Autumn Adventures

3.5 starsI read this as part of the omnibus edition Young Miles. We return to Miles while he and Ivan are collecting their first duty assignments after graduating from the Imperial Security Academy. Miles yearns for ship duty. Ivan receives his orders staioning him in the capitol at ImpSec HQ. Miles orders send him to the farthest reaches of the Barrayar arctic as the weatherman for Kyril Island. Miles questions his assignment, especially since he only took one perfunctory meteorology course his first year of academy. He learns the duty assignment is a test to see if he can work with, lead and be lead by common (not Vor) soldiers. If he passes, his carrot is ship duty on the newest ship-of-the-line, the Prince Serg. Miles' insubordination plays a major them in this story. He stumbles into the most improbable situations and then believes only he is capable of finding a way out of it, ignoring the advice and orders of his colleagues and superiors. It doesn't help that he actually does succeed in saving the day. I enjoyed the action and intrigue, including more space opera elements, especially in the climactic space battles for control of various strategic wormholes. Parts of the story bogged down, though, especially after Miles removal from the arctic and subsequent detention. And I almost stopped reading when I had to suspend belief almost completely regarding the unlikely scenario of Miles finding Gregor off-planet and working as slave labor on a space station. It was a fun read, but not as fun as Warrior's Apprentice, yet it won the Hugo in 1991. To date, I've read four novels in Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. I recommend this book as well as the series to all loves of space opera.