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

Mar 11, 2013 mark monday rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-60s-70s-80s, x-vorkosigan-saga, romantica

Cordelia Naismith is the captain of an astronomical survey ship from the peaceful Beta Colony. Lord Aral Vorkosigan is the leader of a secret military mission from the warlike planet Barrayar. the title "Shards of Honor" no doubt refers to the small bits of honor that Aral must cling to as he finds himself a central figure in a massive undertaking that will sacrifice thousands of innocents for the greater good; it also may refer to the honor that Cordelia herself gains and loses and gains again Cordelia Naismith is the captain of an astronomical survey ship from the peaceful Beta Colony. Lord Aral Vorkosigan is the leader of a secret military mission from the warlike planet Barrayar. the title "Shards of Honor" no doubt refers to the small bits of honor that Aral must cling to as he finds himself a central figure in a massive undertaking that will sacrifice thousands of innocents for the greater good; it also may refer to the honor that Cordelia herself gains and loses and gains again as her fate becomes increasingly intertwined with that of the unjustly infamous Aral - also known as "The Butcher of Komarr". this excellent novel is the first in the massive Vorkosigan Saga, which currently numbers over 25 novels and short stories. it is also Bujold's first full-length work - an impressive achievement.

the novel is a chamber piece with a galactic background. space opera boiled down to two major characters and several intriguing supporting characters, with acts of policy and war that become palpable moral and ethical conflicts for those characters. it is space opera made intimate and personal; space opera where the psychology of its characters is writ as large and made as important as the various exciting twists and turns of the narrative. it is also a romance - one that is by turns surprising and moving and life-affirming. there are no ridiculously giddy or angsty moments that made me roll my eyes. Cordelia and Aral are decidedly adults, with a whole lifetime of pain and experience behind them. watching them matter-of-factly fall in love was key to my enjoyment.

it is a novel with some teeth as well. its issues are timely and timeless... is a terrible sacrifice worth all of those lives to stop the deaths of even more lives? should nationalism be a thing that we live and die for, a thing that defines our lives' trajectories? and what is "honor" anyway - a personal thing? a public thing? the thing that we cling to that gives our lives some kind of meaning, some sense of purpose? all are interesting questions to contemplate.

the prose is smart, clean, unfussy. our heroes veer towards the nonchalant rather than towards the melodramatic - they are life-sized, not larger-than-life - and so the prose is a perfect match for the characterization. the whole novel is excellent and thoroughly entertaining, but my favorite part may be the opening third - which is basically a two-person trek across an unknown planet. the reader gets to enjoy interesting bits of xenobiology (not delivered via massive world-building infodumps) while Cordelia and Aral's intriguing and entirely sympathetic personalities slowly unfold, to the reader and to each other. it was lovely. "lovely" may be an odd word to use for a novel that encompasses war, assassination, depraved villains, forced drug use, attempted rape, the children of rape, a mental breakdown, and the abandonment of one's home... but Shards of Honor is indeed a lovely thing - a quietly moving experience. ...more

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Jul 16, 2015 Oni rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, space-opera

This is my first novel on Vorkosigan Saga (after being bored by Lost Fleet series). I was hoping for a military sci-fi, but instead I get a romantic sci-fi. I felt disappointed initially, but the ending did redeem the entire novel.

It begins with a scientific survey that went awry. During that event, our protagonist Commander (later Captain) Cornelia Naismith met the other protagonist (duhhh) Captain Vorkosigan, as an enemy. Cornelia was from a more "civilized" system, Beta, while, Vorkosigan is ...more

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Jan 24, 2016 Christine H rated it liked it · review of another edition

Hmm, feeling very puzzled after finishing this up. Perhaps this is the best way to express my feelings: I think I just read three different stories: a short, fairly effective adventure-romance story, a less successful war and romance story, plus a rather disturbing inferred story that I guess the author never intended?

Spoiler tags from here on out. (view spoiler) Hmm, feeling very puzzled after finishing this up. Perhaps this is the best way to express my feelings: I think I just read three different stories: a short, fairly effective adventure-romance story, a less successful war and romance story, plus a rather disturbing inferred story that I guess the author never intended?

Spoiler tags from here on out. (view spoiler)[So first story - two people thrown together in a survival situation, who develop a relationship even though they hate each other at the beginning. Think anything from Enemy Mine to Romancing the Stone. It's pretty well done - you can see how each of them starts noticing qualities they admire in the other, and their predicament is intriguing. There is a bit of off-key telling rather than showing when Cordelia explicitly narrates how she is finding him attractive, but I suppose you could chalk that up to the author still getting her feet under her, as this was her first book.

Second story - here it gets a little weird and often contrived. There's a bad guy who literally idolizes the Marquis de Sade, and monologues his eeeevil plans up front. There's an escape that's dependent on a wildly implausible coincidence. Followed by an even more implausible coincidence. The character traits that made Vorkosigan appealing in the first act get muddied, even as Bujold seems to be trying to underline them. Nevertheless, there's a reveal that's quite satisfying and does set up a tension around "honor" and what it means, and it's still mostly a fun ride.

Then Cordelia goes home and the whole story goes rather bonkers, and kind of limps over the finish line.

Third story - I take it from a quick Google that Bujold intended this story to be face-value. It's a romance with a happy ending (with enough complications to set up the further story).

But from the time Cordelia is heading home until I turned the last page, I was increasingly suspicious. There seems to be plenty of textual support for the notion that Cordelia is a totally unreliable narrator, and all the facile, clunky, and convenient notes early in the story are tells that hint at her successful brainwashing.

We're told the Barrayar military can wipe memories and manufacture false memories to replace them. The Beta officials are convinced that Cordelia is a victim of this process, and perhaps that she's been made into a mole without her knowledge. Her behavior becomes more and more erratic, with symptoms that could be explained by paranoia and exhaustion, or could hint at something darker. Eventually she becomes so removed from herself that she almost murders her doctor, having strange, sadistic flashes of thought that could indicate a meditation on what war can do to good people, or could indicate programming by the enemy.

Taking the latter view makes some earlier "mistakes" and strange details fall into place - the weirdly emphatic internal monologue notes about her attraction, the sudden marriage proposal, the mustache-twirling villain, the convenient reappearance of known characters, the issue of where Vorkosigan got his intelligence, the "benevolent and self-sacrificing" reason why she must resist Betan psychological probing at all costs, and finally her sacrifice of her entire identity without a look backward.

Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this? (hide spoiler)]

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Jun 03, 2009 Staci rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

I really enjoyed this book. This is the second book in this series that I've read & I have to say that I enjoyed it much more than the first one, Warrior's Apprentice. I'm not exactly sure what it was that I enjoyed more about this one, maybe it was better reading it in actual book format than listening to the audio. But I will definitely be continuing on in the series and maybe even give Warrior's Apprentice a reread to see if I like it better on a second reading (and in it's proper order in th ...more

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