Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga, #1) in Beyond Reality

Feb 09, 2012 carol. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, female-lead

Be warned: the jacket blurb describes only a minor portion of the story.

My version, you ask?

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Love in the background of space opera! Female captain leads research team investigating exotic planet. Expedition is attacked and a researcher is killed. Hostile man takes woman prisoner, and they fall in love while death-marching across alien planet. Alas! Woman and man are soon to be adversaries in an interstellar war, and are torn apart by loyalties to Be warned: the jacket blurb describes only a minor portion of the story.

My version, you ask?

*************************************************

Love in the background of space opera! Female captain leads research team investigating exotic planet. Expedition is attacked and a researcher is killed. Hostile man takes woman prisoner, and they fall in love while death-marching across alien planet. Alas! Woman and man are soon to be adversaries in an interstellar war, and are torn apart by loyalties to their commands. Then woman volunteers to captain a near-suicide mission and is taken captive again, but this time by Marquis de Sade Junior. Will she escape? Will she reunite with her love? Will they overcome obscure political maneuvers and overzealous patriots to ultimately consummate their love?

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Complete cheese, right? But it's American-style cheese that does so well melted and grilled into a comfort-food delight. Shards is not particularly subtle or unusual, but it manages to be an engaging read. While I can't say that I found the same sophistication and characterization that I read in The Curse of Chalion, it still had melty goodness. For instance, there were vampire balloons and giant crabs--hard to go wrong there. Dialogue was engaging, and I find her writing style is a nice balance between world-building and action, and pleasantly sophisticated in wording and ideas. Her characters have nice flashes of humor in the midst of struggle.

Plot wasn't particularly remarkable, but managed an unexpected twist or two. The first part of the book, the march across the alien world, was enjoyable, but I found the plot seriously disintegrating towards the end, especially when (view spoiler) As an ship captain, Cordelia displays a surprising amount of both political knowledge and naivete, and she wasn't perhaps as fleshed out as Lord Vorkosigan, despite the story being told from her perspective. There's an interesting supporting role was given to a seriously mentally damaged soldier. I've been hearing that the Vorkosigan series is some of Bujold's best writing, and it turns out that this is a prequel centered on the meeting and connection of his parents. As such, it might be a little more oriented towards fans than new readers. For seriously good writing and world-building, I'd recommend her Curse/Paladin books.

Fun line: "Koudelka puzzled over this attempted readjustment of his point of view, then let it bounce harmlessly off his impermeable habits of thought."

Trigger warning: rapey stuff.

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0... ...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: worldbuilding-sf, sci-fi, space-opera

Re-read 11/18/17:
Actually, it's my third read. It was only a few years ago when I read it last and since then I've plowed through all the other novels in a row. It's so good that I have to do it all over again.

That being said, I think this novel is growing more and more on me. I loved it before and I love it even more now. Yes, yes, it's a romance on the battlefield and we have tons of action on a wild planet and in space with outright space battles, but it's the interactions between all these Re-read 11/18/17:
Actually, it's my third read. It was only a few years ago when I read it last and since then I've plowed through all the other novels in a row. It's so good that I have to do it all over again.

That being said, I think this novel is growing more and more on me. I loved it before and I love it even more now. Yes, yes, it's a romance on the battlefield and we have tons of action on a wild planet and in space with outright space battles, but it's the interactions between all these fantastic characters that makes this shine. Cordelia. Aral. Bathari.

Bujold doesn't hold back on anything. Do you want a loss of honor and the hope of regaining it? A political mess? How about respect at the deepest levels? How about disillusionment with our homes and putting all our cards down on a gamble for the rest of your life and happiness?

Truly, there's a lot more depth to this book than most people might credit it. And here's the best part: if you're already invested in the series and know all the locations and references dropped, it still makes a perfectly coherent whole in the world building. :) Everything was worked out to perfection. :) Even the characters we meet fleetingly here get much bigger roles later, and revisiting them, in the beginning, is so gratifying.

Some books only get better with time. This is one of them.

#utterfanboy

Original review:

I thought the careful and considered match between Aral and Cordelia was charming. It was deeper, emotionally, than a lot of romances, sci-fi or otherwise. Much has been said about how strong a female lead Cordelia is, in both the stories and by the fans, and I have to admit they're correct. She's got a solid grip on reality, and despite the situation, she steadfastly judges her situation based on what is done and not what is said. That's always a great sign of sanity.

The adventure part had me going, but the disillusionment about her home and the open-eyed acceptance of the madhouse of Aral's home said more about Beta Colony than it said about Barrayar. All in all, delicious more for its accumulated weight of surrounding stories than for it, in itself, but it was definitely a charming space-operatic love story. ...more

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Dec 04, 2015 Althea Ann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 for the Aral and Cordelia story, and 5 stars for the last chapter, which is a totally separate story ('Aftermaths') rounds out to 4 stars.

'Shards of Honor' is the first novel in what has since become an extensive series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosi...) of which I've read a great many. It's always odd to go back and read an early book featuring characters who were later fleshed out a great deal more. To be frank, this book does not fully live up to many of the later entries into the ...more

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