“Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.” [p. 415]
It's a very long time since I first read this -- which I suspect was just after Komarr was published -- and I had, as usual, forgotten nearly everything about it. Reread because I realised it was something of a boundary between the early, more militaristic novels in the Vorkosigan saga and the later, more comic / romantic / sociological works. Also I wanted to remind myself of what happened to Simon Illyan.
What happens to Simon Illyan is nasty: he has a cybernetic memory chip in his brain, and it starts to degrade, and a traitor within the organisation seizes the chance to overthrow him. Miles, who has well and truly messed up and is sulking at home, investigates, and justice is served. Several romances begin.
What really struck me about this novel was how dated the technology felt! Example: Simon is used to being able to remember absolutely everything, and he's literally as well as figuratively lost when the memory chip is no longer functional. Alys gives him a holocube map, a portable device to help him find his way around the city. No option of having that function made available on a wearable communications device (which, actually, also doesn't seem to appear here, though later books have 'wrist coms'). There are e-readers, but reading matter comes on disks, as do messages from remote locations. And yet: implanted memory chips -- and later, an implant that regulates seizures.
It's quite a thrilling whodunnit, in part: it's also a novel about personal and professional failure, and about honour. Miles (a character I don't especially like, though he's complex and interesting and intelligent) has to make some tough choices about what matters, and the lengths he'll go to in order to keep hold of the things most important to him. His prevarications, and his decisions, are fascinating, and very credible.
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