Ethan of Athos

This book is the logical extension of the exploration of "uterine replicator" technology. We see Betans and Barrayarans using them to have safer and more egalitarian pregnancies. We see Cetagandans using them in the previous book to design humans differently. And, here in this book, the planet Athos is using them to perpetuate their remote society made up only of men.

(And yeah, yeah, this story was written in 1986, and so we'll just handwave over what the fate of poor trans folks or non-gay men might be on this planet. On this planet, women are sort of treated as mythological demons that have hypnotized galactic men with their wiles. This book is written in a way to make Ethan come off as comically naive, but the religious indoctrination here is horrifying if you think about it to any degree.)

Ethan is the earnest straight man (:drum:) in this comedy routine who is sent off to figure out what happened to their shipment of ovarian tissue for the uterine replicators on Athos. He's never left his planet until now. He's never seen a woman before. He also tries to recruit people to Athos and earnestly doesn't understand why nobody else wants to move to his religious men-only remote planet. Understandably, this book has a good bit of explicit homophobia (but also some fatphobia). That said, it's largely background radiation to the story, rather than something any of the protagonists are doing themselves directly.

All things told, this book holds up as a lot of fun on a reread. Ethan is out of his depth even before he gets captured by some Cetagandans who then attempt to murder Ethan when he doesn't know anything. He gets rescued by Elli Quinn (of the Dendarii Mercenaries, also an absolute delight) who is trying to kill the Cetagandans and chasing what they're after. We also get some interesting worldbuilding for Kline Station, in terms of station life, biocontrol, and newt ecology. Overall, I would pitch this as a spy/heist story that weaves in sociological observations and stars an earnest-but-naive protagonist.

A reluctant hero on a mission in a well-established galaxy, this fish-out-of-water tale is very well written. The characters (and even the villain) have some growth. The background contains just enough of the galactic situation to remain interesting to series readers.

Flipping a trope on its head, the main character comes from a male-only society. Rather than scream misogyny, this is an interesting religious take on a frontier society. But the main story is a mystery - what happened to the shipment they were supposed to get? The reluctant hero must venture WAY outside his comfort zone to find a solution.

The majority of the book takes place aboard a station, and is also well written. Serious thought has gone into how to protect these people and how they would react to it. Like many gathering places, the politics of the greater universe are represented. Other than a few name drops, the main characters of the series don't appear at all. This is the third Vorkosigan book I have read, all in publication order. It proves the author had created a well-mapped universe to work from. All of the first three books were published in 1986 as well.

Next I will tackle the sequel to the first book, though published 5 years later. [b:Barrayar|61905|Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga, #7)|Lois McMaster Bujold|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397151220l/61905.SY75.jpg|3036422] is one of the highest rated in the series on Goodreads. Looking forward to it!