Why I read it: This is one from my own TBL. I don’t recommend listening to it without first reading/listening to the earlier books in the series, at the very least Komarr (but really, most of the Vorkosigan books are needed to fully appreciate this one.)

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) 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!

Warning: Series spoilers ahoy

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I have been hanging out to finally listen to A Civil Campaign. Especially after meeting Ekaterin in Komarr, I was completely unable to not immediately start this one next.

The story picks up about three-ish months after the death of Etienne Vorsoisson and about two months after Ekaterin and Nikolai have returned to Barrayar. They are living with Lord Auditor and Professora Vorthys, Ekaterin’s uncle and aunt-by-marriage. Ekaterin has been left with basically nothing from her late husband’s estate and is contemplating further study at the university in botany and horticulture and, in the meantime, getting a summer job to help pay her family expenses.

Miles, because he is Miles, hatches a plan to keep Ekaterin close, make her smile and get to know her better before revealing his feelings for her and his marital hopes: He asks her to create a garden in a vacant lot his family owns adjacent to Vorkosigan House in Vorbarr Sultana. This is classic Miles behaviour. The title is no accident – Miles plots a campaign to win the war for Ekaterin’s hand in marriage. Except, of course, Ekaterin is not a war prize and Miles’ campaigns (any campaign?) never go according to plan. Miles keeps his hopes from Ekaterin but he is singularly unable to shut up about it to his friends and family. That was always going to cause problems.

Mark, Miles’ clone-brother, is back from Beta Colony and his relationship with Carine Kudelka (also back from a year of study on Beta) has progressed to the point where they are happily a couple. However, there is a huge disparity between mores on Beta and those on Barrayar and Carine, still dependent on her father’s and mother’s money for her continuing education, struggles with how to behave and what she owes to her family, to Mark and to herself.

There are also a couple of interesting votes coming up in the Council of Counts which strain the hidebound nature of the old-school culture. And, Mark has a business plan involving genetically manipulated insectoids which cause much of the hilarity (but by no means all) of the story. Plus, Emperor Gregor marries his Leisa. All of these elements combine to make the book a fabulous romp, a sweet romance (Miles and Ekaterin) a slightly more dark romance (Mark and Carine), twisty politics and moral dilemmas and, for extra bonus points, Ivan Vorpatril reveals there is more to him than perhaps he has been letting on.

Miles’ dinner party had me in fits of laughter. It was a perfect comedy of errors and so very Miles. There were some other hilarious bits as well but the dinner party was the stand-out for me.

Mark, Miles, Carine, Ivan and Ekaterin all have POV sections and it is perhaps the busiest book of the series for that reason. There was no head hopping however and it was easy to follow the story.

Miles has to learn an important lesson (as always) in this book. Here, he needs to realise that Ekaterin is an independent person with a will of her own, not a pawn in a game, not a prize to be won and not a woman to be discounted in any way. Miles should really already have known better of course. All of the women in his life are exactly like that – in fact, at various points in the story, Ekaterin reflects on the problems in her first marriage and the potential pitfalls of marrying again. Miles’ relationship with the women in his life – his previous lovers, his friends and family are all powerful indicators that he will not stifle her or limit her. However, his approach to winning her heart is at odds with this. Miles does give good apology however and I really liked the discussion of apology and its relationship to forgiveness in the story.

I admit I’m a little uncomfortable with Mark’s “black gang”. Mark and Carine are okay with them and certainly, Mark, having had therapy on Beta Colony for a year, has made great strides in improving his mental health. Still, I couldn’t help mentally withdrawing a little whenever any of the gang made an appearance. I’m glad Mark’s found some happy even so.

Grover Gardner’s performance is its usual stellar self. I do want to try and borrow the paperback from the library (I’m too cheap to buy them) so I can savour some of my favourite parts in print format but really, I think the Vorkosigan series is just about perfect on audio.

What else? There was one thing which kept A Civil Campaign from being a straight-up A read for me. There is one character (not a series regular) who has a gender reassignment on Beta Colony and the action and consequences of this are part of the political intrigue in the tale. This book was first published in 1999 and definitely society’s knowledge and understanding of transgender people has progressed significantly since then. Also too, Beta Colony and the scientific and technological advancements it can offer is not much like actual Earth – either in 1999 or 2016. Still, I felt the whole idea of this character’s motivation and actions fundamentally misunderstood the concept of gender and the real difficulties trans people experience. I’m certainly no expert on the topic either but I do know that it isn’t just as simple as some hormones and some surgery. Gender is about identity in an essential way that the book completely failed to represent. Sexuality was also curiously (to me anyway) represented in this case. While the Vorkosiverse is accepting of gay and bisexual people (Aral Vorkosigan is bi after all), there was a gender essentialist aspect to the trans storyline which troubled me. The character was heterosexual when she was a woman but after he was a man, he was no longer attracted to men, but instead, to women. There just seemed to me to be a big load of questions with no answers here and I couldn’t help but wonder who the butt of the joke was. For sure, in some ways, it was the Council of Counts and the old ways of Barrayar. But was it the trans character as well? (Frankly, I’m not even 100% sure I should describe the character as trans – the motivation for the gender reassignment was entirely political.) Gender is more than the parts a person has or their capability (or lack) of bearing or siring children. I dunno. The whole thing troubled me.

So, what to grade the story? I liked all of it except for the way that being (possibly) transgender was portrayed. How much importance to give it in the grade though? I can’t help but wonder if a trans person might give it a big fat D or F (but what do I know really?).

In the end, I’ve decided to grade in terms of how much of the story the problematic (to say the least) aspect represents and knock off half a grade point. I can’t pretend my romance reader heart is not influencing things here because the best part of the story was Miles and Ekaterin and their HEA – and a good HEA will most always win me.