Miles Vorkosigan has a problem: unrequited love for the beautiful widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, violently allergic to marriage after her first exposure. If a frontal assault won't do, Miles thinks, try subterfuge. He has a cunning plan ... Lord Mark Vorkosigan also has a problem: his love...  more

Miles Vorkosigan has a problem: unrequited love for the beautiful widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, violently allergic to marriage after her first exposure. If a frontal assault won't do, Miles thinks, try subterfuge. He has a cunning plan ... Lord Mark Vorkosigan also has a problem: his love has just become unrequited again. But he has a cunning plan ... Lord Ivan Vorpatril has a problem: unrequited love in general. But he too has a cunning plan ... If no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, just imagine what all Miles' friends and relatives can do to his romantic strategy!

Cordelia Naismith had married a simple retired soldier. Now pregnant with their first child, she expected a peaceful country life with Aral Vorkosigan and their children. Instead, dying Emperor Ezar Vorbarra appointed Aral to rule Barrayar until Prince Gregor, four-year-old heir to the throne,...  more

Cordelia Naismith had married a simple retired soldier. Now pregnant with their first child, she expected a peaceful country life with Aral Vorkosigan and their children. Instead, dying Emperor Ezar Vorbarra appointed Aral to rule Barrayar until Prince Gregor, four-year-old heir to the throne, could come of age. Just months after Aral was sworn in, an attempt was made to kill him. Who would most benefit from killing the new Regent? Cetaganda? Komarr? A disgruntled Vor lord? Who will control Barrayar?

Thanks to his quick-thinking staff, Miles Vorkosigan's first death won't be his last. But the next one might be. When he returns to military duty, Miles realizes that his late death seems to be having a great effect on him. Unfortunately, his weakness reveals itself at the wrong time and...  more

Thanks to his quick-thinking staff, Miles Vorkosigan's first death won't be his last. But the next one might be. When he returns to military duty, Miles realizes that his late death seems to be having a great effect on him. Unfortunately, his weakness reveals itself at the wrong time and place, and Miles must face Barrayaran security chief Simon Illyan. Now things look bad, but Miles's worst nightmares about Simon Illyan don't compare to Illyan's worst nightmares -- or are they memories?

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Could you just stand there and allow the...  more

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Could you just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation? Leo Graf adopted 1000 quaddies--now all he had to do was teach them to be free.

FIRST BOOK FEATURING CORDELIA NAISMITH. Journey back to where it all started, from multiple New York Times best selling author, Hugo Award winner, Lois McMaster Bujold.  Cordelia Naismith, Betan Survey Captain, was expecting the unexpected: hexapods, floating creatures, odd parasites... She...  more

FIRST BOOK FEATURING CORDELIA NAISMITH. Journey back to where it all started, from multiple New York Times best selling author, Hugo Award winner, Lois McMaster Bujold.  Cordelia Naismith, Betan Survey Captain, was expecting the unexpected: hexapods, floating creatures, odd parasites... She was not, however, expecting to find hostile humans on an uninhabited planet. And she wasn't really expecting to fall in love with a 40-plus barbarian known to cosmopolitan galactics as the Butcher of Komarr. Will Mother ever understand? And can such an odd beast as love survive an interplanetary war? Shards of Honor is the novel in which Lois McMaster Bujold introduced the SF world to Barrayar and Aral Vorkosigan, Beta Colony and Cordelia Naismith. From this beginning the author has created a multi-generational saga spanning time as well as space. Bujold is generally recognized as the current exemplar of the character-based SF adventure story. Contents: Shards of Honor [Cordelia Vorkosigan • 1]  (1986) / novel by Lois McMaster Bujold Barrayar [Cordelia Vorkosigan • 2]  (1991) /novel by Lois McMaster Bujold Author's Afterword (Cordelia's Honor) • essay by Lois McMaster Bujold Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith: His Universe and Times (1996) • essay by Lois McMaster Bujold and Michael Bernardi  

Between the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father's legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges. Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete...  more

Between the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father's legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges. Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete freighter and in more debt than he ever thought possible. Propelled by his manic "forward momentum," the ever-inventive Miles creates a new identity for himself as the commander of his own mercenary fleet to obtain a lucrative cargo; a shipment of weapons destined for a dangerous warzone.

Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Barrayaran Military Academy with high expectations of ship command but is disappointed with an assignment as meteorologist to an arctic training camp, where he is expected to predict weather and to ascertain whether he can get along with his subordinates and...  more

Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Barrayaran Military Academy with high expectations of ship command but is disappointed with an assignment as meteorologist to an arctic training camp, where he is expected to predict weather and to ascertain whether he can get along with his subordinates and superiors in the regular forces.   There he narrowly averts a massacre between the trigger-happy base commander and mutinous recruits.  That assignment turns out about as well as expected.  Reassigned to investigate a suspicious military buildup near a wormhole nexus in the distant Hegen Hub, he revives his undercover persona as mercenary Admiral Miles Naismith to negotiate between competing powers for control of the wormhole.  Miles, of course, does his best to salvage the situation, but, as always, there's a surprise...   The Prince and the Mercenary.  Together, they can get into a lot of trouble. Trouble only the combined forces of the Free Dendarii Mercenaries can get them out of.  At least, that's what they're hoping...  He rescues the Emperor of Barrayar from a tangled web of intrigue by the tricky Commander Cavilo, and watchs his back for the arctic base commander seeking bloody vengeance.

When the Cetagandan Empress dies, Miles Vorkosigan and his cousin Ivan Vorpatril are sent to Cetaganda for her funeral as diplomatic representatives of Barrayar. But when the lifelong attendant of the Empress is found murdered, Miles and Ivan find themselves in the thick of things. Miles...  more

When the Cetagandan Empress dies, Miles Vorkosigan and his cousin Ivan Vorpatril are sent to Cetaganda for her funeral as diplomatic representatives of Barrayar. But when the lifelong attendant of the Empress is found murdered, Miles and Ivan find themselves in the thick of things. Miles tries to play detective in a strange, complicated, and deceptively alien culture, while lacivious Ivan manages to get himself involved with several noble females at the same time -- a diplomatic no-no of the first order. As the plot thickens, it becomes clear that to save the Empire, it's up to Miles to do the job. He doesn't mind exactly, but... an adversary's Empire?

Dr. Ethan Urquhart, an obstetrician on a planet forbidden to women, is Chief of Biology at the Severin District Reproduction Center and one of the busiest men on the planet Athos. Then a mysterious genetic crisis threatens Athos with extinction. Drafted to brave the wider universe for his...  more

Dr. Ethan Urquhart, an obstetrician on a planet forbidden to women, is Chief of Biology at the Severin District Reproduction Center and one of the busiest men on the planet Athos. Then a mysterious genetic crisis threatens Athos with extinction. Drafted to brave the wider universe for his cloistered fellows in quest of new ovarian tissue cultures, Ethan braces himself for his first encounter with those most alien of aliens -- females of his own species.

Peace had broken out all over the planet. Which made it tough to be a mercenary captain. If his enemies would just leave him alone, Miles Naismith decided bitterly, the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet would collapse all on its own. But Miles's enemies plot a more deadly fall. For some...  more

Peace had broken out all over the planet. Which made it tough to be a mercenary captain. If his enemies would just leave him alone, Miles Naismith decided bitterly, the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet would collapse all on its own. But Miles's enemies plot a more deadly fall. For some unexplained reason the Dendarii payroll is missing and the orders from the Barrayaran Imperial Command are being delayed by Miles's superior, Captain Galeni. What connects the impeccable, insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates on Earth anyway? But the most deadly question of all before Miles is more personal: are Mile's two identities, Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii and Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan of Barrayar, splitting apart along the lines of his divided loyalties? And who is trying to assassinate which version of him?

Not everyone would envy young Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, even though he had formed his own mercenary fleet before attending the naval academy, and even though his mother was the beautiful Cordelia, the ship captain who has taught the Lords of Barrayar much about the perils of sexism. Even...  more

Not everyone would envy young Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, even though he had formed his own mercenary fleet before attending the naval academy, and even though his mother was the beautiful Cordelia, the ship captain who has taught the Lords of Barrayar much about the perils of sexism. Even the fact that Miles is the third in line to the throne and personally owns a major chunk of his home planet would not tempt any normal person to change places with him. When assassins came to rid the world of his father, his mother, pregnant with Miles, was in the line of fire, and Miles was but an egg for the omelet in an all too literal sense. Thanks to heroic medical intervention, Miles survived his near fatal brush with war gas - as a pain-filled dwarf with bones as weak and brittle as some malign composite of chalk and glass. Miles is often mistaken for a mutant by his mutant-loathing countrymen.

Komarr could be a garden -- with a thousand more years of work. Or an uninhabitable wasteland, if the terraforming fails. Now the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest Imperial...  more

Komarr could be a garden -- with a thousand more years of work. Or an uninhabitable wasteland, if the terraforming fails. Now the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest Imperial Auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why. The choice is not a popular one on Komarr, where a betrayal a generation before drenched the name of Vorkosigan in blood. In the political and physical claustrophobia of the domed cities, are the Komarrans surrounding Miles loyal subjects, potential hostages, innocent victims, or rebels bidding for revenge? Lies within lies, treachery within treachery -- Miles is caught in a race against time to stop a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever. His burning hope lies in an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.

A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station, in distant Quaddiespace, after a bloody incident on the station docks involving a security officer from the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. Lord Miles Vorkosigan of Barrayar and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things...  more

A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station, in distant Quaddiespace, after a bloody incident on the station docks involving a security officer from the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. Lord Miles Vorkosigan of Barrayar and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their mind, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children. But when duty calls in the voice of Barrayar's Emperor Gregor, Miles, Gregor's youngest Imperial Auditor (a special high-level troubleshooter) has no choice but to answer. Waiting on Graf Station are diplomatic snarls, tangled loyalties, old friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies and deceptions, mysterious disappearances, and a lethal secret with wider consequences than even Miles anticipates: a race with time for life against death in horrifying new forms. The downside of being a troubleshooter comes when trouble starts shooting back ...

Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove -- he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp -- an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd...  more

Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove -- he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp -- an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future -- attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter Miles to check it out. On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of generation past repair.  Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to re-write her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning Don’t mess with the secretary.  Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping -- something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. And Miles is in the middle -- of trouble!