The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, Part 9: Mirror Dance

My ninth Vorkosigan book is the second of a duology, the third time Bujold took a book she had written in the 1980s and came back to it to write a sequel in the 1990s, one that deepened the previous book's themes and character moments.

In this case, Mirror Dance is a direct sequel to Brothers in Arms. (It's also a follow-up to one of the stories in Borders of Infinity; I pity anyone who thought the novella collection was skippable!) Brothers in Arms introduced Miles's clone, Mark. I enjoyed that book a lot, but I think in that book Mark was primarily constructed as a foil to Miles: Miles is a person with so many obligations weighing him down, so what would it be like for there to be a version of Miles with seemingly no obligations at all? As I wrote in my review of that book, though, "it seems to me there's more thematic depth to be mined from the character of Mark than we actually get here, since Bujold's emphasis is largely on the action and intrigue plot."

Mirror Dance: A Vorkosigan Adventure by Lois McMaster Bujold

Published: 1994
Acquired and read: September 2025

Bujold returns to Mark in this book because she wants to take Mark seriously, not just as a foil to Miles. Who is Mark? These are the questions Mark himself is wrestling with, of course; the one obligation he does have is that he wants to save his clone-brethren, the other people raised just to substitute for someone else. But beyond this, who is he? He has no idea.

It's all quite good, and goes places I didn't expect. It's a bit difficult to explain exactly what makes Bujold so good, because a lot of times it's not so much about what happens as how it happens; with layers of compassion and reality that make the whole thing come to life and make any earnest moments feel totally earned. My favorite parts of the book were the ones where Mark goes to Barrayar and meets the mother and father he never knew he had—never even knew he could have. But he needs them. As Cordelia says, "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in." Mirror Dance chronicles the slow acceptance Mark makes of these other people into his own life, because if he doesn't do it, he will have no life. Mark is perennially frustrated to learn how many people Miles has made an impression on: "He's not a man, he's a mob," he thinks at one point. But those people made Miles who he is, too. We're all mobs. Mark is frustrated because he feels like, as a clone, he's a pale reflection of Miles. But if we don't reflect others, there's nothing to us. By the end of the book, Mark is a proud reflection of Miles.

There's lots of good action, too, of course, and jokes, and some moving bits; there was one part where I was genuinely worried for a main character and was misting up. There hasn't been a bad Vorkosigan book so far, and there's been several very good ones, but I think of the nine I've thus read, this one is probably the best.

Every five months I read a book in the Vorkosigan saga. Next up in sequence: Dreamweaver's Dilemma