Book Review: The Vorkosigan Saga: Cordelia's Honor SPOILERS!

Her first novel in the Vorkosigan saga, published that is, Lois McMaster bujold weaves a tale of speculation as to what happens to humans once we've conquered the stars. Synopsis: When Enemies Become More Than Friends--THEY WIN. In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery withing treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan--he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr"--and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his. Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar--and the target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn would play in Barrayar's bloody legacy. Publisher's Note: Cordelia's Honor is comprised of two parts: Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Together, they form a continuous story following the life of Cordelia Vorkosigan nee Naismith from the day she met her then-enemy Lord Aral Vorkosigan through the boyhood of her son Miles.

So the first part (Shards of Honor) starts out with Cordelia Naismith of the Betan Expeditionary Force and Captain Aral Vorkosigan heading through a jungle to reach Vorkosigan's men after the Barrayans attacked Cordelia's scientists. Along their journey, they get to know one another better and fined each others planets beliefs to be odd. Once there, they find that one of Aral's former acquaintances, Lt. Radnov, has staged a coup and ordered Aral's men to kill him on sight. Those that remain loyal to Aral don't and soon retake the General Vorkraft, the ship Aral and his men arrived on. Along the way back, the space crew of the Betan Survey team attempt a rescue on Cordelia, which almost succeeds with her teams help from Radnov, who is desperately trying to retake the ship which Cordelia and Aral manage to stop. Cordelia and her team get away but end up being caught again and Cordelia orders her crew to surrender which they grudgingly do. Vorrutyer drugs and tortures Sgt. Bothari enough and has him attempt to torture Cordelia, but Bothari instead kills Vorrutyer because Cordelia is Aral's woman--it should be noted that all these drugs and torture are what has caused Bothari to be insane; he's received enough of them over his lifetime and Aral has tried to make the problem go away for Bothari. Aral shows up ready to kill Vorrutyer but ends up hiding Cordelia and Bothari in his quarters. They stay there the entire time, even during the battle of Escobar (an event which is never shows because Bujold seems to dislike showing a sci-fi battle or maybe because she prefers to stay in one persons head for the entirety of a novel and that gets old real fast); it is here that Crown Prince Serg, a corrupted man and son of the Emperor of Barrayar, dies--apparently, Serg enjoyed raping women as much as Vorrutyer did. It's apparent that Serg's death, as well as Vorrutyer's, is what the Emperor wanted to happen. Cordelia is transported down to Escobar and after a few weeks, is released to go back to Beta Colony and everyone there thinks she's a hero for killing Vorrutyer despite her claims that she didn't do anything. After punching the president of Beta Colony, nearly drowning her psyche evaluator, and rants, Cordelia hijacks a freighter and heads to Barrayar and finds Aral shit-faced drunk with his father who loathes her. There is a subplot about the uterine replicators housing dozens of Barrayan babies that are eventually shipped off to Barrayar with Bothari claiming one of them as his own for penance of all his rape crimes.

In the second part (Barrayar), the novel continues the story of Cordelia through Cordelia's (and only her) POV. Cordelia is finding out that the life of Lady Vorkosigan isn't what she thought it'd be. After numerous attempts of Aral's life, one of which results in Cordelia and Aral's unborn child becoming accidentally poisoned and has to be birthed using the uterine replicators, the old Emperor dies, demanding that Aral become Regent of Barrayar until his grandson, Gregor, is old enough to take the throne. A coup ensues, led by Vidal Vordarian, attempt to seize the throne. He succeeds, taking the Princess Kareen captive as well. Cordelia takes young Gregor and hides in the countryside while Aral and his followers, including his father, attempt to rest control back. Cordelia, with Bothari, Droushnakovi, and a wounded Koudelka perform a raid to retrieve Lady Alys Vorpatril and make their way closer to the Emperor's Palace. After seeing Koudelka and Alys off safely, Bothari, Droushnakovi and Cordelia enter the palace and retrieve a uterine replicator with Miles inside and get captured by Vordarian's men. Cordelia hands Kareen Gregor's shoe and Kareen attempts to kill Vordarian. She fails and is killed by a guard while Bothari and Droushnakovi get Cordelia and a captured Vordarian to the chambers where he's keeping Miles as a hostage. After admitting he was behind the assassination attempts, Cordelia orders Bothari to kill Vordarian, which Bothari does by taking a sword and beheading Vordarian. Droushnakovi commandeers a groundcar and the four of them head back to base where Aral is glad to see Cordelia alive and unharmed along with Miles. She dumps a bag on the table in front of Aral and his staff and they see it's the head of Vordarian and they all suddenly become half-repulse, half-respectful of Cordelia, including Aral's father. In the end, the war is over and a few years later, Miles, age five, is negotiating with his grandfather for horse lessons.

All in all, a decent omnibus with a decent set of stories. They're not all bad, but dear me could I use a POV switch every now and then. I wanted to see the battle action in Shards of Honor and a lot more of it in Barrayar but what you get is what you get.

Book Review: Paladin of Souls SPOILERS!

Quite possibly the best novel written by Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls takes what was wrong with all her previous novels, including the boring sci-fi series The Vorkosigan saga, and turns it into gold. Here, her flaws are her strength. Synopsis: Three years have passed since the widowed Dowager Royina Ista found release from the curse of madness that kept her imprisoned in her family's castle of Valenda. Her newfound freedom is costly, bittersweet with memories, regrets, and guilty secrets--for she knows the truth of what brought her land to the brink of destruction. And now the road--escape--beckons.... A simple pilgrimage, perhaps. Quite fitting for the Dowager Royina of Chalion. Yet something else is free, too--something beyond deadly. To the north lies the vital border fortress of Porifors. Memories linger there as well, of wars and invasions and the mighty Golden General of Jokona. And someone, something, watches from across that border--humans, demons, gods. Ista thinks her little party of pilgrims wanders at will. But whose? When Ista's retinue is unexpectedly set upon not long into its travels, a mysterious ally appears--a warrior nobleman who fights like a berserker. The temporary safety of her enigmatic champion's castle cannot ease Ista's mounting dread, however, when she finds his dark secrets are entangled with hers in a net of the gods' own weaving. In her dreams the threads are already drawing her to unforeseen chances, fateful meetings, fearsome choices. What the inscrutable gods commanded of her in the past brought her land to the brink of devastation. Now, once again, they have chosen Ista as their instrument. And again, for good or ill, she must comply.

 The novel opens with Ista trying to run away from her mother's place in Valenda and she meets pilgrims, one of whom is a divine of the Bastard's Order, dy Cabon (who, for some reason, I keep remembering as dy Bacon). Ista's escorted back to Valenda by dy Ferrej and meets Ferda and Foix dy Gura, sent to Ista because Iselle, Bergon, and Cazaril heard she wants to go on a pilgrimage. Annaliss, a courier, stays with Ista on Ista's command as she's lonely for company. Chivar dy Cabon arrives to oversee the pilgrimage and Ista takes Annaliss as her lady-in-waiting and groom. After planning, the pilgrimage leaves the following morning. Along the pilgrimage, Ista tells dy Cabon about the (former) Curse of Chalion. Later, during a fight with an elemental-possessed bear, Foix kills it and, in turn, receives the elemental, which is an escaped demon; Foix now has said creature living in him. The Jokonans attack and Ista is captured then rescued by Arhys dy Lutez, March of Porifors, who, as it turns out, is already dead and cannot die--kind of like Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and Torchwood. Arhys' jealous wife, Lady Cattilara, killed a demon-ridden woman trying to seduce Arhys and killed them both and took the demon into Cattilara to keep Arhys alive while sacrificing Arhys' half-brother, Ilvin, who was also present in the room during the murder and was wounded by Cattilara trying to stop her from performing said murder. It's all very straight forward in the novel but comes off as confusing and stupid when summed up like this. Don't worry, Ilvin's still alive, kinda... mostly just sleeps so the demon can use the life force to keep Arhys going, barely letting Ilvin eat to keep him alive because Cattilara is so damn demanding.

Ista tries to get Cattilara to let Ilvin go and let Arhys die, but even after the brothers agree, Cattilara refuses and tries to flee. Luckily, Ista, Annaliss and Foix capture her and, when Arhys "wakes up," hatches a plan to beat the Jokonan forces led by the son of the Golden General, Sordso, who, it turns out, is also possessed by demons. Yes, you read that right. Sordso's possessed by dozens of demons because his mother, Princess Joen, won't give up the former war. It turns out that Joen has been implanting demons in her family and servants and sorcerers/sorceress's to win the Golden General's war. Both the Bastard and the Father of Winter want Ista to free the men and demons; the Father want's Arhys to come home because, for some reason, he's been dead for the last three years and can't find his way up the path. Ista does after the first attempt fails when Arhys is butchered, his head placed on a spike, I recall. The demon in Cattilara is freed by Ista after it makes Cattilara attempt suicide. In a false surrender, Ista, with Foix and Ilvin, "devours" the demons and Joen's soul using the powers the Bastard gave her. As a result, Sordso, in an attempt to strike back at his mother, repeatedly stabs Joen's body even though she is dead, and so does everyone who was imprisoned by her. The entire curse is finally lifted and as an odd result, Foix's elemental merged with him and the two have become, for better or dementedly worse, one. Ilvin's neice inherits Porifors as he doesn't want it and marries Ista. They plan to travel the country side with the warriors fighting against the Jokonans, seeking more elementals and demons to send back to the Bastard. Annaliss and dy Cabon and Foix agree to go with them.

All in all, a great novel from Lois McMaster Bujold. She combines her knowledge of history and storytelling to create one heckuva novel. Great character arcs, great drama, great prose.

Book Review: Honor Harrington: On Basilisk Station SPOILERS!

First published in April 1993, David Weber put to use his knoweldge of military and history to form one of the most compelling series every. And it all started with Honor Harrington: On Basilisk Station. Synopsis: Honor in trouble: Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her; Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station; The aborigines of the system's only habitual planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens; Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so called "Republic" of Haven is Up To Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system. But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.

The novel opens in a prologue with a meeting between Havenite president Haris talking to his cabinet about their shrinking economy amongst their cluster of planets. They decide that war is the way and with that will come more planets and, more importantly, money. On the Manticoran Space Station Hephaestus, Commander Honor Harrington and her treecat, Nimitz, board Honor's assigned HMS Fearless from it's former commanding officer, a Lieutenant Commander named Alistair McKeon, who's somewhat resentful for the fact that he didn't get command. They take Fearless out for the war games where the head of R&D, Admiral Sonja Hemphill, wants to test a new toy that ultimately prove useless after the initial surprise attack. When her side loses the game, and in anger, they ship Honor and her crew, plus Fearless to the most useless place in the Manticoran Empire, Basilisk Station. Once there, Honor's former rival and that man who raped her in the academy, Pavel Young, the son and heir to the current Earl North Hollow, commands that station and abadnons her when she arrives, claiming his ship is due for maintenance--which it does and his crew rebels against him when he returns to Hephaestus for plot related reasons.

Once there, Honor senses the anger and hatred for her that her crew has because they're been shipped--exiled--to Basilisk Station. She demands that her crew get over it and works them past their abilities to get Basilisk Station back to operational status as befits with the Queen's will. The Havenites, who have been bribing certain politicos in the Empire, want Basilisk for their war strategy. After refusing to accept bribes, backdown, or even see common sense, and months after having used her ships probes short-range probes to become more effective and long-range sensors and getting the Basilikan population of indigenous beings under some control, the Havenites launch their strategy via rebellious indigs who are drug dealers but are stopped when the Marine guard under Honor prevent them from fully staging the coup. Honor, meanwhile, fights dirty with the lone Havenite ship at the edge of the Basilisk system. Fearless becomes heavily damaged during the fight and the Havenite commander moves in for the kill but dies surprised when Honor uses Adml Hemphill's toy against them and destroys the Havenite ship. At the end, the Manticoran Navy arrives to stop the rest of the Havenites from encroaching on Basilisk and Honor and the crew of Fearless head back home.

All in all, a great start to one of the best science-fiction sagas out there and proves why David Weber is one of the best in military sci-fi. He knows his stuff and isn't afraid to show it. For those people who like Lois McMaster Bujold, you're really going to love David Weber's Honor Harrington series.