Reading: Cetaganda

The next in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga after The Vor Game, Cetaganda sees Miles and his slightly dim but affable cousin Ivan sent to Cetaganda, Barrayar's fairly recent enemy, to represent their world at the funeral ceremonies for the Dowager Empress of Cetaganda. Miles being Miles, things don't go as smoothly as the people who sent him would have hoped, and he finds himself investigating a murder and possible treason while getting to know the women of Cetaganda's aristocratic haut class, who are normally hidden from the eyes of strangers behind opaque force shields.

Miles is entertaining as always, though absolutely deserving of his superiors' evident disapproval, and it's hard not to like Ivan. I also enjoyed the depiction of Cetagandan society, and particularly liked the way Bujold confounds readers' expectations of what their gender politics will be like, based on initial descriptions. I didn't love this quite as much as I loved Barrayar or The Warrior's Apprentice, but I'm still enjoying the series a great deal.