The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, Part 8: Borders of Infinity

From 1987 to 1989, Lois McMaster Bujold published three novellas featuring Miles Vorkosigan. May 1989's "The Mountains of Mourning" (originally published in Analog) is set between the first two Miles books, The Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game. The other two, both published in 1987, are "Labyrinth" (also from Analog) and "The Borders of Infinity" (originally published in the anthology Free Lancers), and they are both set prior to Brothers in Arms. Later in 1989, they were collected in a volume confusingly called Borders of Infinity, linked together by a slight frame story set after Brothers in Arms, so that's where I read it.

"The Mountains of Mourning" features no interplanetary adventure at all; it's set entirely on Miles's home planet of Barrayar, while Miles is hanging out on his family's country estate. Miles is roped into investigating an apparent infanticide among the country folk; the mother of the newborn baby suspects the father is responsible.

Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold

Collection originally published: 1989
Contents originally published: 1987-89
Acquired: May 2024
Read: April 2025

In a sense, it's a simple mystery story: Miles investigates a crime, talks to witnesses, runs afoul of local prejudices and mysterious attacks. But this is Bujold, with her immaculate attention to characterization and detail, and so it's a highly effective mystery. Moreover, it does what good mysteries do (in my opinion) and expose some kind of wound in the world. In this case, it's all about the way Barrayaran society deals with disability, the thing Miles has struggled with his entire life, not just in other people, but himself. Excellently done, my favorite story in the book. (Others agree as to its excellence; it won the 1990 Hugo Award for Best Novella.)

"Labyrinth" continues this theme. The novella is set when Miles is serving in his "Admiral Naismith" persona as commander of the Dendarii Mercenaries. The mercenaries travel to a space station to extract a scientist for Miles's master back on Barrayar, but of course things get a lot more complicated. Again, the story focused on disability, especially marked physical difference and the way we dehumanize other. Miles has a "hermaphordite" officer serving under him (I imagine Bujold would use different terminology in the 2020s), there's a "quaddie" (a genetically altered four-armed variant of humans from Bujold's earlier Falling Free, which I haven't got to yet), and an experimental subject kept in captivity. What we see in the story is how physical difference and setbacks can make it easy to ignore someone's essential humanity, to lie to ourselves and say someone might be better off dead than disabled. Plus, it's Bujold, so it's an exciting, fun, well-done caper story.

(As a Star Wars "Expanded Universe" fan, I did find it very disconcerting that there was a character named "Baron Fell." Baron Fel first appeared in a Star Wars story almost ten years later, and Mike Stackpole does seem like the kind of guy who might read Vorkosigan, so I wonder if the name was lodged in his subconscious somewhere. I googled a bit, but apparently I am the only person to ever read both X-Wing comics and Vorkosigan novellas and comment about it on the Internet.)

Lastly, there's the title story, "The Borders of Infinity," about Miles going to a particularly nasty space prison. Miles, of course, organizes the prisoners from nothing. Great stuff of course, but more action-adventure focused than the other two, with less thematic depth, and thus the weakest story in the volume. But in most other authors' hands, this would be one of their best!

The frame story is pretty slight; basically Miles's superior in Barrayar military intelligence, Illyan, demands to know what Miles has been spending so much money on while leading the Dendarii, which leads into each of the three stories in turn. It's fine, I guess, but I kind of wish it wasn't there, because I think the stories themselves would read better prior to Brothers in Arms, but the frame necessitates (even if just slightly) reading the volume after it.

Every five months I read a book in the Vorkosigan saga. Next up in sequence: Mirror Dance