Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
Sep. 28th, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
When enemies become more than friends - they win!
In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vokosigan - he was called 'The Butcher of Komarr' - and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vokosigan on his.
I know that Lois McMaster Bujold is a respected Hugo winning SF author and that this is one of the first books in a very successful series following Miles Vokosigan, but there's no getting away from the fact that I didn't really enjoy it. I should actually point out that I read this as part of the Cordelia's Honor release by Baen Books - essentially a double volume consisting of Shards of Honor and Barrayer and which I'm counting as separate books for the purposes of my year's tally.
The irony is that Bujold's greatest strength is also her greatest weakness: she doesn't explain anything. A master of 'show don't tell' she drops facts into dialogue and situation set up and lets the reader feel their way into the worlds she's creating. It is refreshing to get that approach from an author and as you get deeper into the book, it's easier to absorb what's happening and how the different societies work. However, getting to that point is a bit of a trial. There were times early on when I was left confused by some of the details being provided (e.g. how Vokosigan's planetary politics worked and the relationship between his planet and the Betans) and I wished that there had been some further explanation to help me get it more quickly.
I was also left cold by Bujold's characterisation and dialogue. During the opening section of the book, Cordelia and Vokosigan don't so much talk as speechify at each other - it felt stilted (even allowing for the circumstances) and both come across as stiff and a little two dimensional. Cordelia fleshes out slightly more during the course of the plot, but she never really came alive for me on the page and I was surprised that given that Bujold wants to set her up as someone who cares about those under her command (hence her resistance to giving up on the clearly brain-damaged Ensign Dubauer when she, Vokosigan and Dubauer are left stranded on a strange world), she doesn't give us a follow-up scene where Cordelia supposedly visits him in a Betan hospital - instead choosing to explain it away as something that happened off-page. In fact, in many ways Cordelia reminded me of the feisty female starship captain you see but for all her supposed ingenuity, she really relies on others - particularly men - to help her. Vokosigan is little more than a sketch in this book - his scenes with Cordelia reinforce his position as a moral man, a brilliant military strategist and someone who is very much in love with Cordelia. Beyond that, we're not given anything to hold onto and as a result, he feels rather bland. In fact, I didn't really buy into the supposed romance between the two - it just develops too quickly to be plausible.
Plot-wise, there isn't much to the story because it's mainly there to set up the love relationship and the backdrop to the politics that Vokosigan has to deal with. I felt that the pacing didn't quite work - too much time is spent on the initial set-up of having Vokosigan and Cordelia trapped on a planet together, with everything else racing along at breakneck speed. I was particularly unimpressed with Cordelia's return to the Betan Colony and the attitude of her superiors - particularly the psychologists. I understand that they had to have that reaction and make those assumptions in order for the plot to move to the next point, but I wish it had been handled more credibly.
There were things within the book that I liked - Bothari is an intriguing character full of contradictions and I thought his tortured mental state was really well handled. I also enjoyed Bujold's description of strange worlds and the strange animal life that inhabit them as I thought it was very evocative.
The Verdict:
I didn't really enjoy this (although I know other people who are big fans of Bujold's work). Ultimately, the characters and situation felt a little too flat and perfunctory for me to buy into them and whilst I admire Bujold's refusal to pander to her readers in terms of showing her world, there were times when I felt that more explanation of what was happening would have been useful. I'll read the follow-up volume, Barrayer, as I understand that it was this that won the Hugo, but I have to say that had I been coming to this series new, I wouldn't have gone further than this book.
When enemies become more than friends - they win!
In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vokosigan - he was called 'The Butcher of Komarr' - and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vokosigan on his.
I know that Lois McMaster Bujold is a respected Hugo winning SF author and that this is one of the first books in a very successful series following Miles Vokosigan, but there's no getting away from the fact that I didn't really enjoy it. I should actually point out that I read this as part of the Cordelia's Honor release by Baen Books - essentially a double volume consisting of Shards of Honor and Barrayer and which I'm counting as separate books for the purposes of my year's tally.
The irony is that Bujold's greatest strength is also her greatest weakness: she doesn't explain anything. A master of 'show don't tell' she drops facts into dialogue and situation set up and lets the reader feel their way into the worlds she's creating. It is refreshing to get that approach from an author and as you get deeper into the book, it's easier to absorb what's happening and how the different societies work. However, getting to that point is a bit of a trial. There were times early on when I was left confused by some of the details being provided (e.g. how Vokosigan's planetary politics worked and the relationship between his planet and the Betans) and I wished that there had been some further explanation to help me get it more quickly.
I was also left cold by Bujold's characterisation and dialogue. During the opening section of the book, Cordelia and Vokosigan don't so much talk as speechify at each other - it felt stilted (even allowing for the circumstances) and both come across as stiff and a little two dimensional. Cordelia fleshes out slightly more during the course of the plot, but she never really came alive for me on the page and I was surprised that given that Bujold wants to set her up as someone who cares about those under her command (hence her resistance to giving up on the clearly brain-damaged Ensign Dubauer when she, Vokosigan and Dubauer are left stranded on a strange world), she doesn't give us a follow-up scene where Cordelia supposedly visits him in a Betan hospital - instead choosing to explain it away as something that happened off-page. In fact, in many ways Cordelia reminded me of the feisty female starship captain you see but for all her supposed ingenuity, she really relies on others - particularly men - to help her. Vokosigan is little more than a sketch in this book - his scenes with Cordelia reinforce his position as a moral man, a brilliant military strategist and someone who is very much in love with Cordelia. Beyond that, we're not given anything to hold onto and as a result, he feels rather bland. In fact, I didn't really buy into the supposed romance between the two - it just develops too quickly to be plausible.
Plot-wise, there isn't much to the story because it's mainly there to set up the love relationship and the backdrop to the politics that Vokosigan has to deal with. I felt that the pacing didn't quite work - too much time is spent on the initial set-up of having Vokosigan and Cordelia trapped on a planet together, with everything else racing along at breakneck speed. I was particularly unimpressed with Cordelia's return to the Betan Colony and the attitude of her superiors - particularly the psychologists. I understand that they had to have that reaction and make those assumptions in order for the plot to move to the next point, but I wish it had been handled more credibly.
There were things within the book that I liked - Bothari is an intriguing character full of contradictions and I thought his tortured mental state was really well handled. I also enjoyed Bujold's description of strange worlds and the strange animal life that inhabit them as I thought it was very evocative.
The Verdict:
I didn't really enjoy this (although I know other people who are big fans of Bujold's work). Ultimately, the characters and situation felt a little too flat and perfunctory for me to buy into them and whilst I admire Bujold's refusal to pander to her readers in terms of showing her world, there were times when I felt that more explanation of what was happening would have been useful. I'll read the follow-up volume, Barrayer, as I understand that it was this that won the Hugo, but I have to say that had I been coming to this series new, I wouldn't have gone further than this book.
