Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold

I was completely incapable of settling on anything to read this week, so I picked this up for a second read. It’s from the middle of her Miles Vorkosigan science fiction series, when said protagonist is in his manic, paranoid, splintered, brilliant mid-twenties. Miles ends up on Earth for complicated reasons, and trouble ensues when the identities of Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan, loyal barrayaran Imperial officer, and Admiral Miles Naismith, free mercenary, begin trying to co-exist in very close quarters, spatially and in Miles’s head. It’s a rollicking but thoughtful adventure in the good old style, though with foresight you can definitely see the stress fractures beginning to show as Bujold prepares to drop the world on Miles’s head in the next few books.

This is an odd book. It’s a story about identity and politics and identity politics, played out like shadow puppets against the backdrop of the Komarr problem (the strategically vital planet socially Medieval Barrayar took over thirty years ago, with attendant atrocities, and with which it is now trying to integrate). The book weaves threads of personal destiny and determinism with the future of the greater social problem, and it comes out rather . . . strangely.

( Spoilery elaboration )