Shards of Honor (Hardcover)

The current story is actually set years before Miles is born, and sets the story up by showing how his parents, Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith, meet, originally as enemies, when Cordelia is captured by Aral on a recently discovered world that both Vorkosigan's homeworld of Barrayar and Naismith's Beta Colony would like to lay claim to.

The story moves on several levels at once, and manages to succeed on all of them. The SF adventure, the political/military drama, and the romance each work without stepping on the other's toes. Aral Vorkosigan is a deeply conflicted character, and through his own troubles we get an introduction to the conflicts and contradictions of Barrayar, which will shape so much of the life of Miles Vorkosigan. (Bujold is impressively skilled at creating distinctive and interesting societies to set her stories in; she doesn't get nearly the credit she deserves for this.) The scenes set on Beta Colony even introduce a touch of humor and political satire.

A small flaw is that the story reaches its dramatic conclusion a bit too long before it actually ends; there is a fairly lengthy chunk at the end which isn't really necessary for this story but is critical to set up events in the sequels. The book is relatively short and moves at a very fast clip until the end, so this shouldn't spoil your pleasure.

STORY: Cordelia Naismith meets Lord Aral Vorkosaigan while on opposite sides of the war. In the midst of political pressures and physical dangers, they dare to fall in love with each other while trying to avoid their destiny.

MY FEEDBACK:
I picked this up because so many other books in this series have won the Hugo and/or Nebula. This book definitely sets the stage for what is to come: high political intrigue and assassinations; dangers that require bravery and courage; and events to challenge friendships and loyalty; and of course some romance. This book has all these in one sense or another.

The friendship and loyalty of characters really stands out and makes you really love the character of Aral Vorkosaigan. This is also an intelligent story, where solutions are not only resolved by chance or brute force but clever use of what resources are at hand. It gave me the grand and subtle pleasantness I had when reading Asimov's Foundation series. It had just enough science in the fiction to be appreciated and it had just the right touch of romance so as not to turn some of us testosterone males off to the story. I really enjoyed this story and found it a very easy read.