2021/028: Bear Head -- Adrian Tchaikovsky

Sometimes, hidden deep within the trap of ‘They’re not like us’ was the terror of ‘What if they’re just like us, but stronger?’ Sometimes the fear came because you were scared of looking into the eye of the monster and seeing your own reflection. [loc. 365]

Thirty years after the events of Dogs of War, Mars is in the process of being colonised, and the people doing the work, the builders and maintenance crews and so on, are modified humans. (Of course these modifications will be reversed, once the work is done. Of course they will.) Jimmy is one of these Martians: he's a drug addict (just think of the Seasonal Affective Disorder that far from the sun), and funds his habit by renting out surplus headspace for illicit data storage. Which is all very well until his latest data starts talking to him. It claims -- she claims -- to be a bear named Honey: and she is keen to make contact with the Distributed Entity known as Bees, who has cut ties with humanity after her attempts to save Earth's biosphere were rejected.

There's a lot to unpack in this novel: environmental crises, on Earth and on Mars; the growing fear of Distributed, rather than Artifical, Intelligence; the abuses of powerful men, including the corrupt Warner Thompson who relies on the absolute discretion of his PA Carole. Carole is unquestioningly loyal, because she was programmed that way -- like the Bioforms, modified and 'improved' from animal stock, who willingly accept Collaring, because obedience is better than having guilt or doubt. Though Carole did not consent.

The philosophical core of Bear Head is whether those who do have power and free will can make moral choices on behalf of everyone else. Honey may be a political activist and a campaigner for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, but does that qualify her to make decisions for Jimmy, in whose head she's living? Yes, his drug withdrawal is inconvenient, but doesn't he get a choice about his addiction?

Bear Head does a good job of showing the political as personal: it has a cyberpunk vibe, and a very contemporary ambience despite its future setting. Perhaps one day readers will feel that Thompson, with his narcissism and his perception of social and political choices as simple win/lose scenarios, is an unrealistic character. Sadly, it's too soon not to draw real-world comparisons.

2021/027: The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting -- K J Charles

“Unlucky in love, lucky at cards,” Robin agreed. The maxim had always held true for him, although he wasn’t so much lucky as manipulative when it came to cards. Mind you, he could say the same about love. [loc. 543]

This was a delight to read: a fizzy, witty, yet substantive Regency M/M romance with Heyeresque tropes and a very non-Heyer perspective on issues of social class, gender and sexuality.

Robin Loxleigh and his sister Marianne have recently arrived in London, hoping for good marriages and determined to make the right impression. They are a likeable pair, and are easily accepted into the life of the Ton: only Sir John Hartlebury (Hart), uncle of the heiress who Robin's set his sights on, is suspicious of this smooth, handsome nobody.

If you spotted the Robin Hood reference in Robin and Marianne's names -- pseudonyms -- you're a step ahead of everyone in the novel. Robin and Marianne have grown up in poverty, experienced abuse and prejudice because of their lowly origins, and are determined to marry money: to rob the rich. Robin's approach is to fleece the nobility at cards: Marianne is targetting a vile but wealthy Marquis, having given up on romantic notions of Love.

Hart is determined to preserve his niece, the unassuming but clever Alice, from the depradations of a heartless fortune-hunter. For himself, he's more or less accepted that he prefers men, and that he must keep that side of his life secret, even from those closest to him. But he can't help noticing Robin, and Robin's mouth ... and perhaps, after all, an arrangement could be negotiated.

The Heyer vibe was strong here, though The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting is as much a critique of the Regency romance as a loving homage. It's plain that, without deception and fraud, Robin and Marianne don't stand a chance of escaping their lowly origins: it's also clear that Alice, who would rather study mathematics than flirt with her suitors, would get a raw deal in traditional romances. Luckily there are happy endings for all who deserve them.

Also noteworthy are the female characters here: Marianne is utterly marvellous, especially when she's enraged, and Alice is not just a placeholder for Robin's ambitions but a complex woman with ambitions of her own. I cheered at her happy ending. I also very much enjoyed Robin's enthusiastic consent -- not just sexual but social -- in his dealings with Hart. No moral shame here, just a man who knows what he wants, and is happy to advise others on the matter of their desires.

Rating this as five stars made me think about my ratings. I conclude that they reflect my enjoyment of and engagement with a book, not its perceived 'importance' or 'universal appeal' or even whether or not I'd recommend it to everyone I know.

Bonus points for this exchange:

“There is more to life than the pursuit of happiness!”
“Tell that to the United States.” [loc. 3148]

Fulfils the 'cover design by a woman' rubric of the Reading Women Challenge 2021 -- the cover is by Kanaxa, a.k.a. Nathalie Gray.

2021/026: The City We Became -- N K Jemisin

I am Manhattan, he thinks again, this time in a slow upwelling of despair. Every murderer. Every slave broker. Every slumlord who shut off the heat and froze children to death. Every stockbroker who got rich off war and suffering. It’s only the truth. He doesn’t have to like it, though. [p. 81]

Cities of a certain size, a certain density, evolve into conscious entities. In The City We Became it's already happened to London, Paris, Sao Paolo, Hong Kong, almost to New Orleans -- and now it's time for New York to awaken. But there is an Enemy that preys on newborn cities, and it defeats the avatar of New York, who is young, queer, black and male. Time for the five boroughs, personified, to find one another and work together to preserve their city. Manny has forgotten his life before becoming the avatar of Manhattan, though he has a notion that he used to be hard-edged and ruthless. Bronca, an elderly Native American woman who works at an arts foundation, is the Bronx; Brooklyn, named for her borough, used to be a rap artist but is now a city councillor; Padmini Prakash, an immigrant maths student, stands for Queens; and Aislyn, daughter of an Irish-American cop, represents Staten Island. As the only white person of the five, she may also represent other things: racism, xenophobia, the worst of Trump's America. (Though I don't believe this novel concerns itself with anything as mundane as Presidents.)

Against them is the Enemy, who presents as a Woman in White and who claims that every city which achieves sentience destroys multiple universes. Is this true? Hard to say. The Woman in White -- whose name, revealed late on, will resonate with genre fans -- is horribly persuasive, and her power runs through New York like a fungus, or a virus, Lovecraftian tentacles infecting people and buildings, vehicles and roads, alike. It helps to be familiar with New York topography: unlike fantasy novels set in secondary worlds, The City We Became doesn't have a map at the front! Luckily, the Internet provided me with maps galore. (I'm still not sure how to pronounce the 'Americanised' version of the name Aislyn, though.)

This is a novel which embraces the multi-cultural diversity of New York. It's not as simplistic as 'white bad, black good', though sometimes I felt the narrative was gleefully mocking white fragility. There's certainly a sense that kindness and cooperation beat cruelty and exploitation, and Jemisin shows us a real feeling of community, attuned to the spirit of each borough. The crowded layered history of New York is very much on display, and the ways in which the Enemy attacks the city are firmly rooted in our reality.

This feels like a love letter to New York (Jemisin says something of the sort in her afterword: "I have hated this city. I have loved this city. I will fight for this city until it won’t have me anymore. This is my homage to the city. Hope I got it right.") Despite not knowing NYC well, I have more appreciation of it after reading The City We Became. I'm also aching, a bit, for the hinted tragedy of London's becoming ... and I'm very interested to see where this trilogy goes -- geographically and metaphorically -- next.

2021/025: Memento Mori -- Muriel Spark

Mrs Anthony knew instinctively that Mrs Pettigrew was a kindly woman. Her instinct was wrong. [p.53]

Memento Mori examines the lives of a circle of friends and acquaintances, all over seventy: Dame Lettie Colston, OBE, a former leading light of prison reform; her brother Godfrey; Godfrey's wife Charmian, once a successful novelist but now suffering dementia; Charmian's former maid Jean Taylor, just one of the 'Grannies' in a geriatric ward; Alec Warner, a retired sociologist who is attempting to document the relationships of his friends; and Mrs Pettigrew, former housekeeper to the recently-deceased Lisa Brooke, with whom Godfrey once had an affair.

The title refers to the anonymous caller who telephones each of the major characters with a calm, respectful message: 'remember, you must die'. The characters hear the caller's voice differently (young or old? male or female? with an accent?) and react in a way that reflects their nature. And at least one character chooses to simply forget that they received the call at all.

Memento Mori is told by an omniscient narrator whose interjections provide a great deal of the comedy and lay bare the deceptions and forgetfulness of the characters. It could have been a very depressing read, but in fact it's remarkably cheerful. Yes, there is grief and loss and sickness; yes, some people are nicer than others; yes, death comes at random, to everyone. It's interesting to see how the characters react to changing circumstances, to their own memories of the past, and to the approaching certainty of death. (I think on the whole I'd rather be Jean Taylor, whose calm acceptance has a spiritual aspect, than most of the others.) Spark's dry wit and cynical detachment don't detract from the emotional impact of the story. It's compassionate but never sentimental.

Read for the 'Protagonist over 50' rubric of the Reading Women Challenge 2021. There are multiple protagonists but they're all well over fifty and most of them are women.

2021/024: Boy, Snow, Bird -- Helen Oyeyemi

Shards of her face emerged through brown bark and greenish shadows. Her left eye was aligned with mine; we raised our left hands at the same time, and hers was bloody. She said: “I don’t know what to do.” [p. 60]

Boy Novak is nineteen years old in 1953, at the opening of Boy, Snow, Bird: raised by her father Frank, a ratcatcher, she never knew her mother. She flees Frank's violent abuse and ends up in the little New England town of Flax Hill, where she meets and eventually marries widower Arturo Whitman. Whitman has a daughter from his first marriage, named Snow, whom Boy has complicated emotions about. And then Boy gives birth to a daughter -- Bird -- who is ... not white: thus giving the lie to Arturo's surname and to his family's carefully-crafted identity.

This novel reshapes the Snow White story, with Boy as the 'evil' stepmother, and a number of deceptive mirrors. The middle section of the novel is told from Bird's viewpoint, bracketed by Boy's: Bird, growing up mixed-race in the 1960s, has very different perceptions of her mother and her exiled sister Snow. She also has an uneasy relationship with her reflection, which is not always actually a reflection. And this, it turns out, is something that she shares with Boy's mother, who looked in the mirror and saw a stranger.

There's a lot to unpick in this novel: questions of identity, of heritage, of deception. What does it mean to pass as something you're not? Who, if anyone, does Boy actually love? Is anyone telling the whole truth about who and what they are?

The prose is beautiful, the characters rounded, Boy not wholly likeable. I felt the ending was too abrupt, too inconclusive: and I'd have liked to read more of Snow's perspective, and more of Kazim Bey who inks comics for Marvel and seems to be able to do actual magic. I think Boy, Snow, Bird would bear multiple rereadings, but that ending would always wrongfoot me.

2021/023: The Inverts -- Crystal Jeans

"Marry me."
"Jesus, Bart. What are you trying to prove?"
..."Nothing. You're right. I like men. I do, I fucking well do! And you like women. Let's get married. We love each other, don't we?" [loc. 1122]

Bart and Bettina have grown up together, privileged and good-looking, too young to be personally affected by the Great War (though Bettina's older brother came home with a bad case of shellshock and a single arm). At the outset of the Roaring Twenties, they are discovering adult life, and coming (via separate experiences) to the same conclusion: they are both inverts. Bart is seduced by a gorgeous young French artist, Etienne, on a school trip to Paris; Bettina is caught in flagrante, in the school boiler room, with her friend Margo.

It seems inevitable that they should marry: they love one another, they share a sense of humour and a defensive prickliness, and neither of them is likely to be a good spouse to anybody. Cue wild parties, booze and drugs, a career in movies for Bart, a series of best-selling books by Bettina -- and, bookending it all, a murder mystery.

The blurb gives the impression that this is a light-hearted romp through the Twenties and Thirties, and it is often very funny: but it's also painful and sometimes depressing. Neither Bart nor Bettina is especially lucky in love, and despite their early promises to be kind to one another they treat one another very cruelly. Most importantly, though, they are not characters that I could warm to. There's a sneeriness to them, a disdain for their 'friends' and families, and a strong vein of hypocrisy in their attitudes. At different times, both try to overcome their innate prejudices: Bettina manages it during the Second World War when she's working as a rat-catcher, Bart achieves it from time to time, but they're both too selfish, too superficial, for it to really stick.

The language is lush and sensual, with a lot of food-based metaphors -- though these sometimes jar in conjunction with the frequent slurs against fatness. Descriptions of the physical often tend towards the earthy or even the gross: sweat, vomit, Bart's brush with the Spanish Flu. Glasses and cigarette butts are lipstick-stained, and everyone has bad breath. There is a relentless insistence on bodily functions: Bettina letting loose a long-held fart, Bart burping into his whisky, a newborn baby already leaking urine.

Which is not to say that the story isn't interesting: the arc of Bettina and Bart's relationship with each other and their myriad affairs, the raucous parties and decadent soirees of the Twenties and Thirties, the secrets within families and the openly queer folk in the London arts milieu. Some fun cameos, some poignant moments: if only they had happened to nicer people ...

Thanks to Netgalley for the free review copy!

2021/022: Morgue Drawer Four -- Jutta Profijt (trans. Erik J Macki)

...it’s quite natural to wonder how to get rid of a ghost you didn’t even summon. [p. 31]

Martin Gänsewein is a mild-mannered forensic pathologist, approaching middle age. Pascha Lerchenberg is a small-time car thief, in his twenties. Together they fight crime: or, rather, they attempt to solve a murder that Pascha is taking extremely personally, given that he was the victim. The first-person narrator of Morgue Drawer Four, Pascha can communicate with nobody except Martin, who initially thinks he's going mad but gradually begins to accept the truth of Pascha's existence.

Martin and Pascha are a typical 'odd couple': Pascha is uneducated, dishonest and enjoys -- enjoyed -- drinking, gambling and whoring, while Martin is shy, middle-class and socially inept. Pascha mocks Martin's car and tries to muscle in on what might be a date with a potential girlfriend. (He is extremely sexist, but at least he can't do much about it any more.) Martin tries his best not to talk out loud when he's answering Pascha. And Pascha is constantly awake and aware, and finds himself becoming more philosophical -- and more compassionate -- than he ever was in life.

This was a very entertaining read. I identified the murderer quite early on, though was prepared to be wrong: there were warning signs, though, and several clues. Regardless, the fun was in the interaction of the two protagonists, and in the sympathetic way that Pascha (who's really not a likeable guy) was written.

I purchased this item on 17 December 2011. Wow.

Translated from the German (original title Kühlfach 4), this fulfils the 'crime novel or thriller in translation' item of the Reading Women Challenge 2021.

2021/021: Mainly by Moonlight -- Josh Lanyon

“You’ve got some alarming bad habits, but assuming you’re not convicted of murder, my reasons for wanting to marry you hold. Like I said, I don’t think life with you will ever get boring.” [loc. 1727]

Cosmo Saville is a successful antiques dealer, and he's about to marry Police Commissioner John Joseph Galbraith in the high-society wedding of the year. Unfortunately, Cosmo is implicated in the death of a rival: and being arrested on a murder charge is only one of the problems he has to resolve before the wedding. Because there is a lot he hasn't told his husband-to-be, including the very pertinent fact that he is a powerful witch whose family are magical aristocracy. Oh, and he's known John for a fortnight. And John, it turns out, is under a love spell ...

The levels of deception in this novel made me very uncomfortable. Cosmo is the narrator, so at least we get an honest (?) account of his motives. But he's not the only character who's economical with the actualities: there are friends (with only the best intentions) and foes (with a priceless grimoire). And nobody, except John, seems to believe that being honest and straightforward might be an option, let alone the best strategy.

I did like Cosmo, despite his fascination with interior design: I wasn't sure about John, who's quite ... determined, and who seems to realise on some level that Cosmo is keeping major secrets from him. He does develop over the course of the novel, to the extent where he seems able to detect and deflect some of Cosmo's minor, 'convenient' spells. The secondary characters were an interesting bunch, and I'm intrigued by the world-building: the magical world coexisting with the mundane, and picking up on cultural phenomena such as Bewitched. But I'm in two minds about the rest of the trilogy: do I want to read more of Cosmo's lies and cover-ups? On the other hand, John isn't stupid ...

Bonus points, though, for a feline familiar named Pyewacket!

2021/020: The Absolute Book -- Elizabeth Knox [reread]

"I wasn't born when you found yourself having to pay for your stolen land. Which, being thieves, you chose to pay for with stolen human souls."[loc. 6070]

Reread, for the 'reread a favourite' part of the Reading Women Challenge 2021, and because I was reminded of its awesomeness by various promotional events in advance of the UK/US publication (UK Publication 18th March 2021). Here's Elizabeth Knox being interviewed by Dan Kois...

My original review is here.

This time around I found myself noticing more resonances with Knox's other work, in particular Black Oxen -- possibly because that's a fairly recent reread -- and perhaps The Vintner's Luck. I suspect there are many more echoes: this is a book of love, an author's attempt to write her way into happiness, a carefully-crafted salvation (and how I wish, especially now, that it could come true), and I think that conscious decision to write a route to happiness must revisit other mapped moments of joy, other characteristic elements of the author's interior world(s).

I believe Knox has made some minor changes in the UK/US edition: I would love to know what those are. New-come readers won't read the book I read and loved ...

2021/019: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London -- Garth Nix

“Children’s writers,” said Merlin. “Dangerous bunch. They cause us a lot of trouble.”
“How?” asked Susan.
“They don’t do it on purpose,” said Merlin. He opened the door. “But quite often they discover the key to raise some ancient myth, or release something that should have stayed imprisoned, and they share that knowledge via their writing. Stories aren’t always merely stories, you know." [p. 76]

Susan Arkshaw's mother has always been rather vague about Susan's father: so Susan, who's won a place at the Slade to study art, decides to head up to London a few months before her course starts, in the hope of discovering the other half of her heritage.

It's 1983, but not quite as we know it: Margaret Thatcher is the second female PM, after Clementina Atlee, and prime-time TV show The Professionals features Raelene Doyle and Georgina Cowley. (I don't think we ever discover the alt-Bodie's first name.) In this London, booksellers -- like molecules -- come in two varieties. The right-handed ones are researchers; the left-handed ones are warriors, keeping at bay the various magical and supernatural entities that lurk just below the surface of reality. Susan, visiting her Uncle Frank, swiftly encounters a left-handed bookseller by the name of Merlin, who (a) is gender-queer (b) stabs Uncle Frank with a Georgian hatpin (c) really cares about clothes. Susan, tending towards the punk end of the spectrum, is fascinated by Merlin, and it's mutual: however, before she can ask him on a date, the two have to elude a variety of nasties, including Uncle Frank ("he's not your uncle"), the Shuck, a Fenris wolf, goblins, and some perfectly ordinary police constables.

This is an entertaining, breathless, headlong romp, with a sense of real danger and a thorough grounding in British folklore. Susan is preternaturally level-headed: sometimes, though she's the 'chosen one', she's less of a protagonist than a foil for fey, flighty, vain, brave Merlin, who is vexing and charming in equal parts. Susan does discover her heritage, and comes into her own at the climax of the novel: and she's practical enough to counterbalance Merlin's mercurial tendencies.

I enjoyed this a lot, and am hoping for a sequel: I'd like more of Merlin's 'shape-shiftery' nature, and his twin sister Vivien's story. While it definitely has the feel of a YA novel, it doesn't flinch from nastiness, and the underlying world-building has a great many unexplored possibilities.

2021/018: A Civil Campaign -- Lois McMaster Bujold

"Biology isn't destiny?"
"Not any more, it's not." [loc. 2305]

In which Miles Vorkosigan attempts to court Ekaterin, except that instead of telling her he tells everyone else. There is also a thoroughly hellish dinner party, not helped by someone moving the place cards; the introduction of the delightful Byerly Vorrutyer; a trans character (of sorts); some typically Barrayaran skulduggery; and a hapless genetic engineer, plus his girls.

I did enjoy this reread, but again have little to say about the main plot. (I think that might be a function of my state of mind during this latest late-winter slump, rather than the books I reread: on the other hand I had rather more to say about Shards of Honor ...) Ekaterin rocks. Lord Dono is awesome, and makes some very interesting and pertinent observations about the sexism inherent in Barrayaran culture. (I do wonder if Lady Donna liked -- or was attracted to -- men very much, though.) Byerly, who I barely noticed on first reading lo these many years ago, is a splendid character. The dinner party is the stuff of nightmares and Miles does not acquit himself well.

And so concludes my recent dip into Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. I'm vaguely tempted to reread Barrayar, but don't have an e-copy and am attempting not to buy full-price books this month. I think, if I feel the need for more of these characters, I'll veer fanfic-wards or reread Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

2021/017: Saffron Alley -- A J Demas

"Oh, Papa's a 'she' today," said Remi, as if that were a normal thing. [loc. 1535]

Sequel to Sword Dance, and also featuring characters from One Night in Boukos, this novel is set in Demas' alt-historical version of the ancient Mediterranean: for Zash read Persia, for Boukos read Athens.

In Sword Dance, ex-soldier Damiskos and eunuch dancer Varazda pretended to be having an affair in order to investigate a crime: as is so often the case, at least in fiction, the pretence became real. Now, it's a month since the end of Sword Dance and Damiskos is visiting Varazda at his home in Boukos. Varazda has told his family -- Yazata and Ariston, two eunuchs who were freed at the same time as Varazda, and Rish, a little girl whose provenance is unclear -- of Damiskos' arrival, and of what Damiskos means to him. Although it is possible that his family have not wholly understood him ... The day of Damiskos' arrival is a catalogue of domestic disasters, including a horrible goose and a deliberately over-spiced welcome meal: and things become ever more vexing from there on in.

This novel is told entirely from Varazda's point of view, and he is a fascinating narrator. He doesn't dwell on his past, but he is constantly aware of his difference, and often insecure about whether he can give Damiskos what he deserves, sexually or emotionally. Yet despite Varazda's self-doubt, it's clear that he is beloved by friends and family (except the horrible goose) and valued by the wider community of Zashians in Boukos.

Much of the humour in this novel comes from the way that Ariston's perception of his 'brother' is altered by events. Ariston (nee Tash: he's assumed a Pseuchian name) is a eunuch, like Varazda, but eager to be considered a Man (capital M), while Varazda accepts and sometimes foregrounds his feminine side, and identifies as gender-fluid. (He does tend to use male pronouns, except when he's explicitly being female: so I've used male pronouns in this review.) "My brother is so comfortable being himself," Ariston tells another character. "I wish I could be like that." His growing respect for, and acceptance of, Varazda's unique nature is one of the joys of Saffron Alley.

There is a strong theme of communication (and its lack) in this novel. Damiskos and Varazda are very good at asking one another what they want (though not always quite so good at hearing the meaning behind the answers); Varazda's family are less ready to accept that Varazda likes men and loves Damiskos, regardless of how often he tells (or shows) them. There are further mishearings and misunderstandings, some more momentous than others, that drive the broader political plot: Ariston eavesdropping, rumours being spread, truths being concealed.

My only criticism of Saffron Alley is that the ending is abrupt, and too much of a reversal of what's gone before. The tumultous political plot doesn't really get going until the last third of the novel, and then everything is suddenly wrapped up very quickly: I'd have liked an epilogue, or just another chapter of settling. But I understand there is another novel to come, and I look forward to it very much.

This novel fulfils the 'a queer love story' rubric of the Reading Women Challenge 2021. I received a free ARC from the author (thank you, A J Demas!) in exchange for this honest review.

2021/016: Shards of Honor -- Lois McMaster Bujold

About three meters away, he is now. An uncrossable gulf. So in the physics of the heart, distance is relative: it's time that's absolute. The seconds spun like spiders down her spine. [loc. 1508]

Cordelia Naismith (captain of a Betan Astronomical Survey ship) and Aral Vorkosigan (Barrayaran admiral, colloquially known as the 'Butcher of Komarr') meet when Aral's landing party attack Cordelia's base camp. Cordelia finds herself stranded with a wounded colleague and an 'enemy' who has been left for dead by treacherous subordinates. She and Aral get to know one another as they travel cross-country, on an uncolonised and distinctly alien planet, to rendezvous with another Barrayan contingent, some of whom are loyal to their commander. Aral then proposes marriage, what with Cordelia being competent and independent: but suddenly she is rescued by her fellow Betans, and when they meet again they're on opposite sides of a planned invasion -- which is also an assassination plot. By the time Cordelia gets back to Beta Colony, where she is feted as a heroine and encouraged to seek therapy, she finds that it's no longer the safe, liberal home she once thought it was.

Reader, she married him ... I remember first reading Shards of Honor, the opening volume of the Vorkosigan saga, and being underwhelmed. Then I reread it a few years later (after becoming more familiar with the series) and loved it. Right book, wrong time. Or vice versa? Reading it now, I'm still impressed by the characterisation of Cordelia and Aral. Cordelia thinks, with some justification, that Barrayarans are bellicose and feudal, but that Aral is an honourable man despite his cultural background; Aral thinks, also with justification, that Cordelia is much more interesting than Barrayaran women, and that her military experience and general common sense might suit him very well. The novel is told from Cordelia's point of view, so there's more of her interior life than of Aral's: we see him through the filter of her changing emotions and her own cultural context, and it becomes clear that he is a decent man in a corrupt and violent situation.

I did find some aspects of the novel dated, especially Cordelia's experience at the hands of the sadistic Ges Vorrutyer. Does it need to be a sexual assault, as opposed to a non-sexual physical assault? In one sense yes, as it sets up the backstory of several other characters, as well as indicating that -- even for a Barrayaran -- Vorrutyer is vile, and his colleagues know it. But: ugh. Yes, sexual violence exists: no, I do not want it to be a plot device.

Overall, though, I do still like Shards of Honor, and I still prefer Cordelia and Aral to their offspring.

2021/015: Komarr -- Lois McMaster Bujold

If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath, its sudden removal -- however artificial -- must come as a stunning event. [loc. 3443]]

A whodunnit and a romance, with plenty of plot concerning making an uninhabitable planet into somewhere where humans can live. There's a solar reflector, life in atmosphere-controlled domes, and environmental crime. Komarr also features an unhappily-married woman who snags Miles' attention, a strong sub-plot about hereditary illnesses, and a dastardly terrorist plot.

Bujold's portrayal of an emotionally-abusive relationship is understated but effective; the whodunnit / mystery elements are nicely laid out, and signalled without fanfare; and she managed to make me sad about a plant falling off a balcony. Otherwise, though, I find I don't have much to say about my recent reread of this novel, which I first read (and enjoyed) around the time of its first publication in 1998.

2021/014: Memory -- Lois McMaster Bujold

“Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.” [p. 415]

It's a very long time since I first read this -- which I suspect was just after Komarr was published -- and I had, as usual, forgotten nearly everything about it. Reread because I realised it was something of a boundary between the early, more militaristic novels in the Vorkosigan saga and the later, more comic / romantic / sociological works. Also I wanted to remind myself of what happened to Simon Illyan.

What happens to Simon Illyan is nasty: he has a cybernetic memory chip in his brain, and it starts to degrade, and a traitor within the organisation seizes the chance to overthrow him. Miles, who has well and truly messed up and is sulking at home, investigates, and justice is served. Several romances begin.

What really struck me about this novel was how dated the technology felt! Example: Simon is used to being able to remember absolutely everything, and he's literally as well as figuratively lost when the memory chip is no longer functional. Alys gives him a holocube map, a portable device to help him find his way around the city. No option of having that function made available on a wearable communications device (which, actually, also doesn't seem to appear here, though later books have 'wrist coms'). There are e-readers, but reading matter comes on disks, as do messages from remote locations. And yet: implanted memory chips -- and later, an implant that regulates seizures.

It's quite a thrilling whodunnit, in part: it's also a novel about personal and professional failure, and about honour. Miles (a character I don't especially like, though he's complex and interesting and intelligent) has to make some tough choices about what matters, and the lengths he'll go to in order to keep hold of the things most important to him. His prevarications, and his decisions, are fascinating, and very credible.