And I’m also one of the contributors to that Wikipedia debate about order.

Hand’s down, I would recommend either starting with Cordelia’s Honor, or with the Komarr – A Civil Campaign pair (which is finally coming out in reprint format as a omnibus novel in the next couple of months.

The former is well represented in the discussions here already. The latter … well, I have bit of a tale to tell. Though I cared for her deeply, my marriage to my late wife was less than perfect, due to competition with a fellow named Mr. Beer, and occasionally his friends Mr. Wine and Mr. Bourbon, not to mention their cousin Cigarette. Nothing during that period captured my frustration better than Komarr, and particularly the scene where Ekaterin is interrogated by the police. Conversely, I was never able to convince my wife to read the novels unti A Civil Campaign, when I handed her the dinner party scene…she immediately took the book and went and read the whole thing.

Aral’s honor speech. “Naked” in the attic. Miles’s apologetic letter after insulting Ekaterin. THE couch. Pym’s dry sense of humor, and Ivan’s “hidden depths.”

I believe that four hundred years from now, Lois Bujold will be honored as the Shakespeare of the early space age for her turn of phrase.

Both the male and female leads are flawed human beings, but I instead of wanting to slap one of them out of frustration, I was cheering them on.

Also, “Winterfair Gifts” was published as part of an anthology called “Irresistable Forces” with Jo Beverly, Catherine Asaro and three others… and is now available in one of those omnibus editions, called “Miles in Love”, which contains “Komarr” (Miles meets his true love while investigating a disaster), “A Civil Campaign” (Miles courts his intended, but forgets to mention it to her?) and “Winterfair Gifts” (The tale of Miles’ wedding – but that isn’t the main plot!)

In Borders of Infinity it lists the books in chronological order according to Mile’s age. As Nicole said, this is the way I chose to read them. Some of the short stories from BOI fit in at different times. Below is my reading order. (BOI meaning short story from Borders of Infinity)

Cordelia’s Honor, The Warrior’s Apprentice, Mountains of Mourning (BOI), The Vor Game, Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos (Ellie Quinn is the protagonist not Miles), Labyrinth (BOI), Borders of Infinity (BOI), Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, A Civil Campaign, Winterfair Gifts (short story in Irresistible Forces anthology), Diplomatic Immunity.

There’s also another novel Falling Free which takes place 200 years before Miles is born, but set in the same universe.

Probably my favourite arc of the series is from Brothers in Arms to A Civil Campaign. With ACC being my favourite book of the series.

Lesley

Make sure you catch the shorter stories as well. “The Mountains of Mourning” is a gem, and IIRC won the Hugo that year. It was well deserved.

Charlene — I love that scene too. “I paid too much for it,” always makes my eyes sting.

Lesley — her response there was perfect. [nod] I could just picture the look on that jerk’s face. :) The bit of dialogue is short and sleek, all showing and no authorial intrusion, but in addition to being a good plot point and a great characterization marker for the two people speaking and the one spoken of, it also does more to underline some of the major cultural differences between Barrayar and Beta Colony than several paragraphs of exposition would have.

Angie

I’d agree with Darlene though, there are romantic moments in the following books that deal with Miles – though you do have to wait for him to grow up, as the first couple of books deal with his childhood. A Civil Campaign is one of the few books that reduced me to tears of laughter, to the point where I had to put the book down.

And is it wrong that I love the way she breaks up the meeting with the head?

I love the whole Vorkosigan series, and everything else she’s written.