An angry young man perches at the top of a wall. Should he climb carefully down, or save a few seconds by jumping? He makes his decision, he jumps . . . and we're off on a high-speed adventure that will take us through space battles and murder plots, unrequited love and bloody death, laugh-out-loud fun and hair-raising horror, and finally to the private audience chamber of the Emperor of Barrayar.
It's not giving too much away to say that Miles Vorkosigan has a great fall. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, Miles's problem is that he can't stop putting himself together again. Smuggler, would-be soldier, unrequited lover, con artist, space commander, entrepreneur . . . Miles Vorkosigan, you'll soon find, is a young man of parts. And his story is just as complex as he is, for The Warrior's Apprentice is at least three books folded into one.
Running up the middle of the book, as it were, is the central plotline, a story of high adventure and a young man's coming of age under several different sorts of fire. There are combats and ambushes, plots and pursuits, and a final twist that loops the story around to—almost—where it started. It's a ripping yarn, a classic example of the genre that was once known as "space opera" and now seems to be called "Military SF," and by itself it's a perfectly good reason to buy and read this book.
But there's so much more. Twining around this central plot, like vines up a tree or the twin serpents around a caduceus, are two other stories—one a comedy, and one a tragedy.
People tend to talk about Lois's complex and believable characters or her richly detailed worlds. Well, they are terrific characters and the world is so deep and so plausible that people have gotten lost in it. Lots of other people have already written essays on these things, and I just think it's really nifty the way she puts her plots together, the skeleton working smoothly under the skin. If you're one of those people who are just bored to tears by reading about plot structure, please, skip to the section marks. Or you could even go right ahead to the book—it's a very good book, and my feelings won't be hurt a bit. I might even talk about symbols, too, so don't say you haven't been warned.
The comedy lies in the story, as old as Aristophanes, of the little white lie that grows out of control, the plot that accelerates until the plotter is desperately scrambling to keep up with it. It's about good intentions gone wildly awry, salesmanship run out to its logical conclusion, and the dangers of picking up strays.
And it's funny—funny in all sorts of ways, from dry irony to wild slapstick. This book made me laugh out loud, unexpectedly, at least half a dozen times. The scene where Miles varies his financial structure, for instance. Or his inspection of Captain Auson's ship, and its outcome: "My Lord—those are the old regulations—" from Bothari.
Or the cultural misunderstandings between Betans and Barrayarans. I don't know which is funnier: the scene in the junkyard—"But that would kill him!"—or the repayment of Miles's financing: "Y'know, there's something backwards about this," from Ivan, as they tie their creditor up and then stuff bundles of money into his clothing.
Or just the little throwaway lines:
" 'I always knew,' Miles lied cheerfully. 'From the first time I met you. It's in the blood, you know.' "
"You can't eat an exhibit!"
"Who wouldn't? Who do you think you are? Lord Vorkosigan?"
"—even if he is at a convenient height for it."
And finally, there's the quiet smile that comes from subverting the conventions of the genre. A space opera/MilSF hero should be tall and ruggedly handsome (or tall and curvaceously gorgeous) and physically hypercompetent; s/he should have a plucky sidekick and a trusty blaster, should go charging valiantly into battle, and should be the center of attention and admiration, especially from the opposite sex. Miles is short and funny-looking, he's generally unarmed except for an old knife, his sidekick is anything but plucky, he's in danger of collapsing before charging into battle, and as for the opposite sex . . . well, you'll see. The Warrior's Apprentice isn't a satire—it's a real science fiction adventure story, not a parody of one—but if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of genre clichés being picked up, flipped over, and shaken hard to see what falls out.
Now, combining a picaresque space opera with a comic romp would be accomplishment enough for any author. However, Bujold goes for the hat trick. There's a third story being told here, and it's a grim, gothic tale of violence and violation, of innocence lost and old secrets coming back to bite. Be warned: there's death in this book, and pain, and bad things happening to characters that you've come to care about. While it's by no means a grisly or explicitly violent story, there are scenes here that are creepy, and disturbing, and that may haunt you for a long time afterward.
Comedy, it is said, ends best when it ends with a marriage or a voyage; tragedy, with a death and perhaps a redemption. The Warrior's Apprentice has all these things, though not necessarily in that order, and at the book's end you may be surprised to find that the seemingly disparate plot threads have come together. The tragedy plays out as it inevitably must, the comic elements are resolved, and the wild adventure loops around to an end. Just as the fragmented plotlines come together, so too—perhaps—do the fractured pieces of Miles Vorkosigan. I don't want to give too much away, but pay close attention to the book's final scene. Like the first, it involves a test, a difficult colleague, and the ascent and descent of a wall . . . but with a difference. Lois Bujold, you will find, does little by accident.
No discussion of Bujold would be complete without at least mentioning her quiet but effective use of recurring symbols. (I warned you I was going to talk about symbols, didn't I? Oh, come on, we're almost finished.) I'll just mention one, and then you can have the fun of trying to catch some of the others. Keep an eye out for old Piotr's knife, a tool that is put to a startling variety of uses, from the horrific to the comic. Sign of authority, implement of torture, means of escape . . . the knife hints at the complexity of old Piotr himself, and of the role that Miles is trying to grow into.
Well, all right, just one more: the title. Of course it's a sly reference to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the foolish young man who conjures up an army of brooms and buckets and then finds that they've multiplied beyond his control. But there's at least one level of meaning beyond that. As you read, pause now and then to think about it. Who is the warrior's apprentice? There's more than one warrior here, after all, and more than one apprenticeship being served.
* * *
Okay. Those of you who left when we started talking about plots and suchlike can come back now.
The Warrior's Apprentice is, depending on how you count, either the second or the third novel of Lois McMaster Bujold's celebrated Vorkosigan cycle. Before you ask, no, it's not one of those dreadful one-chapter-in-an-endless-saga things. There are threads leading into and out of the story, but the book is complete in itself, and you needn't have read anything else to enjoy it. It's the first book to deal with Miles (the earlier ones are about his parents) and so an excellent beginning point if you haven't read any of the Vorkosigan stories before.
I suspect that, once you've finished this book, you'll probably want to read the others. Be happy: there are a dozen or so, they're all good, and Lois is likely to write even more. They're books that sketch out a big, roomy universe filled with, well, richly detailed worlds and complex and believable characters. They have nice complicated plot structures, too, for those of us who like that sort of thing.
Right. Off you go, and hold on to your hat.
—
Douglas Muir
June 2001