CORDELIA'S HONOR (Mass Market Paperback)

I find little to say about these two novels. For sure, Bujold coordinates her plot well, with clever surprises arriving on a regular basis and all of it building up to a comprehensive and rather grim picture of the societies involved. Character development is relatively strong, as we get good portraits of emotional intensity from both the main characters throughout the book. I think that most of the dialogue exchanges are handled well, with occasional dashes of humor. The villains, on the other hand, are so underdeveloped that they might as well have twirling black mustaches. Fine entertainment overall, much recommended, but not perfect.

Don't take these two novels as just a prequel to the Miles Vorkosigan stories. Frankly, they're totally awesome in their own right. Cordelia is a fantastic protagonist, working both as a naive narrator, amazed at the workings of a militaristic empire as much as the readers, but she also comes from a fascinating society in her own right, which is far removed from our world, it seems, as Barrayar is.

Cordelia, truth be told, is a breath of fresh air in today's SF. Yes, we've seen heroines before, but most of the times, they are clumsily written by men who seem to only grasp their way of thinking on the surface. Cordelia is a living, breathing woman, feminine in outlook yet incredibly brave and strong by men's standards, and she somehow manages to keep her own self intact in the face of a dramatically patriarcal and militaristic society.

That's what Cordelia's Honor is, at the heart: the story of a woman's survival in a patriarcal society, and the way she inevitably changes it, and changes herself. By the end of the second novel, I was stunned at the significance of Miles' birth... How he is, for better or for worse, the product of this clash of cultures, and how scarred he has been by the clash even before he was born. Cordelia's first words to him are so terribly poignant in that regard.

As I move on to read the story of Miles himself, I mourn the disappearance of a cherished SF character. I already miss Cordelia's -voice-, her mesmerizing insight into the society of men she was transplanted in. My hat is off to Mrs. Bujold, for one of SF's most human yet memorable characters.