Customer Reviews

A Civil Campaign

5 star:		(154)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'd strongly endorse all the positive comments in the many reviews here -- *A Civil Campaign* is not just a good book but an excellent, funny, and very intelligent one, a great novelist at the top of her form and a lasting joy. It's also even cleverer and subtler in its generic engineering of SF and Regency romance than even those who love it sometimes appreciate, and to celebrate the Silver Centenary of the Vorkosiverse (1986-2011), the members of the official LMB mailing-list compiled and edited a *Reader's Companion to a Civil Campaign*, which has some introductory mini-essays on the novel's dedicatees (Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Heyer, and Sayers), and on Shakespeare, as intertexts, and on the subtitle ("A comedy of biology and manners"), as well as chapter-by-chapter annotations. There are also numerous quotations from posts LMB has made to the list and at Baen's Bar, about her art and craft of writing, and about details of characters and events, which will enrich anyone's reading not only of *A Civil Campaign* but of all her work.

The *Reader's Companion to A Civil Campaign* is available as a free download from the Bujold Nexus, at [...]

For fans of Ms. Bujold in general, and her highly popular character Miles Vorkosigan in particular, this book takes her writing to a new level as we go on a highly entertaining adventure, following Miles Vorkosigan as he wages war against an enemy unlike any he's ever faced before--Love.

For those unfamiliar with this series, "A Civil Campaign" is set on the planet Barrayar, a conservative, militaristic society with a turbulent past. It's slowly being transformed into a modern, liberal society, much of which is caused by Miles' mother, Cordelia Naismith, who comes from the highly liberal society of Beta Colony. The relationship that formed over thirty years ago between her and Miles' father, Aral Vorkosigan, the legendary war hero often referred to as "the Butcher of Komarr," resulted in an upheaval that over the years has opened Barrayar's once closed society, a transformation whose growing pains still show today.

Miles Vorkosigan is a member of the powerful Vorkosigan family. He's a living example of Barrayar's violent history, having been poisoned while still in his mother's womb. The attack resulted in Miles being being born with many handicaps, including dwarfism and extremely brittle bones. Driven by the desire to live up to his father and grandfather's military legacy, Miles managed to over-achieve, using a combination of strategic brilliance, indomitable spirit, and more than a little luck to carve out his own legacy as a member of the Barrayan secret service.

After an incredible galactic military career, Miles is discharged, having survived death itself, but resulting in crippling seizures, a result of being frozen and later revived. He then finds himself grounded on Barrayar, but still highly involved in the inner intrigues of the government, serving as a Lord Auditor, one of the legal justices of the Emperor.

After his first task as Lord Auditor in the book Komarr, where he meets Ekaterin. Miles later returns home, and in A Civil Campaign, launches his greatest strategic assault ever, to win the love of the recently widowed Ekaterin, who's currently struggling to find her own identity after years with a domineering husband. Of course, nothing ever comes easy for Miles. In the course of trying to win Ekaterin's heart, they both become embroiled in political intrigue and a wild business venture by Miles' clone brother Mark, who's also pursuing a lady love of his own.

This book has romance, politics, humor, and above all, characters that you'll fall in love with in just a few pages. The book stands well on it's own, but if you ever pick this one up, you'll find yourself in the bookstore looking for the rest of the series. I'm a long time reader of SF, and this is one of the most creative and fun series I've ever read.

Give A Civil Campaign a try!

A bit less action then the other books

Love A Civil Campaign & the book right after it, Diplomatic Immunity? Well -- through the magic of out-of-order authorship, we can now go back and enjoy the period *between* those two books!

Bujold has written a new Miles novella called Winterfair Gifts. It's in the anthology Irresistible Forces by Jennifer Roberson, et al., to be released February 3, 2004. The story reportedly covers . . . events presaged in A Civil Campaign.

I couldn't take it. Day after day, I forced myself to read a little bit more of this book. Day after day, it made me more and more ill. It's hard to believe that such a good writer as Bujold could take her Vorkosigan saga and turn it into this. For all intents and purposes, there's no plot whatsoever outside of Miles trying to woo his lady love. Oh, sure, there's Mark having troubles with his girlfriend and with a startup business. There's some stuff about Gregor and his wedding. And, in the closest thing to approach anything beyond self-absorbed mush, there's some stuff involving the succession to a couple of Countships. But, as of page 295 (out of 534), there's nothing else. Ugh. I'm sorry. But, where's someone saving the world? Or, how about saving a fleet? Destroying an evil scourge? Saving Miles' life? Mark's? Anyone's? Nope. Nothing. It's all trivial stuff that's important only to the characters involved. I'd also like to point out that almost every person in the book, though most are over 30, acts like a love-sick, idiotic teenager. In fact, to show you how out of character everyone is, the most mature person in the book is Ivan, Miles' cousin. It looks like this is the last of the Vorkosigan series I'll ever read. I've read all the other books in the Vorkosigan series (and loved them all). I've also read Bujold's books outside the series and they're pretty good. So, I guess that's where I'll look from now on.

This book is just awesome. It has everything you could ask for in a book: lovable and complex characters, humor, and a great plot. Miles in romeo/domestic mode is just plain hilarious. Using his Admiral Naismith-methods of wooing Ekaterin, a widow who has sworn off marriage, he causes scene after scene of humor, disasters, and clumsiness. Combine that with Mark's get-rich-quick scheme involving bugs that make butter, strong female characters, and a fight in corriders of a high Vor house involving "bug butter" splashing... and you have the recipe for a great book. I mean, Miles' parents meet the girl with an introduction from Miles of "Let me introduce you to.... she's getting away!"

There isn't so much scifi to this book as there is romantic comedy. But, it isn't just for girls. It has political intrigue and a good strong plot as well. It's a chance for the readers to see Miles struggling to be something besides a soldier, and Bujold does a beautiful job.

Unfortunately, the Vorkosigan saga (and this book in particular) has set a new standard for me with the scifi genre. Now I want everything, especially a unique society such as the Vor one. So I find myself unhappy with most of my books, feeling they just aren't putting enough effort in.

I have to agree with one of the other reviewers, the dinner scene in this book is the highlight. That being said, the rest of the book is still absolutely great in the expected Bujold style. Miles is definitely settling into life without the Dendarii and finally becoming real Vorkosigan while actually seeming to enjoy it. If you are looking for shoot-em-up, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for character interaction, twists, turns, and triumph in the manner in which you've become accustomed to from Bujold, get it. True fans won't regret it.

Miles Vorkosigan is at it again, merrily planning (and attempting to execute) a very exacting military campaign. The only trouble is, the military objective is inducing his new-found lady love Ekaterin to marry him. His plan includes notable pieces of strategy: not to be too obvious about it, as she is still in mourning for her late husband (see the earlier book Komarr for details); keep other suitors well away; make sure there are frequent opportunities for the two to be in each other's presence; ensure that she becomes aware of all the niceties that would entail from marrying into one of the noblest families on Barrayar. Each piece of his plan, though, runs into one minefield after another, and as he puts emergency stop-losses in place, his situation continuously deteriorates, culminating in a dinner where absolutely everything goes wrong.

The dinner may be the high point of this book - the person who can read this section and not fall over laughing, cringing, and crying all at the same time isn't a real human being. For this book is not about military action, political plots, or single-handed world-saving, but is rather a very witty comedy. The picture of Miles making just about every mistake a lovelorn suitor can is both marvelously funny and very believable, and the picture of Barrayaran society is solidly fleshed out, making the whole a perfect environment in which to play out such a comedy of manners. As usual, Bujold keeps several plot threads spinning at once, whose resolution, while (for once) not at all earth-shaking, makes for a nicely unified wholeness to the basic story.

In another departure for Bujold, this story is told from several viewpoints, not just Miles', which adds a lot to the reader's perspective of the society and situation, and also allows for much greater character development of Ivan Vorpatril, Mark (Miles' clone brother), and Ekaterin than has been the case with previous books in this series.

Perhaps my only real objection to this book was that some of the side plots from the main story just didn't seem to have enough importance and weren't detailed enough to make me really get involved with them, so that their major effect on the final outcome seemed to be larger than justified and a little bit of a surprise. This is a pretty minor quibble, though. Nominated for the 2000 Hugo award, this is a fine entertaining read, full of chuckles and belly-laughs, managing to make Miles into a normal human being without totally losing his aura of impossible competence, engaging and heart-warming. Possibly the best of all the Vorkosigan books.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

This will be a short and sweet review: This is a wonderful SF novel, and definitely one of the best in this series. Buy it! Read it! Love it!

This particular installment is a well developed story that is exceptionally amusing. It develops the characters and is told from multple POV's giving insight into several of the characters. Unlike many series this one seems to get better with time, the energy of the characters and their development is very well handled over this multi-generational tale. This particular book may be my favorite in the series to date.