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FUTURE IMPERFECT



Three years after her famous husband’s death, Cordelia Vorkosigan, widowed Vicereine of Sergyar, stands ready to spin her life in a new direction. Oliver Jole, Admiral, Sergyar Fleet, finds himself caught up in her web of plans in ways he’d never imagined, bringing him to an unexpected crossroads in his life.



Meanwhile, Miles Vorkosigan, one of Emperor Gregor’s key investigators, this time dispatches himself on a mission of inquiry, into a mystery he never anticipated – his own mother.



Plans, wills, and expectations collide in this sparkling science-fiction social comedy, as the impact of galactic technology on the range of the possible changes all the old rules, and Miles learns that not only is the future not what he expects, neither is the past.

Snippets Edit

From Baen's Bar forums, taken from Chapter 1, scene 1 of Gentleman Jole and The Red Queen, a Cordelia Vorkosigan adventure:

First Edit

It was a good day on the military transfer station orbiting the planet Sergyar. The Vicereine was coming home.

Second Edit

"I've never seen Vicereine Vorkosigan in person," Vorinnis confided to him. "Only in vids."

Jole was reminded not to let his long stride quicken unduly, though the lieutenant's breathlessness might be as much due to incipient heroine-worship, not misplaced in Jole's view.

"Oh? I thought you were a relative of Count Vorinnis. Had you not spent much time in Vorbarr Sultana?"

"Not that closely related, sir. I've only met the count twice. And most of my time in the capital was spent running around Ops. I was put on Admin track pretty directly." Her light sigh was easy to interpret, having the identical content to those of her male predecessors: Not ship duty, dammit.

"Well, take heart. I was put through a seven-year rotation in the capital as a military secretary and aide, but I still caught three tours on trade fleet escort duty afterward." The most active and far-flung space-based duty an Imperial officer could aspire to during peacetime, culminating in his one and only ship captaincy, traded in due course for this Sergyar patch.

"Yes, but that was aide to Regent Vorkosigan himself!"

"He was down to Prime Minister Vorkosigan, by then." Jole permitted himself a brief lip twitch. "I'm not that old." And just kept his mouth from adding, "... young lady!" It wasn't merely Vorinnis's height, or lack of it, that made her look twelve in his eyes, or her gender; her recent male counterparts were no better. "Although, by whatever irony, my one stint in an active theater of war was as his secretary, when I followed him to the Hegen Hub. Not that we knew it was going to end up a shooting war when that trip started."

"Were you ever under fire?"

"Well, yes. There is no rear echelon on a flagship. Since the emperor was also aboard by that point, it was fortunate that our shields never failed." Two decades ago, now. And what a top-secret cockup that entire episode had been, which, glued throughout to Ex-Regent Prime Minister Admiral Count Vorkosigan's shoulder, Jole had witnessed at the closest possible range from first to last. His Hegen Hub war stories had always had to be among his most thoroughly edited.

"I guess you've known Vicereine Vorkosigan just as long, then?"

"Nearly exactly, yes. It's been ..." He had to calculate it in his head, and the sum took him aback. "Twenty-three years, almost."

"I'm almost twenty-three," Vorinnis offered, in a tone of earnest helpfulness.