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Title:
Shards of Honor
Series: Vorkosigan Saga
#1
Author: Lois Bujold
Rating: 3 of 5
Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 222
Words:
80K
Publish: 1986
My
eyes, my eyes, my manly eyes! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh……
I
didn’t realize this was going to be a romance. Of course, romance
fans would cry out that their delicate feelings had been manhandled
by all the science fiction, so both camps should be unhappy. I HATE
when authors like Bujold pull crap like this. I almost rage quit the
first time “his long eye lashes” were mentioned. Even as I’m
writing this review I’m getting upset.
Bloody
expectations. If I had known this had female wish fulfillment
elements (like Mack
Bolan the Executioner is male wish fulfillment) I would have
been prepared, as much as I could be anyway. I do not want to read a
book where I am in a woman’s head as she’s thinking about some
guy and all her feelin’z. Spare me!
The
story is still decent and I do plan on reading more. BUT! I will be
putting on my man armor when I go to read future books so any “romanz
thoughtz” bounce off and don’t stab me in the back. And I’m
bringing a gun to that knife fight.
 |
| Bookstooge's Man Armor Mark I |
★★★☆☆
From
Wikipedia
Cordelia
Naismith, the captain of a Betan Astronomical Survey ship, is
exploring a newly discovered planet when her base camp is attacked.
While investigating, she is surprised by a soldier, hits her head on
a rock, and awakens to find that, while most of her crew has escaped,
she is marooned with an injured Betan ensign and Captain Lord Aral
Vorkosigan of Barrayar, notorious as the "Butcher of Komarr",
who has been left for dead by a treacherous rival. During their
five-day hike to a secret Barrayaran cache, she finds Vorkosigan not
at all the monster his reputation suggests, and she is strongly
attracted to him.
When
the trio reaches the base camp, Vorkosigan regains command of his
crew. He returns to his ship with Cordelia and her crewman as his
nominal prisoners. She meets Sergeant Bothari, a career soldier with
mental problems which he controls through adherence to rules and an
attachment to a strong commander—in this case, Vorkosigan.
Vorkosigan
informs Cordelia that upon their arrival on Barrayar, she will be
free to return to Beta Colony; however, he asks her to marry him and
remain on Barrayar as Lady Vorkosigan. Before she can consider his
request, the crew of her ship, who have returned against her orders,
join forces with Vorkosigan's rivals to "rescue" her.
Cordelia helps defeat the resulting mutiny before returning with her
crew to Beta Colony. During her captivity, she realizes that the
Barrayarans seized the planet because the system it is in provides a
way to reach Escobar. Escobar is a rich system with many "wormhole"
access points and thus control over a lot of interstellar trade.
The
invasion of Escobar is led by Crown Prince Serg Vorbarra, the vicious
son and heir of Emperor Ezar. Now a captain in the Betan
Expeditionary Force, Cordelia goes to Escobar in command of a decoy
ship that distracts the Barrayaran ships on picket duty at the
wormhole exit so that transport ships can deliver a devastating new
Betan weapon to the defenders. She is captured by the sadistic
Admiral Vorrutyer, who orders Sergeant Bothari to rape her. Bothari
refuses, calling her "Admiral Vorkosigan's prisoner".
Vorrutyer, Vorkosigan's embittered ex-lover, decides to do the job
himself. As she fills a profound psychological need of his, Bothari
kills Vorrutyer before he can do anything. Vorkosigan, having heard
Vorrutyer is holding Cordelia captive, comes to kill him himself,
only to find the deed already done. He hides Cordelia and Bothari in
his cabin. In disgrace, he has been assigned a minor role in the
invasion under the watchful eye of Imperial Security Lieutenant Simon
Illyan, who has a brain implant that gives him total recall of all he
sees and hears. However, he is required to report only to the
Emperor, so he does nothing when Vorkosigan concocts a story that
Cordelia killed Vorrutyer and escaped.
The
new weapons enable the Escobarans to drive the Barrayarans back with
heavy losses. Crown Prince Serg and his flagship are lost, as are all
officers senior to Vorkosigan, leaving him in charge. He commands his
fleet's retreat under fire. Cordelia overhears one critical fact and
deduces that the entire invasion was orchestrated by the dying
Emperor to remove his unstable son (via an honorable death in battle)
and discredit the war party in order to avert a civil war after his
death. When Vorkosigan no longer needs to hide her in his cabin, she
is placed in the brig. When the ship is attacked, Cordelia is injured
when the violent maneuvers toss her around her cell.
Cordelia
recovers in a prison camp on the same planet where she first met
Vorkosigan. The camp inmates, mostly women, have been mistreated and
in some cases raped by their captors. When Vorkosigan finds out, he
summarily executes the commanding officer. Cordelia assumes command
of the POWs by virtue of her rank and spends much of her time dealing
directly with Vorkosigan. She informs him she knows the real reason
for the Escobar campaign. She again rejects his marriage proposal
because she sees what Barrayaran society does to people.
When
the war ends, prisoners are exchanged. Vorkosigan has to deal with
some uterine replicators – artificial wombs, each containing a
fetus from a prisoner raped by a Barrayaran soldier; one of the
fetuses is Bothari's. The Escobarans refuse to take them, so
Vorkosigan arranges for their care and later adoption on Barrayar.
On
her way back to Beta Colony, Cordelia is unable to convince a
psychiatrist that her injuries are not the result of being tortured
by Vorkosigan, and her fervent denials only make it seem she has been
psychologically tampered with; she is suspected of being an unwitting
Barrayaran mole. She fears that she will be interrogated using
drugs and reveal damaging information about Vorkosigan.
She
escapes to Barrayar and marries Vorkosigan. She also encounters
Bothari, now one of Vorkosigan's father's personal guards and
somewhat saner, thanks to better medical care. Bothari's daughter
Elena is cared for by a local woman.
The
dying Emperor Ezar Vorbarra wants Aral to become the regent to
his grandson and heir, the four-year-old Prince Gregor Vorbarra. Aral
at first refuses, but Cordelia convinces him to take the job.
