A Civil Campaign: A Miles Vorkosigan Novel

After a serious turn over the last few books of the series (Memory, Komarr), this book returns to the lighter fare and faster pace of some of the earlier novels of the series. Built like a Restoration comedy crossed with a modern sitcom, it features spurned lovers, switched genders, slapstick, and politics done with Bujold's deft touch. Expect less brooding and more action, although it is all political and romantic this time - no gunfights or spacebattles in this adventure.

If you have followed the Miles series from the beginning this is an hugely entertaining novel, and it goes by incredibly fast. If you haven't read the previous series in order: the Vor Game, Cetaganda, Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, Memory, and Komarr (or at least Mirror Dance, Memory, and Komarr), you might want to start the series from an earlier point, as I imagine that the evolution in the characters that creates much of the comedy will be entirely lost.

Grover Gardner's narration makes this story. I find myself looking at short men in a different way. I read and enjoyed the entire series years ago, but Grover makes the characters come alive. It is easy to listen A Civil Campaign and the other Vorkosigian audiobooks more than once. They are fun and addictive. For the richest experience, start at the beginning of the saga with A Warriors Apprentice.
A Civil Campaign is just as great as the first book. Just don't listen to this audiobook in the dentist chair, you might get hurt when you laugh.

This is my favorite Lois McMaster Bujold book. It's incredibly rich in characters and situations. It's not as much an action book as some of her previous in the series but it's the richest, I think, in drama and humor.

I think this could be a first read book in the series with great enjoyment. But, after reading a bunch of the earlier books, the tapestry becomes fully woven, here.

This book is about Miles' courtship of Ekaterin amid a BUNCH of difficulties, starting with her being repulsed by the idea of ever marrying again after her failed previous marriage which ended in the death of her husband just weeks before But Miles has no doubt SHE is the one he wants to marry and his intentions . . . leak to everyone he knows.

I'm struck by wishing I could be friends with a bunch of the main characters of this book. People you get to know and like.

Grover Gardner has again done an excellent job of reading a Bujold book, if anything, better than before.

The dinner party alone is worth reading the whole book. Vorkosigan helpless and inept in the throes of passion. All the wit and plotting brilliance we have come to expect of Bujold but this time in the service of comedy of manners. Bravo! And, as a bonus, an homage to tribbles.

I loved this book, the party scene was the funnies thing I have read in ages! The narration is impecable too :) Quick! We need more of Miles Vorkosigan books!

I had listened to several of the novels in the series and when I finished Komarr it was the chronologically last one available at Audible. So I purchased A Civil Campaign in paperback. For some reason I was unable to get through it and put it down after around 50 pages. Then, when it finally was offered by Audible I downloaded it and listened with total enjoyment. Apparently for me at least these novels are better heard than read. I think that Grover Gardner's masterful reading style really brings out the humor in these novels. He also does a very fine job with the female characters, not often easy for a male reader. Bravo Lois and Grover!

Too often science fiction writers try to focus on what is important to planets and lose track of what is important to people. Lois McMaster Bujold never loses track of her characters. All of her created persons are rich and complex while still being active and lively.

Miles Vorkosigan, the books principle, or at least most famous, character is science-fiction's most unlikely Romeo. He is a strategist and tactician on both military and political battlefields, a man who eats his homeworld's powerful enemies for breakfast and washes them down with a swig of political panache. He has faced crippling birth defects, social prejudice, battlefield capture, torture, amnesia, baroque plots involving clones, insane superiors, charges of high treason, and worst of all, Simon Illyan's paperwork, and emerged victorious if not unscathed.

Only one thing in the universe holds terror for him right now, and her name is Ekatarin Vorsoisson. She is the beautiful widow of a man recently murdered during the course of one of Mile's investigation, and she is now the focus of all Mile's romantic hopes.

Unable to bear the thought of rejection, miles approaches courtship the only way he knows how, like a covert-ops mission. What he thinks he cannot ever be given, he will attempt, through guile, to steal, with predictably disastrous results.

Add in a few political scandals, a very buggy biological experiment, and the planetary emperor's upcoming wedding and the stage is set for an incomparable comedy of biology and manners.

I've read most of the books in the Vorkosigan saga now and I have to say this is by far my favourite, with "Warrior's Apprentice" a close second. Reading/listening to this book reminded me somewhat of the romantic comedies of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. For those not familiar with the Vorksigan saga I would recommend reading the others in the series just to get a general background to the characters, as I'm sure it could be a little confusing.

Definitely worth it for hardcore Miles fans!

I enjoyed this story so much. what a surprise and joy to find this story. A must read.

Every time I start a book from this series, I hear myself thinking something like, "okay, I've just got to get through the buildup part of the book to the good stuff." Then after listening to the whole thing, I am amazed that I even considered the buildup something to 'get through'. You'd think I'd learn after reading the rest of this series. Lots of humor, great political intrigue, just a lot of fun to read.