If you loved how Miles navigates Cetagandan power games at the Empress’s funeral—unraveling the Star Crèche conspiracy with Rian Degtiar while outfoxing ghem-lord plots—then you’ll relish the razor-edged politics in A Memory Called Empire. Ambassador Mahit Dzmare must decode a murder and survive imperial intrigue in Teixcalaan’s glittering capital, using wit and cultural fluency much like Miles turning a stolen ba’s gene-key into leverage. It’s the same elegant dance of diplomacy, secrets, and perfectly timed gambits.

Miles’s quippy, seat-of-the-pants improvisations—bantering with Ivan as they chase down a rogue ba and a genetic McGuffin—pair perfectly with the smirking, fast-talking chaos of The Android’s Dream. When a diplomatic crisis spirals out of an absurd incident, a snarky civil servant has to outthink alien statesmen, spooks, and zealots. The tone lands right where Cetaganda shines: clever dialogue, farcical turns, and a protagonist who survives on wit as much as strategy.

If the layered Cetagandan society—the haut’s Star Crèche, ritual politics around the state funeral, and the ba’s hidden roles—hooked you, The Left Hand of Darkness delivers that same depth. As Genly Ai navigates Gethen’s intricate etiquette and the concept of shifgrethor, you’ll get the same sense of cultural puzzle-solving that Miles applies when decoding haut ceremony and genetic taboos with Rian. It’s richly textured, with every custom mattering to the plot.

In Cetaganda, a simple ceremonial visit becomes a breathless chase—the stolen gene-key, a murdered ba, and Miles racing to stop a scandal that could frame Barrayar. Leviathan Wakes hits that same gear-shift from mystery to system-shaking stakes. A missing-person case drags a crew into corporate and political machinations that keep accelerating. If you liked how every clue Miles finds blows the situation wider open, this will scratch that itch.

Miles’s success on Cetaganda depends on reading subtext—when to bow, what the Star Crèche means, how Rian’s position shapes every move. Foreigner centers that same soft-SF tension: human envoy Bren Cameron must survive by mastering alien protocol, parsing politics as carefully as Miles dissects haut vs. ghem roles. If you enjoyed the cerebral, culture-first problem solving behind the Cetagandan plot, you’ll find a similarly absorbing rhythm here.