Sunday Seconds

Sunday Seconds -- there are books that I would really love to re-read -- if I could make the time. Sometimes books have profound impacts on one's reading experience. Sometimes you just know these books could be even greater if you could go back and read them with again better understanding and life experiences under your belt. Sometimes books don't hold up the memory the second time around -- that's the risk. Sunday Seconds will be a cataloging of that kind of wish list.

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SHARDS OF HONOR by Lois McMaster Bujold (the first of a fantastic series)

This book features the mother of the main character of this series but it helps to explain so much about Miles Vorkosigan, one of the most interesting characters ever invented. More about him after the description of this book.

Cordelia Naismith, captain of an Astronomical Survey ship from the extremely liberal and technologically advanced Beta Colony, is exploring a newly-discovered planet when her base camp is attacked. While investigating, she is surprised by a soldier, hits her head on a rock, and awakens to find that, while most of her crew has escaped, she is marooned with an injured crewman and Captain Lord Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar, notorious throughout human space as the "Butcher of Komarr". He had been left for dead by a treacherous rival. During their five-day hike to a secret Barrayaran base, she finds Vorkosigan not at all the monster his reputation suggests, and she is strongly attracted to him, and the feeling is mutual—he asks her to marry him. She helps him to defeat a mutiny, despite some well-intentioned interference from her crew. She is then "rescued" and returns to Beta Colony.
It turns out that the secret base was a staging point for an invasion of Beta Colony's ally Escobar, to be led by Crown Prince Serg, the vicious son and heir of Emperor Ezar. Cordelia goes to Escobar in command of a decoy ship and successfully distracts the Barrayaran ships on picket duty at the wormhole exit so the transport ships following her can deliver a devastating new Betan weapon to the Escobaran defenders.
She is captured, briefly tortured by the sadistic Admiral Vorrutyer, then unexpectedly rescued by Vorrutyer's mentally unstable batman, Sergeant Bothari, who kills his master. Afterwards, Commodore Vorkosigan hides the pair in his cabin. The new weapons give the Escobarans an overwhelming advantage and the Barrayaran invasion is driven back with heavy losses. Crown Prince Serg, his flagship, and all hands aboard are lost. As Vorkosigan takes charge and organizes his fleet's retreat, Cordelia overhears one critical fact and deduces, step by step, a political secret that would plunge Barrayar into civil war if it ever got out. When Vorkosigan no longer needs to hide her in his cabin, she is placed in the ship's brig. The ship is attacked and loses power temporarily, including the internal gravity, and Cordelia is injured. The Barrayaran retreat is successful, in part due to a suicide mission that blocks the wormhole.
On her way back to Beta Colony after a prisoner exchange, she is assigned a cabin mate who turns out to be a Betan psychiatrist convinced that her injuries are evidence that she was tortured by Vorkosigan, and the fact that she denies being tortured means that she has been psychologically tampered with. Desperate to keep her secret, Cordelia refuses to let herself sleep, developing insomnia, stuttering, and a nervous tic, which further leads the psychiatrist and doctors to conclude that she has been brainwashed and may even be a spy. At home on Beta, the authorities are determined to "cure" her, forcing her to flee.
She manages to reach Barrayar, where she marries Aral Vorkosigan. The dying Emperor Ezar Vorbarra appoints Aral as Regent-Elect for his grandson and heir, the four-year-old Prince Gregor. Aral, who is next in line of succession, at first refuses, but Cordelia convinces him to take the job.

It was published in 1986 and has 320 pages.

Miles Vorkosigan. Ahhh. I simultaneously want to meet him and am very glad that he's not real. Miles is one of the most striking characters in science fiction. He is both brilliant (especially in military tactics) and hyperactive. He compulsively and constantly challenges the world in spite of (or because of) his stature (4'9" --because of an chemical attack on his mother while she was pregnant with him) sometimes with disastrous consequences, although more often his mind overcomes his physical weakness. He has an ambiguous status on his home planet, being simultaneously a pampered and powerful aristocrat and a despised "mutie." In his youth he contemplated running away from Barrayar and its prejudice against disabled people, but he never acted on this impulse, perhaps because of his loyalty to his family and his Vor code of honour. He has a strong tendency to manipulate people and is very good at bluffing. The Dendarii Free Mercenaries begin as pure imaginative figment, and through frantic improvisation he conceals his deception from his erstwhile recruits; their accomplishments make real his invention. Despite the initial successes of this "lie first, fix later" strategy, it always makes for manic juggling of various falsehoods and stories, and it does eventually blow up in his face.

Vorkosigan Saga

Cordelia Naismith:
Shards of Honor (1986)
Barrayar (1991) - Hugo and Locus SF Awards winner, 1992, Nebula Award nominee, 1991

Miles Vorkosigan:
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Borders of Infinity (1989)
Brothers in Arms (1989)
The Vor Game (1990)
Mirror Dance (1994)
Cetaganda (1995)
Memory (1996)
Komarr (1998)
A Civil Campaign (1999)
Diplomatic Immunity (2002)
"Winterfair Gifts" (2008)
CryoBurn (forthcoming, late 2010)

Other:
Ethan of Athos (1986)
Falling Free (1988)
Dreamweaver's Dilemma (1995)

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster