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Book Details

Cetaganda

71.4% complete
1996
2020
1 time
16 chapters
Book Cover
Has a genre Has comments Has an extract Has a year read Has a rating In my library In a series 
1837
 The Vorkosigan Saga*
#9 of 16
The Vorkosigan Saga*   See series as if on a bookshelf
A series of science fiction novels and short story collections by Lois McMaster Bujold centering around Miles Vorkosigan and his parents Cordelia and Aral.  This is the series in original publication order.

1) Shards of Honor
2) The Warrior's Apprentice
3) Ethan of Athos
4) Falling Free
5) Brothers in Arms
6) The Vor Game
7) Barrayar
8) Mirror Dance
9) Cetaganda
10) Memory
11) Komarr
12) A Civil Campaign
13) Diplomatic Immunity
14) Cryoburn
15) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
16) Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
Copyright © 1996 by Lois McMaster Bujold
For Jim and Toni
"Now is it, 'Diplomacy is the art of war pursued by other men,'" asked Ivan, "or was it the other way around?
May contain spoilers
Miles settled back with slitted eyes, and watched the shining circle spin like planets.
Synopsis not on file
Extract (may contain spoilers)
But the steady procession stopped, and began to pile up in the wide arched doorways. From the rotunda ahead, instead of quiet music and hushed, shuffling footsteps, a startled babble poured. Voices were raised in sharp astonishment, then other voices in even sharper command.

“What’s gone wrong?” Ivan wondered, craning his neck. “Did somebody faint or something?”

Since Miles’s eye-level view was of the shoulders of the man ahead of him, he could scarcely answer this. With a lurch, the line began to proceed again. It reached the rotunda, but then was shunted out a door immediately to the left. A ghem-commander stood at the intersection, directing traffic with low-voiced instructions, repeated over and over, “Please retain your gifts and proceed directly around the outside walkway to the Eastern Pavilion, please retain your gifts and proceed directly to the Eastern Pavilion, all will be reordered presently, please retain—”

At the center of the rotunda, above everyone’s heads on a great catafalque, lay the Dowager Empress in state. Even in death outlander eyes were not invited to look upon her. Her bier was surrounded by a force-bubble, made translucent; only a shadow of her form was visible through it, as if through gauze, a white-clad, slight, sleeping ghost. A line of mixed ghem-guards apparently just drafted from the passing satrap governors stood in a row from catafalque to wall on either side of the bier, shielding something else from the passing eyes.

Miles couldn’t stand it. After all, they can’t massacre me here in front of everybody, can they?  He jammed the maplewood box at Ivan, and ducked under the elbow of the ghem-officer trying to shoo everyone out the other door. Smiling pleasantly, his hands held open and empty, he slipped between two startled ghem-guards, who were clearly not expecting such a rude and impudent move.

On the other side of the catafalque, in the position reserved for the first gift of the haut lord of highest status, lay a dead body. Its throat was cut. Quantities of fresh red blood pooled on the shimmering green malachite floor all around, soaking into the gray-and-white palace servitor’s uniform. A thin jeweled knife was clutched rigorously in its outflung right hand. It was exactly the term for the corpse, too. A bald, eyebrowless, man-shaped creature, elderly but not frail . . . Miles recognized their intruder from the personnel pod even without the false hair. His own heart seemed to stop in astonishment.

 

Added: 14-Jun-2015
Last Updated: 13-Feb-2020

Publications

 24-Apr-2012
Spectrum Literary Agency, Inc.
Kindle e-Book
In my libraryI read this editionOrder from amazon.comHas a cover imageBook Edition Cover
Date Issued:
24-Apr-2012
Format:
Kindle e-Book
Cover Price:
$6.99
Pages*:
302
Read:
Once
Reading(s):
1)   15 Jan 2020 - 24 Jan 2020
Cover Link(s):
Internal ID:
1945
ISBN:
Unknown
Country:
United States
Language:
English
From amazon.com:

Miles Vorkosigan and his cousin Ivan are sent on a diplomatic mission to the court of the Cetagandan Empire, Barrayar's former enemy. This sophisticated, genetically advanced but in many ways alien society both fascinates and repels, and when the Cetagandan Empress and her attendant die suddenly, Miles and Ivan find themselves embroiled in intrigues that are hard to fathom. Ivan's romances and Miles' infatuation with a nobel Cetagandan lady further complicate matters in this novel by four-time Hugo Award winner Lois McMaster Bujold. Publishers Weekly wrote of CETAGANDA: "Set in a vividly realized world where Machiavellian intrigues are played out behind a facade of aristocratic discretion, this novel … blends high adventure with wry commentary on the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between human ideals and political realities."
Cover:
Book Cover
Notes and Comments:

Related

Author(s)

Lois McMaster Bujold  
Birth: 02 Nov 1949 Columbus, Ohio, USA
Notes:
From the Kindle version of Shards of Honor:

Lois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949, the daughter of an engineering professor at Ohio State University, from whom she picked up her early interest in science fiction.  She now lives in Minneapolis, and has two grown children.  She began writing with the aim of professional publication in 1982.  She wrote three novels in three years; in October of 1985, all three sold to Baen Books, launching her career. Bujold went on to write many other books for Baen, mostly featuring her popular character Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, his family, friends, and enemies.  Her books have been translated into over twenty languages.  Her fantasy from Eos includes the award-winning Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.

Awards

1997Locus MagazineBest SF Novel Nominee
*
  • I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
  • Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
  • When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
  • When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
  • Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.






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