Reviews and Comments

Maybe this book rings very true to me as somebody who is airquotes old, but this is really a book about a middle age crisis; about how to handle losing everything, picking up the pieces of yourself, and then going on to the rest of your life all the same.

Miles has largely been unstoppable in previous books, and even death only slowed him down a little bit. But this is the book where he seriously fucks up by making a mistake, doubles down by lying about it, triples down by not come clean about it, and gets kicked out of his ImpSec job. And, his job is also his only connection to the Dendarii mercenaries and his Admiral Naismith identity. He could, of course, go run off to them, but it'd be a treasonous one way trip. So instead he stays home depressed, trying to put his life as Lord Miles Vorkosigan back together (and figure out what that even is, having put it on the shelf for so long).

There's some really good foreshadowing of all of this from the previous books. Miles strips Bel of its commission for lying about not knowing about Mark. Cordelia wonders several times what would happen if Miles loses his "little admiral". But the big one for me is when Miles tells Mark, "You are what you do. Choose again, and change." This moment comes a couple of books earlier, but that theme resonates strongly here through the whole book.

I really also appreciated the explicit revisit to Mountains of Mourning and Harra Csurik. This was really the only previous time in the novel that we see Miles really being authentically happy in his role as Lord Miles Vorkosigan, and so it's a great place to revisit in a novel about Miles becoming himself again.

Some smaller bits about book that I enjoyed: * lol at thirty being middle age * Simon Illyan also having to navigate figuring out who he is when he is not his job * the metaphor about the Dendarii being children that Miles is no longer responsible for along with this whole middle age crisis theme * Miles merging both of his selves vs Mark resolving into multiple selves * the Quinn scene at the end where she wants Miles to stay and Miles wants her to go and both would lose themselves if they did

I've put off talking about this book for a bit because honestly I'm not sure where to start. The short of it was that this was one of the best things I've read this year.

It is nearly impossible to describe the plot, but this is not a plot-driven book. It's weirder and bolder and chewier than The Saint of Bright Doors. To describe it at all, this is a book about two (ish???) characters whose various lives intertwine with each other across the timeline(s???), told in a series of simultaneously deeply interconnected but also wildly different stories. There's constantly recurring thematic motifs and threads, and I feel like the reader is asked to do a lot of work to try to connect the myriad of interconnected bits and bobs and hints in its various depths. I finished it and immediately considered starting again with my extra knowledge to try to piece more connections together and better understand the whole.

Tonally, I also think Rakesfall is doing very interesting things. In comparison, The Saint of Bright Doors had some funny side jokes like "nine-tenths of the lore" in the same way that Harrow the Ninth has "none house, with left grief"; they're references if you catch them, but feel like a drive-by joke and not the destination. On the contrary, Rakesfall surgically deploys out of place phrases and tonal shifts to make impacts that deliberately jar the reader.

I apologize for pasting a number of quotes, but it astounds me a little that all of these things can be in the same book, that otherwise has a much more serious tone. I don't list these quotes as examples of what most of the prose is, but as examples of the rare places it swerves to.

The simile of the two-handed saw is not a parable. It isn't even a story. That it is self-consciously a simile suggests an unseriousness, a little haha hoho, a little lol j/k.

This is a one-off line in a brief section of the story that takes place in the same world as The Saint of Bright Doors (although you do not need to have read that book for this story).

Everybody on stage is silent and motionless for another few minutes. The AUDIENCE grows restless. Somebody in the audience takes a picture--the flash is blinding--even though there was a sign at the door that said NO PHOTOS, NO SMARTPHONES. There are muttered complaints. Imiya blinks. His pupils are huge.

Devakarti returns to the chorus and starts organizing them to move on to their next lives.

There's a chapter that is written like a script for a play, but is also a play in progress, and also includes dead people in the chorus who were killed by people in the play. This is a microcosm of what the book feels like.

All his soldiers pee themselves a little, so the king calls up his favourite wrestler, biggest face in the city, beloved far and wide as the best good guy who isn't afraid of anything, and the king says, my Beloved Bro, will you Please take this Cup of Water out unto the Dread Cemetary and give it to that Loud Fucker, and Tell him to (a) Pipe down and (b) give Thanks to the generosity of his King? And the wrestler says Sure Thing, my King. He is also frightened but he goes anyway, and he tells himself, real courage isn't found in not being afraid but in doing things that when you are, which just goes to show that after years of celebrity he is so deep in character that his internal narrative takes the voice of an Educational Programme for the small children who are his biggest fans and buy all his T-shirts.

There are other stories within stories in this book, but this one is told in this amazing style of an incredibly informal fable that was striking.

All of this makes for the kind of risky style that could be intensely irritating or obnoxious if it wasn't done so effectively. I think it works for me and I'm delighted by it; more, I think the choice to do this fits in this hurricane of a story that mixes and remixes characters and themes to such a degree.

This book is the book where Mark comes into his own; but he certainly hits the lowest of the low points before he can come back out the other side on his own merits. The setup of this plot here is that Mark cons the Dendarii pretending to be Miles into a personal heroic mission of his own to rescue some clones; he fucks up, Miles comes to save him, and Miles gets killed(?!). Mark then has to go back to Barrayar and tell his and Miles's parents about this.

It's a great move to kill off your protagonist (who takes up SO much space) to create room for Mark to figure out who he is. This is also a series that has cryochambers where you can place severely injured people and maybe revive them later with better medical facilities. Here, the cryochamber with Miles gets lost and so it's less of a question of "will Miles live" but more "where did Miles get off to" and "what lasting effects will Miles have from this death". So, it's not like [I can't mention the name of these books here because it's a major spoiler] where the point of view character from book one is literally killed in a multi-book series, but it's still a fun narrative move.

His belly shivered with a terrible longing, restrained by a terrible fear. Progenitors. Parents. He was not sure he wanted parents, at this late date. They were such enormous figures. He felt obliterated in their shadow, shattered like glass, annihilated.

The part that is the biggest delight to me is Mark having to go to Barrayar for the first time. He's royally fucked up and has to tell their parents about it; but also it's that he was trained to assassinate Miles's parents, he knows the layout of the Vorkosigan house, and he kind of doesn't want anything to do with Barrayar. It's a delightful awkwardness of everybody having such sharp edges but also earnestly trying to connect with each other.

It was another strange reciprocity, that Miles should have things he wanted to to remember, and couldn't, while Mark had things he wanted to forget. And couldn't.

Thematically, I think this book is one of the strongest in the series. We learn from Mark dancing with Kareen Koudelka that a mirror dance is one where one partner copies the other's movements, and this book is all about the parallels between Miles and Mark. Miles comes to rescue Mark; Mark comes back to rescue Miles. They both have multiple selves (although Mark realizes more here, and in the next book Miles loses them). They both are knight errants in their own right. There's also plenty of mirror imagery here as well.

Finally, I would be very curious to hear what plural systems make of this book. To my eyes, this feels like some internal family systems situation becoming multiple headmates (my word) via trauma. I feel like there's some groundwork for this earlier in the novel, and that it's not just trauma-generated, as Mark identifies some of his actions as having been unknown headmates previously. (That said, I do think that this feels some like a hamhanded attempt to write off an almost rape scene by pinning it on a headmate.) In the end, like Mark is left fronting and from other people's view is treated like a singlet; I'll be interested how a Civil Campaign reads when we get back to their perspectives again.

Here we come to the real meat of the Vorkosigan series. Brothers in Arms through A Civil Campaigan carry a large part of my fond memories of this series--Mark (a clone of Miles) appears, and both Mark and Miles go through large identity shifts in who they are and how they related to each other and the world.

The initial plot of this novel comes directly off the last novella; there's a lot of costs for the Dendarii mercenaries from their last operation, and Miles comes to Earth for repairs and in desperate need of payment. This is one of the strong points about this series that I like; each story really stands on its own with a driving plot and strong closure, but there's plenty of natural-feeling foreshadowing hooks (both personal and political) and also gradual character development across time.

Goaded, Miles snapped, "Dammit, sir, what would you have of me? The Dendarii are as much Barrayaran troops as any who wear the Emperor's uniform, even if they don't know it. They are my assigned charge. I cannot neglect their urgent needs even to play the part of Lieutenant Vorkosigan."

Galeni rocked back in his chair, his eyebrows shooting up. "Play the part of Lieutenant Vorkosigan? Who do you think you are?"

Talking of character development, if Miles had an insubordination problem earlier where he would disobey orders and lie to his superiors, it's absolutely out of control in this novel. He gets grounded in the Barrayaran embassy with no orders other than to stay put and no pay, and immediately is sneaking off and engaging Ivan in his plans. In Cetaganda, he was breaking rules but he was trying to get away with it as long as he couuld. Here, the bureaucracy is truly just an obstacle and not something he feels any reason to obey other than as a means to an end.

Back to money, I feel that Miles is only able to carry his nobility as a mercenary because he has the financial backing of Barrayar to pay for his idealistic but not financially sound decisions. It's kind of a deus ex machina, that Miles can always lean on the trust and backing of Barrayar from a distance to cut through any "can we afford to save these people" ethical knots. Even Tung jokes about this at the end, that Miles not having to make a profit is an advantage no other mercenary commander has.

"And so you want to maroon me for the rest of my life on a, sorry, backwater dirtball that's just barely climbed out of feudalism, that treats women like chattel--or cattle--that would deny me the use of every military skill I've learned in the past twelve years from shuttle docking to interrogation chemistry... I'm sorry. I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not a saint, and I'm not crazy."

"You don't have to say no right away," said Miles in a small voice.

This book is also the "Elli Quinn romance" book, which really just sets up Miles for needing somebody who loves both of his Lord Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith selves. To its detriment, I feel like Elli and Elena are both very similar here; both are competent space mercenaries who want literally nothing to do with backwater Barrayar who would waste them. (The next book even lampshades how similar they are.) Sure, Elli is a spacer who wants nothing to do with planets and Elena is a childhood friend (that Miles is still secretly in love with) but they feel like similar letdowns and character arcs on Miles' end.

One thing I do like is that Miles has had enough character development by this time that he can more meaningfully address the question of why he doesn't just run off and become a space mercenary and divorce himself from Barrayar and his Lord Vorkosigan identity. Even if you ignore the money aspect of the backing from Barrayar, his roots and his family and his responsibility are on Barrayar. Elli only wants Admiral Naismith and dislikes Lord Vorkosigan, but Miles needs somebody who wants both.

"You are what you do. Choose again, and change."

The other big piece of this book is the introduction of Mark, Miles's secret clone who replaces Miles in an infiltration plot. I love Mark as a comedic foil for Miles; he is the younger brother forced to live in and chase the shadow of somebody who is impossibly great. Mark barely keeps up with Miles as Lord Vorkosigan, but then also finds out Miles has a second identity on the side that he now has to learn too.

I appreciate that this clone story is not a one-off pulp joke. From the start, Miles treats Mark seriously as his brother and even tells him his name should be Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, since Barrayaran names are a fixed hereditary pattern. Rather than running some scheme for his own benefit, Miles mostly thinks about Mark here, to give him a chance to be his own person and live his own life, even when absolutely everybody else sees him as disposable.

This novella is a quick heist-adjacent novel; the setup is that what should be a quick extraction of a scientist from Jackson's Whole (the black market anything goes planet) turns into a raid on Baron Ryoval's complex. This stretch of books in the series (from Cetaganda through Brothers in Arms, in my opinion) give the breadth of worldbuilding by exposing the reader to a new place that they've heard of before, but haven't seen directly. This story is mostly worldbuilding and action, and especially juxtaposed against The Borders of Infinity that comes up next, I think it feels like a much weaker book.

One thing I like about both this novella and the following one is that they're both complete stories on their own, but then build a lot of context for the two novels that follow. They're also not directly shoehorned into those novels, like The Weatherman was into The Vor Game.

(We also get a lot more Bel Thorne here too, even though I think Bel gets short shrift in the whole series.)

Not so long ago, Sally Strange pointed out to me Bujold's fascination with age gaps, and there is definitely some of that here. Taura is the monster at the heart of this titular Labyrinth, but is also a sixteen year old girl who has been modified to be a monstrous super soldier. I think this brief romance creates parallels for Taura to learn from Miles about being herself and not needing to be airquotes normal; however, this psychological road has already been walked by Miles before, and it doesn't feel like this relationship creates any growth for him. (And, honestly in the future, Miles thinks a lot more about Beatrice than we ever see him think about Taura.)

This book is the logical extension of the exploration of "uterine replicator" technology. We see Betans and Barrayarans using them to have safer and more egalitarian pregnancies. We see Cetagandans using them in the previous book to design humans differently. And, here in this book, the planet Athos is using them to perpetuate their remote society made up only of men.

(And yeah, yeah, this story was written in 1986, and so we'll just handwave over what the fate of poor trans folks or non-gay men might be on this planet. On this planet, women are sort of treated as mythological demons that have hypnotized galactic men with their wiles. This book is written in a way to make Ethan come off as comically naive, but the religious indoctrination here is horrifying if you think about it to any degree.)

Ethan is the earnest straight man (:drum:) in this comedy routine who is sent off to figure out what happened to their shipment of ovarian tissue for the uterine replicators on Athos. He's never left his planet until now. He's never seen a woman before. He also tries to recruit people to Athos and earnestly doesn't understand why nobody else wants to move to his religious men-only remote planet. Understandably, this book has a good bit of explicit homophobia (but also some fatphobia). That said, it's largely background radiation to the story, rather than something any of the protagonists are doing themselves directly.

All things told, this book holds up as a lot of fun on a reread. Ethan is out of his depth even before he gets captured by some Cetagandans who then attempt to murder Ethan when he doesn't know anything. He gets rescued by Elli Quinn (of the Dendarii Mercenaries, also an absolute delight) who is trying to kill the Cetagandans and chasing what they're after. We also get some interesting worldbuilding for Kline Station, in terms of station life, biocontrol, and newt ecology. Overall, I would pitch this as a spy/heist story that weaves in sociological observations and stars an earnest-but-naive protagonist.

One of the qualities that I love about the Vorkosigan series is that because it is so long, it allows Bujold to play with different genres between books. If The Vor Game is military SF, then Cetaganda is a mystery novel. Pedantically, this book is not really a mystery proper in the way that a reader could piece together the whodunit independently; however I think this is an example of "detective Miles" mode, and one that we'll see again in Memory and Komarr especially.

This book features Miles and Ivan on a diplomatic visit to Cetaganda for the funeral of the Cetagandan empress. Miles has to juggle investigating a plot that's trying to frame the Barrayarans (but why? and by whom?), hiding things from his superiors (by implying he's a higher level spy), trying to interface with the Cetaganda police about a murder investigation (while not giving things away to them or to his superiors), and stopping a plot that would cause chaos to Cetaganda (while also trying to work towards Barrayaran interests).

One thing I think this novel does well is to portray the Cetagandans in a sympathetic and interesting light, and to dig into the interesting social structure they have going on. In previous novels, the Cetagandans have been the historical invaders of Barrayar and also aggressive expansionists into the Hegen Hub, and the reader doesn't know much about them other than their military bent. This book could be a bit more subtle about weaving all this background info in without as much of an info dump, but in a broader sense it adds a lot of nuance and fills in a lot of detail.

Ok, ok. I know I'm leaning on the horn here (pun not intended), but holy moly this book is still stuck in horny Miles brain mode. He is still not over Elena (who doesn't even appear in this novel) and he loses it over the haut women who ensconce themselves behind opaque bubble forcefields. There is one brief, minor moment where Miles realizes these feelings are clouding his judgement; Ivan comes up with a plan Miles hasn't considered because it wouldn't let him play the hero in front of haut Rian. This is as far as it goes, though.

(It's funny how much this quality sticks out for me on this reread. Am I just older and ace-er? Is this how books airquotes of the time all were and I haven't noticed because I haven't been reading books that are thirty five years old? Is this a deliberate writing decision for a twenty year old protagonist? Did I just forget that's how these books were?)

This novel won a Hugo, and I liked it more than Warrior's Apprentice, but it still jumps around quite a bit. It certainly leans a bit more "military sf" where we learn a bit more about space tactics and wormhole politics. The book feels like it has a couple of distinct sections: first, Miles on his first assignment in Camp Permafrost (until he joins a mutiny and washes out of the Imperial Military, again). Then, Miles kicking his feet "in disgrace" until he joins Imperial Security and is sent back out to potentially active the Admiral Naismith identity again. Finally, a bit where he is separated from his ImpSec minders and simultaneously tries to re-form the Dendarii Mercenaries, stop an invasion, and rescue the Barrayaran emperor all at the same time.

On this reread, I felt like that the Camp Permafrost section, even if it was interesting, didn't quite tie into the rest of the novel strongly enough for its length. My opinion while reading is that it would be better as a standalone story. I felt pretty justified learning that it was a separately published novella that then got edited into this book.

Camp Permafrost certainly firmly establishes that Miles has a problem with subordination (although we already knew that). The commanding officer Metzov comes back later (and is ironically undone by his parochial attitudes). And there's a joke later about drain expertise (although I'll ask how can you have a surprise corpse in a novel that goes nowhere). The only plot function this section has is that Metzov can know Gregor and Miles and reveal their identities to Cavilo. None of this feels like enough for its length, and it would have made the rest of the book stronger to have it edited out.

This book definitely continues with Miles lusting forever after every woman on page. He's still in love with Elena, and lusts after Cavilo. Buddy, Elena is (still) married to your oath-sworn armsman, get it together. Maybe I'm biased because I roll my eyes through these bits, but it feels like missed opportunity for character growth, either in seeing him change here or paying for these feelings by having to deal with their consequences more explicitly.

One thing I do really like in this novel is being able to see Gregor out in the field. We get to see how Miles feels bound by his Vor responsibilities but Gregor feels trapped. Having Gregor in play (and their identities partially revealed) adds a different flavor; it's not just foiling a plan, but it's doing it in a way that also involves rescuing Gregor. We also get to see Gregor's competence at his job; he's not just a figurehead emperor, he's a master of politics and manipulation.

I think most importantly, we also get to see the implicit trust between Miles and Gregor, culminating in the climax of the book where Gregor walks directly up to a plasma cannon while Miles pretends like he's going to kill him. This book's theme, if I tried to put a finger on it, is Miles' insubordination in service to what he believes is right. (See also: the moment where he has locked several superior officers in the brig simultaneously.) So, it feels useful to establish the level of trust and devotion between Miles and his emperor directly on page. Sure, Miles continues to deliver results, but why else would anybody put up with this ensign.

This is a novella about Miles on Barrayar after the events of A Warrior's Apprentice and while he's waiting for his first assignment (surely, ship duty :drum:). Miles gets tasked by his father to help a woman from out in the country investigate the murder of her child that nobody else will listen to.

This is not so much a mystery story so much as it is an opportunity to stick Miles in a rural area with poor Barrayarans to navigate a thorny social and political situation as Lord Miles Vorkosigan. You get to see him deal with folks outside of the military or aristocracy and show more directly some of the cultural biases going on on Barrayar. (I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about how this story treats the impoverished hill folks. Miles certainly carries less bias than the officers he brings with him, but there's still a feeling that he feels ashamed and responsible for them, even if he is more respectful than others.)

This is probably unintentional, but this story also works exceptionally well coming off of the courtroom scene at the end of the previous book, which dredges back up events from Barrayar where Aral Vorkosigan had Carl Vorhalas executed for dueling, due to a strict reading of the letter of the law. It's interesting to see Miles come up with a much neater solution to his own problem than his father did with his.

I like the foreshadowing of the opening scene of Miles yelling at his grandfather Piotr's grave, but even more it's interesting to see his compassionate revisionist view of Piotr during the mystery reveal climax. From the perspective of Cordelia, Piotr is a conservative stick in the mud who had to be barred from Miles' uterine replicator for security reasons, but Miles looks back and is able to see how much change Piotr did deal with over his lifetime (even if he couldn't cope with everything). These musings about Piotr make for great bookends to a story about dealing with cultural change.

With Cordelia and Aral's story mostly backgrounded, we now get to the Miles Vorkosigan stretch of novels. Miles washes out of military school due to his physical disabilities and easily broken bones; he ends up on a trip to Beta Colony as a vacation with his bodyguard Bothari, and Bothari's daughter and Miles' childhood friend Elena.

This was the first book in this series I ever read, and I almost bounced off of it the first time through. My partner also stopped reading two thirds of the way through and then came back and finished much much later. This book has big "it gets better in season 3 I promise" energy.

For me, it's a weaker book than the two Cordelia books prior in a number of ways, and honestly there's really only so much I can take of teenager Miles. It's partially his self-loathing--internalizing the way that Barrayar treats anybody who looks like a "mutant" or is at all disabled, and also coping with his own military failures in the eyes of his family. But it's also his constant teenage lusting after his friend Elena or even later with Elli Quinn. My memory is that Miles interacting with any women are a low point in other books too all the way up to Ekaterin, unfortunately. It's not "breasted boobily" levels of lecherousness, but there's a desperation for attention in all of his actions.

Positives, instead. The joy of this book is how instantly the chain of chaos starts when Miles is involved. An example: he makes it to Beta Colony and in the brief period of time that he is out of Bothari's vision after customs he immediately adopts a pilot (plus ship) as his armsman, and then must come up with a scheme to pay off said ship by sneaking weapons through a blockade. Cut to being in space and Miles hatches a scheme to pretend to be leader of the (fictional) Dendarii Mercenaries in order to recruit mercenaries that they had just captured (once they shape up, of course). This creates a wild chain of lies and fabrications as Miles tries to keep it all together, keep his actual identity secret, and keep himself and his people safe.

This book feels meant to be funny and ridiculous. Why does nobody suspect the 17 year old with no combat experience leading mercenaries into battle? I think it's almost believable that these folks are so down on their luck that the version of reality that Miles presents (and creates) is compelling enough that nobody asks too many questions (even if they give some side-eyes). And maybe they handwave past the age with a rumor of mythical Beta Colony rejuvination treatments that make him look really young.

The delight of Miles is his manic energy and the way that he energizes the people around him to be bigger and better than who they were; it's also the balancing flip side of his secret identity trying to keep Barrayaran politics in mind and trying to live with some aristocratic Barrayan honor.

I think this book is still a good introduction to Miles, and I'm glad that he quickly grows up a little bit after this one. The main gripe for me is that this book is just not as neatly plotted or tight thematically and it feels a bit off the rails (even if it sticks the landing with a delightful courtroom ending). I really don't know that I would recommend this book, but it also sets the initial trajectory for the series so strongly that it would be impossible to skip.

Most of the books in this series are quite standalone, but Barrayar feels more like the second half of Shards of Honor. This book follows Cordelia's attempt to survive and protect her new child in a hostile environment as Aral struggles with his new job as regent.

This book and its prequel are some of the strongest books in the series for me. I love Cordelia as an outsider character who hates what she sees in Barrayar but ties herself to it for the people she loves all the same. It's also nice to have "older" characters (which then feels a bit of a shock when the next book has seventeen year old hyperactive Miles). This is also a book that very much centers itself on children and families, and all of the side plots (Drou & Kou, the Vorpatrils, friendship with Kareen, Bothari & Elena) tie neatly into this as well.

One thing I noticed in this reread is how much thematic foreshadowing Kou's nerve disruptor injury has for Miles, obviously in terms of the disability-averse Barrayarans but also psychologically. Miles is carrying a boatload of self-loathing when we first meet him in the next book, and it helps to have been warmed up to the cultural and familial context around those feelings a little bit here.

My favorite moment in this book is the fight between Aral and his father Piotr; their dispute over the fate of baby Miles comes to a head and in a rage Piotr kicks both Aral and Cordelia out of all the Vorkosigan house. A sudden interruption as the emperor Gregor is threatened and Piotr and Aral instantly drop everything and align themselves with full trust to protect their liege together. This is also the moment where the novel shifts from social (politics) directly into action (politics) mode.

He paused, watching Aral, watching her watch Aral. One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. "He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine.

"Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous."

Look, it's the 1980's and I'll give you credit for trying here, but wow does this line always catch me off guard and feel like such a backwards attitude about bisexuals.

I'm sure this line has been picked to death elsewhere, but I'm going to fall back on my previous rant about explicit identity labels in fiction; I think that it's a rare case that using them makes any media better, and like here they certainly don't age well. This exchange could have led with the attempted barb "he's also attracted to men" or "do you know he slept with Ges Vorrutyer", neither of which could have been negated and both of which could have had more interesting answers.

I decided for December I'm going to just do a bunch of comfort rereading, and my brain has been clamoring for "what if you just reread all of Bujold's Vorkosigan series again (again)". I could reread just A Civil Campaign like most people do, but maybe it's time to reread them all.

Shards of Honor is the "first" book in this series, and genre-wise feels like a space opera romance. (Arguably Falling Free comes first chronologically if you're being pedantic.) If you haven't read these books, most of the series stars Miles Vorkosigan, and this book is the setup of how his parents Aral and Cordelia met and its sequel deals with the circumstances around Miles' birth.

This book does need some content warnings especially for rape, sexual assault, alcoholism, and ableism. This book was first published in 1986, and I think the book cover listed on unseen.city is doing it NO favors in that department either. It's definitely got a good bit of gender stereotyping going on too, but I can honestly blame a lot of that onto the Barryarans rather than the text itself.

I like the amount of worldbuilding this book gets into. There's backroom politics from a planet the reader hasn't seen involving characters the reader barely has met, and it manages to stay coherent. The setup of the book involves Aral taking Cordelia prisoner on a new planet she is surveying, and we learn a lot through both of their eyes about the wildly different cultures that they each come from. Even though the book spends a lot of time side-eyeing the militaristic aristocratic Barrayarans (for good reasons), the scene where Cordelia comes back to liberal Beta Colony and has to escape non-consensual "therapy" will always stick with me; it feels like a parallel to abusers misusing therapeutic language--the same power and control dressed up more presentably.

It must be quite a shock to suddenly find out you're pregnant, seventeen times over--at your age, too, she thought. She squelched the black humor--he was so clearly out of his depth--and took pity on his real confusion. "Take care of them, I suppose. I have no idea what that will entail, but--you did sign for them."

He sighed. "Quite, Pledged my word, in a sense." He set the problem up in familiar terms, and found his balance therein. "My word as Vorkosigan, in fact. Right. Good. Objective defined, plan of attack proposed--we're in business."

Minorly, one small character detail I noticed this time around is how much Aral and Miles orient to problems by reframing them in more comfortable contexts: Aral here, through his word and honor, and Miles later through logistics and persistence. This moment from Aral feels like a future parallel of Miles resolving the uncertainty about how to court Ekaterine by (disastrously) considering it as if he were planning a military endeavor.

I think there's some parallel to the way they both cope with failure as well, with Aral getting insensibly drunk in this book after the events of Escobar, and Miles many books later coping with the events of Memory.

This is the third book in Sue Burke's Semiosis trilogy, that follows the events on Earth after some of the rainbow bamboo and other fauna from the planet Pax are brought back.

The previous books worked well for me because they told a story over time from different perspectives. Each segment could stand as its own connected story, and characters didn't have to be fully fleshed out because we were only getting a small slice of them. This book is more compressed in time and so we get a rotation of multiple views from the same characters, bringing back viewpoints from the beginning as a touchpoint at the end. However, there were a number of narrative perspectives that felt like they weren't doing enough narrative or worldbuilding lifting (especially the first couple), and seeing the characters again only made me see how weakly developed they were.

Overall, I enjoyed the evolution of the ideas of this series but the execution could have been better.