). Jin is bright, generous, and sensitive. He avidly cares for a menagerie of creatures and doesn't like recalling that his father is dead-dead and his mother cryogenically preserved. Then there is Roic, Mile's armsman, a good-natured straight-man who worries that Miles' cavalier treatment of laws and rules is rubbing off on him.

There are neat supporting characters: Jin's cute little sister Mina; the divorced Barrayaran Consul to Kibou-daini, Vorlinkin; and Miles' clone-brother Mark. Mark, who helpfully shows up for the denoument, is still dedicated to ending the Jackson's Whole practice of rich old people transplanting their brains into the bodies of young clones and has his company working on a more humane means of extending human life.

Much of the novel is funny. Bujold writes plenty of witty lines, as when Raven mentions making a family "the old fashioned way: a sperm, an egg, and a test tube." And Jin's innocent and ignorant point of view leads to much ironic humor, for he often doesn't understand what we do, as when Miles makes a joke referring to sex change on Beta Colony. However, there are also some moving scenes featuring Jin and Mina, like the uncomfortable moment when Miles rather callously shows them pics of his parents, wife, and four kids and their ponies and extensive lands and big houses, all of which make the orphaned siblings feel badly.

The "Aftermath" of the novel makes all the preceding stuff on cryogenics and longevity treatments stab home. After all, amid all our fancy medical technology, we remain very mortal. (Miles has heard that the longest anyone could live--assuming no death from old age--would be about 800 before the law of averages would kill them with some accident or mistake).

Apart from assuming an unlikely Aussie or cockney accent for one local character, Grover Gardner gives yet another excellent reading of the audiobook, and continues to be the ideal reader for Miles and Bujold's Vorkosigan series.

Kibou-daini means "Wish Number 2" in Japanese, and the planet must have been settled largely by Japanese from old Earth, but the people's race and names and cultural traces (like green tea and the "-san" suffix) are almost window dressing, having little to do with Bujold's cryogenics theme.

About the only thing I didn't care for in the novel occurs when, after Jin has been traumatized by seeing Roic's familiar eyes change into those of a deadly stranger during some dangerous action, Roic makes everything OK by showing the boy and his little sister how to shoot a stun gun and telling them, "It's only a tool." Is Bujold promoting the old NRA canard that "guns don't kill people, people do"? Anyway, I can't believe that Roic teaching Jin to shoot a stun gun would heal the boy's shock so easily.

Fans of Bujold's Vorkosigan series should enjoy this book, though, as ever, I recommend the first several books in the series (those dealing with Miles' parents and with his younger days) over the later books.

I need another Miles book!

Miles is on another adventure. This book left me stunned! I enjoyed it very much and thought everything was settled until the last few pages. Wow, what a twist! Now I'm stuck because there is not another Miles book to jump right into. What ever will I do?

Another fun reading!

I still miss the readers chair readers from the original story's... story's still are intoxicting brain candy!

foreclosed against others never disappoint Lois Mc

4 Costigan sagas never disappoint Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my very favorites excellent in all Waze

Miles is back!

Bujold's hero, Miles Vorkosigan, is in the grand tradition of Dominic Flandry (by Poul Anderson) or Jaime Retief (by Keith Laumer). Like those classic authors of space opera, Bujold not-so-innocently stashes a lot of ideas in among the quips and the daring-do. This one looks at the ethical implications of freezing people. It sounds gruesome... but it's FUN!
The narration is not overly intrusive.
Vorkosigan books are not to be taken seriously... but they are most definitely to be taken! Highly recommended.

Another great novel in this series.

After going through about 14 volumes of this series I have to say that I enjoyed most all of them including this one. I know that's not saying much but I don't know how many times I can repeat an enjoyable story with an enjoyable narrator. This series has been great and I have enjoyed traveling along along miles's story.