Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Winner, Science Fiction, 2014

Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his relatively uneventful bachelor's life as a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. Cousin to imperial troubleshooter Miles Vorkosigan, Ivan is not far down the hereditary list for the emperorship. Thankfully, new heirs have directed that headache elsewhere, leaving Ivan to enjoy his life on Komarr, far from the Byzantine court politics of his home system. But when an old friend in Barrayaran intelligence asks Ivan to protect an attractive young woman who may be on the hit list of a criminal syndicate, his chivalrous nature takes over. It seems danger and adventure have once more found Captain Vorpatril.

Tej Arqua and her half-sister and servant, Rish, are fleeing the violent overthrow of their clan on free-for-all planet Jackson’s Whole. Now it seems Tej may possess a secret of which even she may not be aware - a secret that could corrupt the heart of a highly regarded Barrayaran family and provide the final advantage for the thugs who seek to overthrow Tej’s homeworld. But none of Tej’s formidable adversaries have counted on Ivan Vorpatril. For behind Ivan’s facade of wry and self-effacing humor lies a true and cunning protector who will never leave a distressed lady in the lurch - making the ultimate sacrifice to keep her from harm: the treasured and hard-won freedom from his own fate as a scion of Barrayar.

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most honored writers of science fiction and fantasy, having won five Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. In 2011 she was awarded the Skylark Award for her significant contributions to science fiction.

©2012 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2012 Blackstone Audio

Captain VorPatril finally comes into his own!

What about Grover Gardner’s performance did you like?

It would not be part of the VorKosigan saga without Mr.Gardner!

Any additional comments?

Great addition to the series. Am waiting for the next.

Great segue to a new series (I hope)

I admit it, I'm a Bujold fan. So, I was extremely happy to find this title. At first, the reader put me off. He uses the whangy twang of the privileged few. Soon it seems absolutely appropriate.

The story line is not only interesting but also amusing. It reveals the inner and outer life of a minor actor in the Vorkosigan saga that shows him as more than a side kick. Of course, with friends like his, you don't need enemies and complications will ensue. But, for a plot outline, see the blurb above.

Know that you need not have read any of the Vorkosigan books to enjoy this one.

lois mcmaster bujold rocks i love her writting

What did you love best about Captain Vorpatril's Alliance?

continues the vorkosigan saga with existing cast and still manages to have the suspense and story all come together

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Ivan Alone

It was fun to listen to a book starring Ivan alone. I wondered how
Bujold would handle Ivan as the protaganist. She kept him in character but allowed his smarts to show. I recommend this book without reserrvation, especially to Bujold fans.

Ivan gets his time in the spotlight

Once again, Grover Gardner delivers… and I am finally gets his chance to prove he’s not an idiot. He’s like the David in “Sabrina.” Total playboy who finally grows up. I love the inner dialogue with Tej and Ivan. If only they would use their out loud voices more often…

A Goofy and Funny Ivan Story

At last we get to see the much mocked unsung hero Ivan Vorpatril get his Happily Ever After with a smart, beautiful galactic woman. I always enjoyed getting updates from the gang on Barrayar and remain sad that the author apparently wrapped up the series a few years ago. I miss them. The plot is totally unbelievable which is all I can say without spoilers, but fans will laugh. Grover Gardner is reliably excellent.

Re-reading series

My new favorite from a series I first read in my youth - when I first read Warrior's Apprentice.

The 15th book, but a pleasant throwback

This is the 15th(!!) book in the Vorkosigan series, and, at this point, it would be a bit of shock to have someone reading this review who hadn't already been engaged in this particular series for a long time. If you are a Vorkosigan fan, the answer is yes, Bujold's new book is very good, she hasn't lost it, Grover Gardner is still solid, and you should listen to it. Strangely, for non-readers, especially those with a bit more interest in the interpersonal than the interplanetary, this may not be the worst place to start, since many new characters are introduced, and the book serves as a gently introduction to the Vor universe. But this is an excellent series, so , of course, you probably should start at book four ("Warrior's Apprentice"), if not book one.

And the early Vorkosigan novels do seem to haunt Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, though not in a bad way. As the hero of the series, Miles, has aged and matured into a fantastically well-rounded character, the series has generally gotten a bit more grim and focused even as Miles has grown in confidence and power. By instead choosing to develop a side character, Bujold gives us a little bit of some of the old Miles fun again - surprise interventions by the Emperor, offworlders baffled by Barrayar, and so on.

It is a nice change of pace after two darker books, and, while it doesn't advance the main Miles plot, it is fun to see another Vorkosigan-style comedy of manners, with a little less action and a little lower stakes than we have seen recently. Not the highpoint of the series, but definitely recommended!

Ivan is the hero!

I love the Vorkosigan saga, and am delighted to find a new story, and one starring Ivan! Yaaaay! I knew Ivan would find a unique woman when he finally settled down! The twists and turns of this one kept me listening and laughing till the end. Chronologically, this book comes between Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn, but can be read as a stand-alone. If you like this one, try some of the others in the Vorkosigan saga. You won't regret it!

Romantic SF Comedy of Character, Culture & History

Three days into his ten-day mission as Aide-de-Camp to the Barrayaran Chief of Operations on Komarr (a world in the Barrayaran Empire), Captain Ivan Vorpatril is visited by his cousin Byerly Vorrutyer. All By asks Ivan to do is pick up a young lady. What could be simpler? But although 90% of By's life is that of a decadent fop, the 10% of his life as secret informer for ImpSec (Barrayaran Imperial Security) gives Ivan qualms. As his survival mechanism designed to avoid becoming the focus of coups to replace Emperor Gregor, Ivan has spent his 34 years perfecting the art of flying under the radar, projecting an aura of handsome and gormless stupidity so well that he has come to believe that he is slow and ambitionless. But because the woman, supposedly a Komarran citizen called Nanja Brindis, has "Tumbling black hair, bright eyes, skin glowing an interesting cinnamon brown . . . [a] decided nose, determined chin. . . Long legs . . . A nicely full figure," etc., Ivan decides to meet her.

By being By and Ivan being Ivan, Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012) soon has Ivan shot with a stunner and spending the night in an apartment with two beautiful women, albeit in a less pleasant manner than his fantasies would have had it, landed against his will in a complex, politically delicate situation involving the cutthroat Houses (family syndicates on steroids) of Jackson's Whole, a mysterious and beautiful woman, her bioengineered, lapis lazuli-skinned, servant/sister "jeeves" (Bujold's nod to P. G. Wodehouse), and various Cetagandan, Komarran, and Barrayaran agendas.

No Bertie Wooster, Nanja, whose real name turns out to be Tej, is another of Bujold's strong female point of view characters like Cordelia and Ekaterin, and her Jackson's Whole ethos, relationship with her jeeves Rish, and mixed feelings for her scheming, "overpowering, constricting, maddening" family are interesting. The book is full of vintage Bujold witty lines, cultural contrasts, suspenseful situations, and surprising developments. It is fun to see Ivan, who has done his best to duck promotion so as to avoid real responsibility, who has enjoyed a series of girlfriends without the commitment of marriage, who has always hated puzzles, and whose idea of problem solving (unlike the "forward-momentum" of his super-cousin Miles Vorkosigan) is "inertia," get tossed in to the deep end of Bujold's machinations. It's great to read a book about Ivan in which Miles stays mostly off-stage (being mostly on another world on one of his Imperial Auditor jobs).

Although Bujold can write some clunkers ("Ivan Xav stiffened and not in the good way; he was quite limp in that region at the moment"), she writes many more neat lines in the book, like "The scent of him still lingered in the moist air, strangely pleasant and complex, as if his immune system was calling out to hers: let's get together and make wonderful new antibodies," and "I’ve never made love to a wife before, I mean my wife, I mean I’ve never been married before.”

I like Ivan finding Rish "Sort of a cross between a pixie and a python." And Tej finding Ivan "A middling Vor officer of middling responsibilities and middling rank. Just middling along." As Tej discovers, easy-going Ivan is kind and funny and a source of light, a good match for her because she's never wanted " to play the [power] game as her parents did." It's neat how, unlike in most romantic comedies, Bujold puts a wedding near the start of the novel and spends the rest of it detailing what comes after. And once the story gets to Barrayar, there are plenty of cool developments involving experimental "micoborer" dirt-eating, tunnel-making organisms, a subterranean Cetagandan lab, the hideous ImpSec HQ building, and Simon Illyan, the retired former head of ImpSec and current lover of Ivan's long-widowed mother.

However, despite my great enjoyment of this book, I found it, like the other recent Vorkosigan novels after the fine Komarr (1998), a bit light. The recent books (like this one) are romantic comedies of character, culture, and history in which, despite suspenseful scenes and dangerous developments, including near war, criminal catastrophe, and life-threatening crises, most everyone emerges unscathed. I've begun missing the darker strands and more scarring events of the earlier novels.

And the more my excitement ended the end of the story, the more I began seeing its unconvincing features. Why wouldn't Rish, who has been designed and trained to super powers of observation, including being able to smell arousal, detect that Tej and Ivan love each other, if only because they’re always holding hands and making love? Why wouldn't the hyper alert and nearly paranoid ImpSec have its agents watching and trailing Tej's entire family 24-7? How DO the Komarrans, Barrayarans, Jacksonian's, and Cetagandans communicate with each other, and in what language and with what accents? And isn't there something creepy about Bujold's favorable depiction of imperial colonization, aristocratic power, state surveillance, and fascistic uniforms, despite the presence in her galaxy of freer, more tolerant, democratic, and ideal civilizations like Beta Colony? Although there have been rotten ImpSec and Vor apples and a mad Emperor or two, the current Barrayaran Empire is run by good men who wield their near absolute power with almost too good to be true rectitude, restraint, and accuracy.

If you don't need sublime technologies, outre civilizations, and tragic gravitas ala Peter Hamilton and Iain Banks, if you keep in mind that in her recent Vorkosigan saga books Bujold is writing character and culture driven space opera comfort food, you should like this novel (and I'm sure I'll enjoy every Vorkosigan story Bujold ever writes), though you should probably begin at the beginning of her series, when the books were entertaining with teeth.