**edited 12/08/13 
 Wow, this book is a wild ride. Space pirates, royal princes, political intrigue...it's all here. Better yet, for me at least, the story is full of enjoyable, funny and essentially off-the-wall-crazy characters. The main character is Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, the son of the Prime Minister who was exposed to a chemical agent at birth that left him a fragile 5-foot midget in a world where imperfections are reviled. Miles has the disadvantages and Machiavellian brains of Tavi from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera, the self-restraint and mentality of Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the general demeanor of someone who just drank a quadruple espresso, and he spends his time clumsily rampaging after answers like a toddler on a sugar high. 
 ...And that's all I'm going to post here. 
 The rest of my (rather verbose and quote-filled) review is posted over here at Booklikes. 
 Why? Because I disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship, I am pulling my reviews from GR.