Week 9 - Shards of Honour

Cordelia Naismith is the captain of an astronomical survey ship from the peaceful Beta Colony. Lord Aral Vorkosigan is the leader of a secret military mission from the warlike planet Barrayar. The title "Shards of Honor" no doubt refers to the small bits of honor that Aral must cling to as he finds himself a central figure in a massive undertaking that will sacrifice thousands of innocents for the greater good; it also may refer to the honor that Cordelia herself gains and loses and gains again as her fate becomes increasingly intertwined with that of the unjustly infamous Aral - also known as "The Butcher of Komarr". The novel is a chamber piece with a galactic background. Space opera kind of boiled down to two major characters and several intriguing supporting characters, with acts of policy and war that become palpable moral and ethical conflicts for those characters. It is space opera made more intimate and personal; space opera where the psychology of its characters is written as large and made as important as the various exciting twists and turns of the actual story itself. It is also a romance - one that is surprising and moving. There are no ridiculously giddy or angsty moments that made me roll my eyes. Cordelia and Aral are decidedly adults, with a whole lifetime of pain and experience behind them. The prose is smart, clean, unfussy. Our heroes veer towards the nonchalant rather than towards the melodramatic - they are life-sized, not larger-than-life - and so the prose is a perfect match for the characterization.