Customer Reviews

Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan)

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I got into Bujold's Vorkosigan series right after Barrayar. I think Shards of Honor was out of print at that time, but I had to have it and it was worth the search.

Bujold isn't just a writer, she's a poet and philosopher. Shards of Honor is my favorite of the Vorkosigan series because first and foremost--it's a love story. Two middle-aged people, caught in a war they never wanted, fighting for opposite sides, both with issues--acting true to themselves and their personal honor. This book has NO compromises, no fake notes. It was the first book she ever wrote, and in my opinion, the best.

There are no funny parts. Cordelia suffers a "breakdown" on stage during the welcome home ceremonies after returning from the war. Beta Colony misinterprets everything she says, and her mother sells her out for her own good. The war and contact with the "enemy" have changed her, and she can't go home. She has fallen in love with a man who all the civilized worlds consider an amoral killer--when Aral is simply a soldier doing the "right thing" for a government who knows his value as a strategist, but hates his scruples. It's not sci-fi. It's not romance. It transcends both genres to become "more". It's all about love and redemption, and doing the right thing when everything is colored in shades of gray.

This is one of the funniest "romance" novels ever written and one of the most serious science fiction novels ever penned. Cordelia charms partly because she is civilized, sympathetic and the very embodiment of feminine virtues, but she has a capacity for quick thought and faster action that confounds her enemies and keeps the reader breathless with laughter and excitement.

Cordelia and her "love interest" Aral Vorkosigan meet just as their different planets of origin go to war. Cordelia helps Aral foil a mutiny and then, bound by duty, shoots out the weapons console on Aral's ship and gets her own unarmed survey vessel home. She plays a critical role in the war that follows and mets Aral again, this time as a prisoner of war aboard the flagship. In the fog of love and war, it is friendly fire that does the most damage.

The funniest scene is when Cordelia, suffering from post-tramatic stress syndrome caused by maladroit psychologists, kicks the President in the groin as he tries to present a medal to her.

The other reviews tell it all, but instead of buying this book get - Cordelia's Honor (Vorkosigan Saga Omnibus: Shards of Honor / Barrayar)
which is this story plus the sequel ( written much later after several other books ), which to my thinking is just as good.