Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Welcome to Barrayar, abode of cannibals." "I am afraid," thinks Cordelia Vorkosigan nee Naismith. "Why did I ever come here to Barrayar? What have I done to myself, to my life?" Four months earlier she left her home on Beta Colony, a technologically, politically, and culturally advanced world where she was an astronomical survey captain slash jump ship navigator, to marry Admiral Aral Vorkosigan and live with him on Barrayar, a hidebound, martial, "primitive" world where soldiers are everywhere and capable women nowhere. On Barrayar, which has only been part of Galactic Civilization after a long age of Isolation, "people still burned vegetable matter [wood] just for the release of its chemically bound heat," get their protein from the carcasses of mammals, and tolerate the existence of impoverished slums. And as Louise McMaster Bujold's novel Barrayar (1991) begins, the couple has had "Their lives . . . turned upside down," as Aral has been called out of retirement to serve as Regent for four-year-old Prince Gregor, making Cordelia the Regent-consort. Emperor Ezar is about to die, so Aral will rule for his grandson Prince Gregor till the boy turns twenty and takes over as a well-groomed, preferably sane Emperor (Gregor's corrupt father having been disposed of during a war). And the "faction-fractured political landscape" of Barrayar is rife with foes of the new Regent: conservative, progressive, or ambitious Vor lords; Barrayar's old enemy the Cetagandan Empire; Barrayar's conquered world Komarr; etc. Soon Bujold is putting her compelling characters through psychological and physical wringers. Take Sergeant Bothari, the two meters tall, gargoyle-faced, former torturer’s tool. He has had some politically sensitive and personally nightmarish memories pharmaceutically suppressed, causing terrible bouts of migraines and nausea. He also happens to be sexually aroused by violence and to be fixated on Cordelia as her pet monster-dog. Aral wants to reform Barrayar to "Make the government more like the military at its best, with ability promoted regardless of background," without letting the government ministries become too corrupt or the nobles too weak. He wants to do his best for his empire and his future emperor, but is beset by enemies, friends, duties, impossible decisions, and paranoia. Aral's father Count Lord Piotr Vorkosigan is an aging war hero out of step with the changing times and his "radical" son. He seems to take a shine to Cordelia when she becomes pregnant with a boy, but what would happen if something were to happen to that gestative scion? Bujold writes a romantic comedy relief element into her novel, too, with the out of place bodyguard Ludmilla Droushnakovi and nerve-damaged Regent's aid Lieutenant Koudelka (though perhaps they are a little too naïve to be true). As for Cordelia, the point of view character of the novel, she misses being alone with Aral and longs for her Betan home, being repulsed by "insane," barbaric Barrayaran traditions and stubborn male honor, prejudice against cripples and women, and imperial delusions. Being pregnant on such a world without being able to use a Betan uterine replicator is not comforting. Through Cordelia, Bujold writes plenty of culture shock contrasts between Beta and Barrayar: e.g., wood is as common as plastic on Barrayar; Barrayarans are into clothes, Betans into body art; and Barrayar has prostitutes, Beta Licensed Practiced Sexuality Therapists. All that said, Cordelia remembers that it's best to "Check your assumptions at the door," and that Beta Colony is no utopia. Indeed, Cordelia finds herself bound ever more tightly to Barrayar and its people. She is intelligent and perceptive, gifted with the ability to both read and advise people, so that she is often maternally counseling and soothing them. However, she is also capable of gross miscalculation (and is perhaps let off too easily by Bujold for it), as we see in the climax of the novel. Cordelia's personality is summed up neatly when someone tells her, "We thought you were a soldier," and she replies, "Never. But that doesn't mean I never fought." As with her other books, Bujold writes many witty lines: --"Oh--you all stopped looking like the enemy to me even before the war was over. Just assorted victims, variously blind." --"He looked, she realized, exactly like a man who had thrown a bomb, had it go fizz instead of boom, and was now trying to stick his hand in and tap the firing mechanism to test it." --"He's also a little boy. Emperor is the delusion you all have in your heads." --"By this act I bring one death into the world." Audiobook reader Grover Gardener is the only Voice of Vorkosigan Bujold I can imagine. I like that he lets the text do most of the heavy lifting, so that, for instance, he doesn't try to talk like a 4-year-old when Bujold writes, "His childlike voice drifted back, ‘Droushi, can I have a cream cake, and one for Steggie?’” However, I wonder if he couldn't hint a bit at accents. Cordelia has a Betan accent that makes her stand out on Barrayar (at one critical point she can't speak for fear of attracting attention), but Gardner never does any accents. (Though perhaps that's better than uncomfortably trying a Russian accent for Barrayaran characters and an American one for Cordelia!) A word about the Vorkosigan Saga's reading order. If you (like me) were to read Barrayar after reading later books featuring Miles Vorkosigan, this novel would be full of poignant foreshadowings and backstoryings. But probably it would be best to read Shards of Honor (1986) first, this one second, Warrior's Apprentice (1986) third, and so on. I do think the early Vorkosigan books are superior to the later ones, having more of a dark bite. Anyway, Bujold's thoughtful, political, and cultural space opera is quite appealing. Barrayar ends with a great epilogue that brought tears to my eyes. View all my reviews
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