The Vorkosigan Saga is one of those classic SF series that has been a little intimidating to me because there are so many books in the series, and the suggested reading order of the series is not the publication order, so it doesn’t naturally lend itself toward easily identifying the “next” book in the series. Cordelia’s Honor is actually an omnibus edition comprised of Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan #1) and Barrayar (Vorkosigan #7)(???) Here’s a short plot description from Goodreads for both of those:
Shards of Honor – “When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member. Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge.”
Barrayar – “On opposing sides, Captain Cordelia Naismith and Admiral Lord Aral Vorkosigan marry and live in aristocratic splendor on his home planet Barrayar. Cordelia agrees with the dying old emperor that the Empire would be better if Aral would serve, but he knows secrets she does not.”
Anyway, this year, one of the prompts in the Popsugar Reading Challenge (rhetorical aside: I have never been a Popsugar reader, so how did I get started doing their reading challenges?) is “A book with an ugly cover”, and well, tell me I’m wrong:
The time to start reading this series, it seemed, was now. And I am so glad I did! This is really wonderful character-driven sci-fi that hits many of my favorite beats in the genre. There’s war between planets, political intrigue, our main characters on the run, and a very excellent fish out of water in Cordelia, who after her marriage to Aral, is a fountain of bemused witticisms regarding the foreign Barrayan culture.
And, though it sounds so trite to say it this way, it is so obvious in a good way that a woman wrote it. There’s no difference in the style of prose, or storytelling ability, or character development between Bujold’s writing and the male majority of SF writers, but because there were marked moments when a female character said something or reacted a certain way, and it was astonishingly authentic as a woman.
I’m doing a very poor job of explaining it, because I can’t really, but as a comparison, when for instance James S. A. Corey writes female characters, they are very good characters. They are complex and well-rounded, they have agency and unique motivations, and they are every bit as thoughtfully developed as the male characters. But — and I say this not because it’s something that bothers me in any way about the women in The Expanse, but because it becomes apparent compared to this book — the characters of The Expanse are somewhat genderless. Though racism and tribalism are key issues in that series, sexism and gender inequality seem to be largely absent. It’s refreshing in a lot of ways, and it means that the vast majority of characters could probably be gender-swapped and it would make no material difference on the story. As a woman who reads a lot of SF/F, I vastly, VASTLY prefer that approach to what was the case in many of the genre heavy-hitters, which is that women are either absent (Foundation) or comically one-dimensional (Stranger in a Strange Land). But reading a female character in Cordelia, who possesses the “traditionally male” characteristics of SF heroes (competence, bravery, pragmatism, authority, etc,) and also has recognizably “feminine” reactions to situations based on experiences that would be unique to her as a woman, is a relatively uncommon experience in the genre. It’s actually really great! These are the kind of characters that provide insight into diverse experiences and expose readers to new perspectives, because they promote the notion that men and women don’t have to be exactly alike to be equally worthy of respect.
So, I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the Vorkosigan Saga, TBR pile be damned.
Yay, a Vorkosigan convert!
I loved the review. And I agree that Bujold’s women characters are refreshingly authentic, especially when compared to the likes of Asimov!
I think another telltale sign that the series was written by a woman is that the effects future technology has on reproduction becomes an ongoing theme in the series.
Yes! I didn’t even mention the uterine replicators, but that is the kind of thing that… I don’t want to say a man NEVER would have thought of it, but it is certainly something that’s of greater import to women and would drastically change our outcomes in the future!
Yay Bujold!! She is the best.
Oh, huh, I read Leviathan Wakes and pretty much my only problem with it is how terribly written/treated (by the authors, not in universe) the female characters were. Well, I did also hate Holden because he was a self-righteous ass but I didn’t see that as a bad part of the book, if you see the distinction. A friend has been urging me to give the second book a chance, maybe I will now.
But this a review of Cordelia’s Honor! Which I absolutely agree has a horrible cover. I’m so glad you liked it, it’s one of my all time favorite series and it gives me warm fuzzies when other people get to experience its wonderfulness!
I have to say, Leviathan Wakes was so long ago for me that my feelings on the quality of the female characters reflect the series as a whole, so for all I know it wasn’t so great in the first book? But yeah generally I just feel like there is such a plethora of characters with diverse points of view and with roughly half of those being women, it would be rather obvious if every one of those women was written in some careless or stereotypical way. It’s not that they’ve necessarily gone out of their way to try to identify with their female characters as women — which is what I mean when I was talking about a lot of the characters being gender agnostic — but as a group they really are varied and interesting charaters.
It’s definitely not as good in the first book because Holden and Miller are the only POV characters. But as of book two, they are excellent with their ladies.
Ah yes that’s right! Thanks for the memory jog. Man, that is a series I love so much but wonder if I will ever be able to re-read it, given the length of each book and everything else that’s a higher priority.
The audiobooks are really good! You could probably re-read pretty easily that way.
For me, it bothered me less that there were no female viewpoint characters and more that the two biggest female characters became love interests for the viewpoint characters. Miller never even met Julie! Holden seemed to fall in love with his XO just because she was the only woman around! Aaarrrggg!
I read the first book in this series several years ago, liked it, and then never read on. I need to re-read that book and get going on this series!
I keep being told to read the Vorkosigan saga, but part of me is still: “But it’s sci-fi! I don’t like sci-fi books.” (It’s true, I can generally do sci-fi on TV and film, but the harder the sci-fi gets, the more likely it is that I nope out). I feel guilty for not checking these out, because so many people say they’re great, but…sci-fi.
What don’t you like about sci-fi?
You could try the Sharing Knife series? A lot more fantasy, a little more romance, and still all the brilliance of Lois!
She’s also written some medieval-style fantasy novels, starting with Curse of Chalion, which are also completely worthwhile!
https://www.amazon.com.au/Curse-Chalion-Book-ebook/dp/B00DLIK1X4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1521882951&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Curse+of+Chalion+%28The+Chalion+Series+Book+1%29
I can’t believe I missed all this discussion!
*happy sigh*
*standing ovation*
*hearts and flowers all over this whole series and all its fans*
Ooh, this sounds interesting. I used to be a huge science fiction reader when I was young but as things skewed heavily toward series rather than standalone I just got rather overwhelmed by it all. (That goes for so many genres, of course). This review is sufficient recommendation for me to give it a try – thank you!