For you fans of Lois McMaster Bujold, CVA is available as an e-ARC. That means you get to pay for it now, raw, and reading it Before The Great Unwashed Masses. LMB writes good stuff. <<––Technical Term There.

It's been available for a while at Baen, and I totally missed it, until this weekend! 2 of my *SIBLINGS* knew about this - and FAILED to mention it. BOTH of THEM!
[/cue the disclaimer about how even if I could have clicked on the website and found it out myself - the blame belongs to those who FAILED to MENTION it!] <-smiley for the humor impaired>

Now back to your regularly scheduled flamefest.

My first impression - a good 8 out of 10. Do not expect an hard charging Miles type book. This isn't it.

Ivan is still Ivan. Remember who had to get hauled out of the mud chasing after the little sniper? Yep, that behavior didn't change.

However, CVA has some great scenes, some laugh out loud moments, and I enjoyed the first half of the book as a typical "Ivan-you-idiot" adventure.

The second half moved slower. Ivan Xav & crew are involved in a tricky extraction, and I loved the end result. Yet, in typical Ivan fashion, this is more a Mad Scramble to become an innocent bystander, and not a casualty at the hands of Motivated Weasels, than it is an Ivan Saves The Universe story. Tricky plots - definitely. Conniving villains- yep. Long running plot threads - some resolution there. But in the end, Ivan comes out luckier than he really deserves, as usual.

I'm really trying to avoid giving away plot points here - I'm sure Amazon has spoilers in spades.

This is set in the interval between Diplomatic Immunity and Cyroburn. I'd guess, 2-3 years after. I'd have to review Cryoburn to see what Ivan was doing, then.

He's not mentioned hardly at all, in Diplomatic Immunity, either. Hmmm. I sense a) long term carefully made plans, b) random chance or c) CONSPIRACY!

No Amazon reviews up, until the hardback comes out. Aww. Too Bad.

Well, it was well worth MY $$ to get it early. But I'm buy just about anything with her name on it. Just about.
I love her plotting, pacing, characters and the carefully crafted, memorable lines!

But now, you can't saw you weren't given notice!