The Bottom Line: Kicking off a fourteen-volume series that has received two Nebulas, four Hugos, and sold millions and millions of copies? Not bad for a new author's first novel.
panguitch's Full Review: Lois McMaster Bujold - Shards of Honor
I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.
– The Emperor Ezar Vorbarra
Premise
Barrayar and Beta are two very different planets. Barrayar is lush, earth-like. After a long period of isolation it has reemerged as a totalitarian empire with a strict caste system dominated by its warrior class, the Vors. In contrast, humans can’t live on Beta without life support systems. In this bleak environment a socially progressive and technologically advanced society has developed.
These worlds collide when Cordelia Naismith leads a Betan survey expedition to a remote planet only to find the Barrayarans have already taken up residence. They make poor hosts to say the least. This planet figures largely in their latest military strategies, and it’s supposed to be secret. Cordelia is captured by the Barrayaran captain, Aral Vorkosigan, infamous for the butchering of prisoners during the Komarr campaign. Not exactly Cordelia’s first choice of captor.
What she soon learns is that Vorkosigan has suffered a mutiny, and the two of them are forced to rely on each other as they brave the dangers of this uncharted planet and attempt to regain control of his ship. Despite the distance between their cultures, Cordelia and Vorkosigan soon develop a mutual appreciation and perhaps something more. When the Barrayaran invasion begins in earnest, the two find themselves caught between each other and their opposing loyalties, though Cordelia has only just begun to understand the chilling intricacies of Barrayaran politics.
Characters
There is nothing revolutionary about the characters Bujold creates. Cordelia is in her thirties, a career woman with some regrets about never having children. She has courage, but enough intelligence to also know fear. More than anything else she’s calm and in control, of herself if not the situation. In fact, the only time she loses control is when people try to give her credit for something she didn’t do.
Vorkosigan is a middle-aged officer obsessed with honor. His ability made him the youngest admiral in Barrayaran history, and then his principles brought demotion and the malice of powerful enemies. He’s the type of guy who insists on giving his honest opinion even when it might get him killed, and his word, when given, is inviolate.
Neither the career woman who’s finally ripe for love nor the uptight man of honor are new character concepts. The stage is set for a typical romance, albeit set among the stars. It’s what Bujold does with these characters that’s so remarkable. Or does to them. Vorkosigan has some unsavory skeletons in his closet, not just the dark and mysterious things that actually make a male lead more attractive. No, the kind of things that might make a woman squirm. What’s more, Cordelia gets caught in the middle of his latest morally abhorrent involvement. How can she reconcile this with the man she so admires? And what will this scheme cost him, with his honor at stake?
Style
As likable as Cordelia is, to my mind Vorkosigan is a far more interesting character. But keeping Cordelia as the point of view is not a mistake as we get to explore Vorkosigan along with her. Nor would the humor her personality allows be possible through him. That mature humor seasons what might otherwise be straightforward action, just as Cordelia’s qualms alleviate the romance’s progression.
Bujold writes convincingly in the military scenarios, without letting the trappings smother the story or characters. Her secondary characters are serviceable, with one, Bothari, becoming quite interesting. She gradually unveils the Barrayaran culture and the political context of the present machinations, and it’s a fascinating backdrop for the story. Indeed, it left me hungering for more of Barrayar, which Bujold has obligingly provided in following novels.
The structure lurches somewhat, divided into distinct episodic chunks that feature different settings and plotlines. I was peeved twice, first when one character’s thoughts seem to bleed into another’s dialog, and second when Bujold ungracefully keeps a secret from the reader even though the point of view character has the information and, indeed, it must be the thing most occupying her mind.
By way of aside, some strange associations came to mind unbidden. The Barrayaran warrior culture put me in mind of Klingons, perhaps because the novel seemed to begin with a Star Trek-style "away team." In a quite different vein, the mild sado-erotic sequence that leaves Cordelia bound and blood-spattered is something Robert E. Howard might have written, though the oblique allusions to male homosexuality are certainly not. (Don’t get me wrong, this book is pretty clean and easily teen-appropriate.)
Recommendation
As Cordelia says, "tests are a gift," and so is Shards of Honor. It makes no pretense about tackling weighty themes. Instead it simply loves its characters, complexities and all, and follows them through an adventure that challenges their cores. I’m grateful to quasar for keeping after me until I read it. It’s a grand start to one of the great science fiction series, and despite some minor missteps, it’s a surprisingly trim first novel.
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