The Flowers of Vashnoi

An Ekaterin Vorkosigan Novella

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Still new to her duties as Lady Vorkosigan, Ekaterin is working together with expatriate scientist Enrique Borgos on a radical scheme to recover the lands of the Vashnoi exclusion zone, lingering radioactive legacy of the Cetagandan invasion of the planet Barrayar. When Enrique's experimental bioengineered creatures go missing, the pair discover that the zone still conceals deadly old secrets.

©2018 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Yay! A Vorkosigan novella

Loved this novella featuring Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan, with Dr Enrique Borgos as side-kick. I’ve already read and reviewed the ebook a few weeks ago. I really hope Bujold is moved to write more in this world.
I love strong, intelligent women characters, which Bujold excels at writing. She also excels in strong plots and logic. I have all the audios of her books and have been acquiring any ebooks I’m missing. I’m always amazed at how much I underline or clip audio in her books because she makes so many good points.
Yes, I feel they are worth the time and money and I can recommend all her books, wholeheartedly.
I think Grover Gardner is one of the best narrators out there. Though I wish he had kept Enrique’s charming and funny accent.

A Thoughtful Look at Miles’ District

Grover Gardner does an awesome job narrating these very fine books by Bujold. I enjoyed hearing this story told from Ekaterin’s point of view and could quite happily have listened to it continue...if only there had been another chapter or two or ten. The conclusion was satisfying; I just always want more!

a nice mini-story

Nothing groundbreaking here, but enjoyable story and a good read. Always good to get to know some of these characters better.

another vorkosigan book

its a vorkosigan book. its lois mcmaster bujold. nothing more need really be said. buy it.

pretty good entry in the Vorkosiverse

I didn't realize when I bought it that this is a novella, but I love all of LMB's books in the Vorkosiverse & narrator Grover Gardner, so that was ok. I've actually not been a huge fan of Ekaterin up to this point, but wanted to give it a try. I liked her much better in this book. She is the focus of it and she's shown in a better light; her intelligence and courage are more clear & less tortured by memories of her upbringing & her late husband. The 'calm' that Miles so loves is more of a settled centeredness than the former sort of withdrawal/social awkwardness that typified her in the earlier books. We get to see more of Enrique, and he's a bit less of the nutty, absent-minded intellectual type, & not quite so goofy. This is both good & bad; he's more of a 3-D character, but his goofiness could certainly be entertaining. We see a much different portrait of life in Miles' district and it's a tragic but extremely interesting look. I did find myself wondering at the end how the district folks were going to manage in their days ahead, & feeling rather dubious.

I absolutely love Gardner; he's been one of my favorite readers since the first time I heard him & I've several times bought books I would otherwise have passed on just because he read them. So...it pains me to say that his performance this time isn't as outstanding & utterly captivating as the dozens of other books I have that he's read. He's certainly not bad-- GG at less than his best is still better than most other readers, he just sounds almost...tired. It's still very easy to identify who's talking; his voices for each character are clearly individual. His rendering of the non-dialogue parts is good, as usual. I was sort of surprised that Enrique has completely lost his Escobarran* accent for some reason, & since I've listened to all the previous books multiple times that took a bit of getting used to. Gardner still did a good job, but this is the first time I've ever not given him 5 stars. Still love his voice, tho.

I'd recommend this to anyone who's a fan of LMB's Vorkosiverse, but if you haven't read any of the previous books in that universe you're likely to be confused by this one. I'd recommend starting at least with "Shards of Honor," which introduces Cordelia & Aral Vorkosigan. I rather envy anyone who has the joy of discovering this series ahead of them, but I can keep re-listening to them & enjoy them all the same.

*I've only ever encountered all the Vorkosiverse books in audio form, so am not entirely sure of some of the spellings.