Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga)

Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga)
Lois McMaster Bujold, 1991

Hugo Winner - 1992

Premise: Cordelia came to Barrayar to marry and settle down, but the stress of politics and culture shock is only the beginning.

I think this is the first time I've read this book without also reading its companion, Shards of Honor. The plots are closely tied, despite being released five years apart. More than three books (and multiple short stories) which take place after Barrayar were released in those intervening years.

Starting with Barrayar, I admire the skill with which the characters and the plot are introduced without feeling redundant, even after many re-readings.

Of course I adore this book. Shards of Honor is fun but unpolished in sections. This one is the fullest expression of Cordelia's Betan egalitarianism against Barrayar's provincial, painfully-slowly-evolving patriarchy. It expands on Bothari and gives Droushnakovi and Koudelka (minor characters elsewhere) a spotlight. We meet Emperor Gregor as a child and his mother Kareen. It's packed full of quotable and memorable scenes.

In the afterword to the combined volume, Bujold states outright that this little duology is about parenting. Barrayar, more explicitly than Shards of Honor, deals with pregnancy, both traditional and science-fiction-driven, birth, and the relationships between children and parents. Characters fight against or play out cultural scripts about parenting; the value of specific children in a society still driven by lines of class and heredity is questioned and tested.

It's also a complex and compelling story full of action and humor. If you were reading this series when it came out, you already would know the basic plot beats, because this jumps backward in the internal chronology. Yet I've read it a dozen times and I still enjoy the ride.

That skill, if nothing else, is deserving of a Hugo.

5 Stars - An Awesome Book

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