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For Miles's first assignment as an official Imperial Auditor, he is sent to investigate the crash of a space freighter into the Komarran Soletta Array -- a giant mirrored satellite that provides much of the light and heat needed to make Komarr habitable. Not to investigate the mechanics of the crash itself -- that much falls to Lord Auditor Vorthys, an engineering specialist -- but to probe the political currents that eddy around the incident. Miles is normally right at home in the waters of politics and intrigue, but Komarr has only been under Barrayaran rule for a generation and many of its residents still think of Miles's father as "The Butcher of Komarr."

While they are planetside, Miles and Lord Vorthys are staying with his niece, Ekaterin Vorsoisson, whose husband, Etienne, works in Komarr's terraforming department. Etienne is volatile and often aggressively hostile, and Ekaterin is deeply unhappy in her marriage. She is also afraid for the health of their son, who may be carrying the same genetic disease that his father has gone to such great lengths to hide. Miles immediately falls for his beautiful if reserved hostess, despite knowing that she's thoroughly unavailable. But the more he investigates, the more he finds that Etienne is mixed up in some shady business, and the more he begins to suspect that what happened to the Soletta Array wasn't an accident at all.

Lois McMaster Bujold does a lot of things well. She writes convincing mysteries, witty yet believable dialogue, stories that nicely incorporate sci-fi elements without ever forgetting the basic human drama at their core. But if I had to pick one thing that I think Bujold is best at, it's the development of complex, sympathetic, realistic, and memorable characters, even in very short spaces. Therefore, the main highlight of Komarr is being introduced to another one of these wonderful characters: Ekaterin Vorsoisson.

Ekaterin is obviously bound to play an important role in the series -- no non-Vorkosigan would get so many chapters from their perspective otherwise. But even in her first appearance, she won my allegiance. Bujold's depiction of the Vorsoissons' troubled and emotionally abusive marriage is nothing short of harrowing. This device, of a woman stuck in a horrible marriage, could have gone badly wrong; I have a fairly low tolerance for victimhood in my heroines, and characters who complain about how terrible their lives or relationships are without doing anything about it lose my sympathy very quickly. But although Ekaterin's marriage is terrible, she has reasons for staying with Etienne other than inertia, and those reasons are not only believable, but also contribute to Ekaterin's overall characterization and likability. Plus, she finds her backbone partway through the story, and after that, she becomes progressively more awesome, to the point that her contribution to the climax of the story actually elicited cheers.

As much as I enjoyed meeting Ekaterin, I also enjoyed watching Miles continue to mature. While I wouldn't go so far to say that Miles's life up to this point has been easy, many of the problems he's faced thus far have yielded to his particular blend of intelligence, strategic thinking, and charm. As a result, it's fascinating to watch him struggle with a problem -- in this case, his growing attraction to Ekaterin -- where his normal approach is useless. Galactic politics and spaceship battles, Miles can handle with no problem, but he's not particularly adept at interpersonal relationships, especially among the Vor. Watching Miles tackle something he's not good at makes for an interesting change of pace.

The mystery aspect to the story was well done enough to hold my attention, even when my primary focus was on Miles and Ekaterin. The chapter split between Miles's and Ekaterin's points-of-view lets us see the solution to the mystery unfold from multiple angles, and I enjoyed watching the various storylines converge on the solution. There were a large number of newly-introduced tertiary characters, mostly Komarran scientists and officials, and I occasionally had trouble keeping a few of them straight, but for the most part I was able to follow along without a problem.

Grover Gardner's narration of the audiobook was once again wonderful. Despite my complaints when I first listened to Shards of Honor, I found that by this point, I didn't mind his narration of the chapters from a female POV -- he manages to modulate his voice and his reading enough so that it was noticeably different from Miles's sections, but without ever sounding breathy, girly, or fake.

Overall, if Memory was a transitional novel, Komarr is very clearly the start of a new chapter in Miles's life, and if this book is any indication of what's to come, it's a chapter in which I'll be very interested indeed.

Nicki Gerlach is a mad scientist by day and an avid reader the rest of the time.  More of her book reviews can be found at her blog, fyreflybooks.wordpress.com/.