Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

Barrayar is the second (in terms of story chronology) of the author's Miles Vorkosigan series, and follows on immediately from Shards of Honour, reviewed in this blog on 1 August. Cordelia is now married to Lord Aral Vorkosigan and pregnant with their first child (Miles – who finally makes an appearance at the end of the book). The story follows the fortunes of Cordelia as she first struggles to adapt to life on Barrayar, then faces assassination attempts and finally a civil war with her usual ingenuity and courage.

I was not initially impressed by this story. In the first seven chapters (over a third of the book) not a lot happens, and it is basically an historical romance with a few dispensable SF trimmings: new bride accompanies powerful husband to his homeland and has problems adjusting to strange customs. It is all about the minutiae of social interactions, politics and dress, which isn't what I read SF for.

After that, the story gets moving and Bujold's story-telling ability turns the rest of the novel into a real page-turner. There is even an SF element which is important to the plot: the replicator. One detailed gripe: her decision to call all of the Barrayan nobles Vor-something caused me a lot of confusion, I was forever scratching my head to distinguish between Vortala, Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vordarian and so on.

So far, I have slightly mixed feelings about this series. Bujold is an intelligent, perceptive writer who can handle action scenes as well as she does the social ones, and her characters are great. She writes as well as anyone I can think of. However, as I commented in my review of 'Shards of Honour', the SF elements tend to be minor aspects of her stories, and in Barrayar this is even more true than in 'Shards'. Despite this, I was sufficiently hooked by 'Barrayar' to want to proceed to the next in the series.

(Originally posted on my Science Fiction and Fantasy blog.)

For anyone who does't know shards of honor and barrayar are available as a single volume Cordelia's Honor. It also has a quite interesting afterword.

Anthony--since you have read only the first two books; it is hard for you to evaluate the series since most of them are about Miles, Cordelia's son, who is quite a literary invention. Not all her books are of equal quality but they are always a good read. IMO

I've got to agree--you've barely touched the series. There's a LOT more in store if you keep going. On the other hand... If the series is not your thing, it's not. *shrug*

I intend to read at least the next one, since I've already bought it :-)

I really love her writing, but I do read SF because I like strong SF elements, so I'm still reserving final judgment.

You're not going to find anything that can possibly be mistaken for Hard SF in LMB's work. There are some nifty ideas but none of them are strongly fleshed out with a solid scientific background. She does characters and politics and themes and action and pacing and even a bit of humor all amazingly and astoundingly well, especially the characters part. I read her for those things, not the science. The science in her books is background noise at best.

Having said that, LMB's SF has a very special place on my bookshelf. I love her stuff and I greatly admire her.

My love of SF is not restricted to hard SF - I enjoy all types. But what I like most is having my imagination stretched by new concepts, new worlds and the other traditional characteristics of SF and fantasy. It's in that general area (not just the lack of hard science) that she falls short in my personal scale of preferences.

To give an example, my favourite contemporary fantasy is Sheri Tepper's The Marianne Trilogy. This has nothing remotely like science in it at all, but just the most amazingly strange plot which I find totally compelling. She writes very well, too!

I completely understand that reaction to Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Unfortunately, those two books are a necessary prelude to The Warrior’s Apprentice (republished as part of Young Miles), which is the one that got me hooked on the series.

I'd say, stick with it at least till that book, except that you've already said you would :)