Welcome to the Speculative Chic Book Club! Each month, we invite you to join us in reading a book that is voted on by YOU, our readers. Following a short review, please feel free to discuss the book in the comments!
Shards of Honor (1986)
Written by: Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 255 (paperback)
Publisher: Baen
Premise:
When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member. Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge. A science fiction romance by a Hugo and Nebula Award winning master. Bujold’s SHARDS OF HONOR is the first book in her SF universe to feature the Vorkosigan clan, followed by the Hugo award-winning BARRAYAR. The Nebula award-winning FALLING FREE precedes it by internal chronology in the same future history.
Spoilers, of course
Discussion: This book has been on my radar for so long that I can’t remember the first person who recommended it to me. I feel like I’ve started a lot of book club discussions this way, but I have no excuse for why I haven’t read this one yet.
Sometimes these posts are harder when I don’t have anything to complain about, because I’m not really trying to convince anyone to agree a particular thing was bad. So here’s where we are right now: I liked it a lot and have very few complaints.
I love a good romance that starts out the way this one does, Romeo and Juliet on opposite sides of a war but without the tragedy at the end. Aral Vorkosigan was an interesting character to get to know, especially as so many details of his life were doled out so sparingly, as if they were tales about someone else’s life. I loved the dichotomy of his public persona with who Cordelia discovered him to be.
I was really, really sobbingly grateful that I didn’t have to read an onscreen rape, and I was really intrigued by the mechanical womb they gave the rapists at the end of the war to take the babies home in. Seems almost cruel to the children involved, but also sort of elegant? That whole section about Vorrutyer and his tortures was really imaginative? Which seems like the nicest thing I can say about it. It made the stakes of the novel a lot higher, since a lot of the space battles happened “off screen.”
If I have one complaint, it’s that even though I knew where the relationship was going, the beginning of it very much felt out of the blue. I’m assuming his initial offer of marriage was to protect her? I guess? And the feelings grew from there? But the beginning felt a little muddled. Which I guess could have contributed to the realism for some readers. It’s not a big complaint, but it’s there.
In conclusion: Definitely going to keep going in this series!
Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my very favorite authors, and I have read this book any number of times. I’m not sure how that affects my take on it.
This is the very first book she wrote, and she uses some tropes I am not comfortable with, ie the gay villain and using using rape to raise the stakes. She does not continue to use those tropes as the series progresses, which I am grateful for.
The next book chronologically is Barrayar, which is actually the fourth book she wrote, and you can see the jump in the writing quality.
I agree the romance between Aral and Cordelia seems sudden. I think that is at least partly because we are in Cordelia’s POV and she is clueless about this kind of thing and does not see it. My understanding of Aral’s point of view is that he is generally attracted to soldiers, and her being both female and a soldier was a solution to a problem for him. And then the crisis of survival on Sergyar caused an acceleration in getting to know each other.
One of the themes that Bujold uses repeatedly is the question of disability. What makes someone disabled? How do you deal with a disability? In this book we see Debauer, Koudelka (a bit) and Bothari. Bothari, in particular, is a fascinating character. It’s interesting to see how the world does and does not adapt to him.
I really love this book for a number of reasons. Personally I kind of liked the trajectory of their relationship. It felt a little sudden because it was. It was more of a surprise to Cordelia and a proposition of convenience for Aral. But it made Cordelia actually look at him that way. Then in the time they spent apart I think Cordelia began to realize the way she saw him and the way the world saw him was different, which made her catalog and define the differences.
I think Bujold has a lot of really interesting things to say on sex and sexuality in the long run of this series, and Shards of Honor really only brushed the surface. Also on disability, mental illness, societal expectations, feminism, the list goes on and on.
It has been AGES since I read this, and I read the omnibus Cordelia’s Honor when I did, so I got this and Barrayar. I ended up really enjoying the overall experience, but only ventured one book further in the series itself. So many books, so little time.
The link below contains my original thoughts, but don’t hold me to anything. Other than being happy with reading it, I can’t discuss a single detail intelligently, because again, it’s been FOREVER since I read it.
https://calico-reaction.livejournal.com/249903.html