Mirror Dance

A Miles Vorkosigan Novel

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 1995

The dwarfish, fetally damaged yet brilliant Miles Vorkosigan has more than his share of troubles. Having recently escaped an assassination plot whose tool was a brainwashed clone of himself, Miles has set the clone, Mark, free for a new chance at life. But when he decides to let his clone brother assume his secret identity and lead the Dendarii Free Mercenary on an unauthorized mission to liberate other clones from the outlaw planet of Jackson's Whole, things get really messy.

The mission goes awry, Miles' rescue attempt goes even more wrong, and Miles ends up killed and placed in cryogenic suspension for future resuscitation. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, the cryo-container is lost! Now it is up to the confused, disturbed Mark to either take Miles' place as heir of the Vorkosigan line or redeem himself by finding and saving Miles.

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

©1994 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"[A]s good a story as ever was offered as science fiction, with Bujold's carefully crafted prose, logical working out of even minor plot points, and inimitable wit all very much in evidence. Deserves the highest recommendation and a hoard of eager readers." (Booklist)

"[An] intricate and rousing new installment of the Vorkosigan adventures....Bujold creates a tapestry of variegated human societies dispersed throughout a colorful galaxy. She peoples it with introspective but genuine heroes who seize the reader's imagination and intellect." (Publishers Weekly)

Excellent book, but needs editing?

Love the Vorkosigan series (and particularly Gardners' narrations) and this is one of the best. Looking forward to the release of Barrayar later this year.

Would definitely recommend finishing some of the earlier titles before starting this one - I would start with "The Warrior's Apprentice" and continue in chronological or publication order but whatever you do, make sure to get through "Brothers in Arms" before this book.

A very small oddity with this book - it's like they forgot to edit it in places. Gardner occasionally repeats himself, at times with different emphasis or other times where he had got tongue-tied and re-read a sentence. However, this doesn't detract enough from the book for me to give it less than 5 stars. Enjoy!

disaster to lessons learned to recovery

It’s 2 years since BROTHERS IN ARMS and Mark has decided it’s time to take action by appearing as Miles to rescue clones with the help of the Dendarii. Miles tries to step in to rescue them all with disastrous results.
Mark ends up traveling to Barrayar and gets to meet Illyan, Aral, Cordelia, Gregor, and intro Kareen and the Koudelka girls. Meeting Aral and Cordelia provides his revelation of “Oh, so that’s what integrity looks like”.
When Mark leads the return to Jackson’s Whole to recover Miles, he earns another revelation when Elena looks at him “So that’s what respect looks like.”
Gardner is absolutely one of the best narrators working today. He truly adds to the book and series.

Good story, but lots of problems

I enjoy this series and this plot was good. My problem was that the editing job for the audiobook was below average. I noticed more than fifteen mistakes.

For me, the best of the series

I am listening to the entire Miles Vorkosigan series after having read them over many years. While I generally prefer those that have more Miles and less Mark, I found this installment to be the best so far even though the middle third was all about Mark. And I even grew found of Mark and his personal development! The entire series makes for a great listen, and I am sad that I have only a few more to go.

Best book in the series! (so far)

I suspected Bujold would do a lot with the way things were left at the end of the brothers in arms, but was delighted to see how differently she took it from even the variety of ideas I imagined.

It's hard to speak of this book without giving away spoilers, so consider this a spoiler alert now. But when I was reading some of the overall reviews and comments by the author after only the first few books, I saw a comment she made about wanting to write a story about Miles with 'Mirror' in the title and how this book ended up finally being that book. (apparently she was thinking as far back as Warrior's apprenctice of using 'mirror' in the title)

Hoping to try more writing of fiction someday myself, the scenario set up in brothers in arms combined with the already known dual juxtapositions of Miles (being physically fragile in a hyper-masculine society and dividing his own personality between two different versions of himself) then throwing into that a 'twin' with no identity of self who's entire screwed up life has been directed toward pretending to be Miles, the possibilities for a writer struck me as a fictioner's wet dream!

Then she spins the whole thing around not by focusing more on Miles, but taking him right out of the picture for the vast majority of the book, and instead diving deep into the morbid nature of Mark's existence (or lack thereof), throwing him into a hellish scenario bordering on torture porn (if not spilling over into it and beyond on occasion) and having him pull out of it even more self-confident than his would-be older brother! Damaged (more damaged) but self-repaired with the help of his own 'internal' army.
Then to re-introduce the latter not knowing he is in fact himself! Having him not knowing who he is, then upon learning who he is supposed to be, being faced with trying to figure out which of two false options is the truth. Wow! I figured things might get mess-with-your-head interesting, but got pulled in directions I never imagined I might go. Great premises that I could have never imagined!

Most of us have dealt with darker sides of our characters. Hopefully none of us ever end up in a situation so tormented and insane as to require the insanity of letting those darker sides literally 'take over' to come out of the insanity alive and (hopefully) sane ourselves.

I'll be curious to see if she ever re-visits Mark again in the future and what might still remain to be done after all that! I'm now working on 'Memory' and she's now taking up where she left off with Miles himself, but again with many unexpected twists! See y'all in the next review! This too is getting good!

One of the best Vorkosigan books

Mirror Dance is a wonderfully plotted book with great characters, madcap adventure, tons of tension and plenty of laughs. It won the Hugo Award and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1995. Grover Gardner is amazing.

Best

Any additional comments?

This is by far my favorite book in the series. It does a great job dealing with the ethics of clones and builds rich and distinct personae for both Miles and Mark. This series keeps up the quality storytelling from installment 1 to installment 17. It will not disappointment.

Fascinating as always

The story as usual was intriguing and the characters complex.
Another excellent novel by a master.

Dark matters

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Of course I recommend this book--it has the usual excellent narration by Grover Gardner, and the characters we have come to love. But this is by far the darkest story line in the series, and I'm not sure I'll ever re-listen to it.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

This book explores the motivations behind Miles' character, and the twists that resulted when Marc was given the same genetics but different environments. A real Nature versus Nurture exploration.

Any additional comments?

Lois McMaster Bujold creates such vivid, real characters that I often find myself wondering who she is basing them on.

Best of the Best

As others have noted, this seems to be the best of the Miles series. The genius of this book is its focus on Mark, Miles's clone, and the significant time it spends with the characters who are sometimes put in the background. I really thought I was going to miss Miles more... I was almost sorry to see him pop back up.

There are times when this book is hard to read... Mark is far from perfect, and he endures some serious suffering before he can be redeemed, but working through all of this story, including some very graphic and upsetting scenes, pays off in the end. Mark and some of his new friends introduced in the last part of this book deserve their own series. In fact, nearly all the characters in this book do... and I hope Bujold has many many more like this one in the pipeline.