Cordelia Naismith is the captain of a Betan scientific survey team exploring an uninhabited planet. Aral Vorkosigan is an aristocratic Barrayaran military officer stationed at a secret base on the same planet. When the two groups clash, Aral and Cordelia are left abandoned amongst the dead and the wounded. In order to survive, the two enemies have to learn to trust each other despite the differences between their two worlds. As their forced cooperation turns to mutual respect and a tentative love, Aral and Cordelia are pulled apart by duty, politics and conflict.
Shards of Honour is the first book in the much-loved and Hugo Award winning Vorkosigan Saga. Much to my surprise I really liked the romance which forms the core of the story. Aral and Cordelia are likeable and strong characters with rich inner lives, and their love story feels very sweet and natural. There's emotional depth to both of them, and it was very touching to read as they slowly fell in love while dealing with their own divided loyalties and moral dilemmas.
Like all good science fiction, Shards of Honour has a sweeping background of political intrigue, space battles, wormholes, and advanced technology. And, in an unfussy and unpretentious way, it asks thorny questions about nationalism, war crimes, and the moral cost of victory by any means. However, this very much stays in the background as the book is tightly focused on Aral and Cordelia and their personal experiences of the war. I found this focus added to the emotional depth of Shards of Honour as big issues were turned into smaller personal dilemmas which, at times, were genuinely heartbreaking. That being said, there was a middle chunk of the book which dragged a little because events were unfolding elsewhere and the focus on the protagonists meant that, instead of reading as events unfolded in front of me, I had to read about the characters talking about it after the fact. Another little niggle for me was the fairly generic world building, mostly because the characters were mostly sat in various spaceships. However, there are tantalising hints of culture clashes and political intrigue to come in later books.
At its heart, Shards of Honour is science fiction with heart and a wry sense of humour. Essentially, it's a love story set in space and manages to be ultimately uplifting even while the characters struggle with the awful realities of war.
Recommended for: Fans of grown-up science fiction
Rating: A good read with likeable characters, but dragged a little in the middle. Three stars on Goodreads.
Read On: The next book in the Vorkosigan Saga is Barrayar.
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