Book Review Lois Mcmaster Bujold THE Warror’s Apprentice

BOOK REVIEW – LOIS McMASTER BUJOLD – THE WARROR’S APPRENTICE 1986 Baen Press

The Young Miles Trilogy of stories is a compendium edition of the earliest set of Miles Vorkosigan adventures, about a highly charismatic, fast-talking young man, and how he gets himself into and out of various extra-ordinary adventures.

The odds seem stacked against Miles from birth. He has been left with a brittle bone condition due to a gas attack that affected his now deceased mother, Cordelia (subject of Bujold stories of her own). The Warrior’s Apprentice begins when Miles, close to completion of military academy training, breaks his legs showing off on an assault course test. His career in the space forces seems to be over, but Miles, while visiting another world during his recovery, finds himself caught up in a conspiracy involving mercenaries, control of a star-gate wormhole and a plot to depose his own father, a leading political leader in his own right, back on Vor.

Miles, with a girl from his own World, who he lovers, takes over the mercenary fleet, renaming it the Dendari, and masquerades as a leading admiral.

Ultimately, he saves several planets as his lies become more difficult to juggle, but loses his lover to another man because he is o absorbed in his duties. Worse will follow on his return home, where he risks standing trial for treason in a World where having your own private militia is punishable by death.

Beautifully presented story telling, mixing high-octane action, human warmth and humour into seamless whole. Miles, modelled on the young Lawrence Of Arabia, is an amazing and totally believable character, able to take over a situation just by smooth talking ingenuity and always saddened by the loss of life around himself.

For other stories from the Bujold Young Miles collection see also – THE MOUNTAINS OF MOURNING,  THE WEATHERMAN and THE VOR GAME

Arthur Chappell