Memory

Memory is the eleventh novel in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, published in 1996, and it is the point at which its hero has to stop being two people at once. Miles has been leading a mercenary fleet for Barrayaran intelligence while appearing in public as an ordinary Vor lord, and a seizure brought on by injuries from an earlier book brings the arrangement down.

The novel is precise about what that costs. Miles lies about what happened on his last mission, is found out, and is discharged on medical grounds, which leaves him on his home planet with no fleet, no cover story and a great deal of time to work out how much of his identity was built from them. Bujold hands those chapters to his cousin Ivan and to colleagues who have been watching Miles operate for years.

The second half becomes an investigation, as it usually does when Miles is at loose ends. The head of Imperial Security suffers a breakdown that looks like illness and may be sabotage, and the Emperor gives Miles an authority that makes the answer his responsibility. It is a book in the middle of a long series, though a newcomer can follow it, since the career being dismantled is explained as carefully as it is taken apart.