So, you pick up a science fiction mystery novel by your favorite author. You know the one, who wrote your favorite character of all time? It’s another in her long, award winning series following Miles Naismith Vorkosigan through his life of adventure and mystery. (if you’ve read Bujold, you know why you never leave out Naismith in his name.)
The soletta – the key to terraforming Komarr – has just been hit and almost catastrophically damaged by an ore freighter. Miles is a newly minted Imperial Auditor. Which means fewer guns, just any many twists and turns to apply his nimble mind to. His first assignement is to determine if this was an accident or sabotage.
Ekaterin Vorsoisson (it helps the pronunciation to think of the Vor like the von in von Beethoven) is in a marriage that she has kept going for a decade by shrinking herself into a smaller and smaller space in the name of honor and oaths. Her uncle is the other Imperial Auditor assigned to the case and she is drawn into the orbit of the investigation.
Through the course of the investigation, Miles and Ekaterin work from very different angles to find the center of the mystery. And it’s good! It’s layered and hard to see through. Bujold’s work always flows and draws you toward a meaty, if not fully satisfying conclusion.
But that’s not what kills me. Dropped in this little trade paperback sci fi mystery novel is a portrait of me, five and a half years ago. A picture of what it feels like when you reach the last straw and let go of the sunk cost fallacy of a long but no longer good relationship.
“…yet solving the worst problem without (him) seemed already a thousand times easier than solving the simplest problem with (him).”
“She must be starving half to death, if such a scrap seems a feast.”
“How did I grow so small.”
“If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath…”
Every time I read Bujold, I find myself a little bit more.
This is part of my Sixteen Sweet Books Challenge in the Cozy Category.