Description
Miles Vorkosigan is 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 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!
"Fresh, intriguing, and, as always with Lois McMaster Bujold, superb." --- Robert Jordan
"It is such a delight to read something by such a good writer, who now seems to be writing at the height of her powers.... I really have seldom enjoyed a book so much... I couldn't turn the pages fast enough." --- Diana Wynne Jones
"Living breathing characters who inhabit unusual yet believable worlds." --- Jean Auel
"Bujold successfully mixes quirky humor with just enough action, a dab of feminist social commentary and her usual superb character development... enormously satisfying." --- Publishers Weekly
"One of sf's outstanding talents... an outstanding series." --- Booklist
"Excellently done... Bujold has always excelled at creating forceful characters and she does it here again." --- Denver Post
"... an intelligent, well-crafted and thoroughly satisfying blend of adventure, sociopolitical commentary, scientific experiments, and occasional perils... with that extra spicing of romance...." --- Locus
