5,500 Words About How I Feel About the Vorkosigan Series

[iniquiticity]

Table of Contents: 

• Some Overall Broad Series Positives
  
• More Thoughts About Extended Universe
  • Barrayaran Backstory
  • Beta Colony
• Some Things That Annoyed Me
  • Everything about Romance, Marriage, and Childbirth
  • Early Book Structures 
• Some Posts about Individual Books
  • Mirror Dance
  • Cetaganda
  • Memory
  • Ethan of Athos
  • Captain Vorpatrils Alliance
• Other Miscellaneous Thoughts
• The Part Where I Become An Insane Person Discussing the 16-Book Story Arc
  • Thesis: Vorkosigan is about Creating Life From Death
    • Aral Vorkosigan is the narrative spine and structure of the Vorkosigan series, not Miles.
    • Oliver Jole & the Red Queen feels weird because it is the dawn of a new day.
• My Power Rankings Of All The Books
  • Barrayar closely beats out Mirror Dance to take the top spot, but they're really 1A and 1B.
  • Yes I will take questions. 

Some Overall Broad Series Positives

The world is alive and moving behind the characters. I've definitely read some series in which honestly it feels like the whole world is standing still and waiting for our known characters to impact it for the books to occur. Not these - I like that we see time changing from book to book. LMB also uses that to her advantage to create new and fresh plots, like Borders of Infinity / the Cetagadans against the Marilcans, of which we see the Dagoola scheme. Another thing that I liked is the change in the Cetagandas between Ceteganda and Diplomatic Immunity, like Dag's promotion, the uterine replicators expanding on Barrayar, and that the weapons in the beginning books are obsolete in the end books.

I also like that our main characters grow a lot (with one exception, that I’m gonna make you wait for). I like that…

• Miles goes from being insistent that “it’s tetragenic, not genetic,” on his issues, and then clearly becomes at peace with it, even having a great conversation with Nikki. He might even say, “actually it doesn’t matter that much.
• Ivan, of course, realizes that it kind of sucks to be a floater with no responsibility. 
• Gregor is such a wonderful Emperor in CVA. 
• Terrifying legend Simon is such a fuckin dad in CVA. It’s just so cute.
• Even others, like our Dendarii - Elena, Arde, Bel - all get real lives and are doing things off screen. (Well. Sorry Bel.)
• I will elaborate on most of these. 

You know what LMB is also great at? The villains are so diverse and wonderful. They come from all kinds of backgrounds and have all kinds of fucked-up problems. Some of them really are horrible people and some of them just wanted something different. Their motives, their backgrounds vary to a wide degree. 

I also think this goes 10X for the Cetagandans. Not even the Cetas we meet are the same! Miles never fights “the Cetagandan Empire,” even on Dagoola, where he is very much opposed to them. And that’s really good. And Cetaganda is so good at it! 

And the books feel different! I read them in 2025 which meant that, other than some breaks to wait for my library holds to come in, I read them basically all in a row. I’ve sometimes read series in a row and by the end you can see the formatting of the story and how it’s gonna work out. (The Temeraire books are insanely guilty of this problem). But reading Cryoburn and CVA back to back was very pleasant. Or Cetaganda and Memory. You don’t feel like you’re reading the same book over and over.

I liked that Earth was kind of a backwater. I don’t even think we needed to set Brothers in Arms on Earth.

More Thoughts About Extended Universe

On Barrayaran backstory:

My previous hyperfixation before Vorkosigan was the Lays of the Hearth-Fire series by Victoria Goddard (first one is the Hands of the Emperor, and it's the best one in the series, and you should read it!). One thing these two books have in their background is just how much horror the backstory entails and the story mostly glosses over.

Even if you only start at Piotr, this is a man who was born in a world where they had barely if ever HAD ELECTRICITY. Then people appear on his planet and he gets this insane explosion of technology. Then he fights in two decades of guerilla occupation which ends up with his capital city being nuked. Then a psychotic emperor kills his family. Then he fights in ANOTHER CIVIL WAR. And you know what? I can't imagine Ezar was really letting him take the weekends off while he was getting his shit together either!

One can imagine the hard, unkind, furious people Piotr and Ezar were. In Barrayar, Aral and Piotr are fighting about Miles, but when Negri crashes down with Gregor they just drop everything immediately and go back to war time. How fucked up is that, that they were just so used to it, and so ready, and had a plan, and this issue with future-Miles just is forgotten! It really hammers into just how unkind and hard you have to be to succeed in a society that has been chaotic - even if that’s flooding in good technology - and so tumultuous.

And then the last thing Ezar does, after overthrowing his psychotic cousin - and one can imagine he was stamping out plenty of little coups after that - is decide he's going to kill n thousands of his citizens in the name of surreptitiously killing his own psychotic son. In his mind, this is a better alternative than 1) just normal assassinating him or 2) letting him live. And you know what? It’s VERY believable. And you know what else? Aral, our hero of justice and honor, goes along with it! I have a lot to say about Aral.

On Beta Colony:

Everyone talks about how Beta Colony is this amazing advanced place where they’ve fucking solved world hunger and all this kind of shit, but every time the narrative takes us to Beta Colony, we are in a REAL fucking hurry to leave it. So. Just saying that’s what happens in the story.

All of our characters discuss Beta Colony’s openness with, if not appreciation, than at least an understanding of the value, of Beta’s relationship to sexuality and psychological discussion. However, I think 2025 has accurately taught us that you can give everyone all the therapyspeak in the world and they can still be awful communicators and really hurt you. There’s this meme about a bad fic where it’s like… “I’m sorry,” the Joker said to Batman, “I’m like this because I didn’t have a good relationship with my father.”

Another thing: I find the “everyone has a contraceptive implant all the time and that’s just how it works and there’s a weird party where you snip yours” weird and authoritarian. I am not a social scientist by any measure but given the amount of alarm about falling birth rates in our modern lives I would be interested to see if this is still a concern, or if not, why not. Also, this is totally telling on myself, but I can’t imagine anything worse than going to a teacher to lose your virginity and teach you how to have sex. Weird sex shit is a good part of your life.

And then there’s the whole situation that Baz is in. He’s basically freakishly unpersoned by Beta Colony. Being unpersoned is obviously bad! It’s been a while since I read TWA so I forget the details. Sorry.

What the fuck is up with the president? I get asking this from the USA in 2026 is a real doozy. I legitimately thought this was some sort of 80s joke I didn’t get.

Ok. Also. The sexuality earrings. This is like fucking posting your gender and sexuality on your tumblr. Yes I suppose it’s true you now know who’s taken and you shouldn't proposition, but now you've just created an entirely new set of problems? Surely there are Betans who, upon seeing your 'i'm down to fuck' earring, don't get REAL annoying when you turn them down? And what if you've got an earring on but that's now really how you feel? Or what if you genuinely don’t feel you match any of these boxes? I’m annoyed.

Beta Colony blows chunks.

Some Things That Annoyed Me

Everything about romance, marriage, childbirth:

• Why is it everyone’s fucking goal in 15 books to find someone, marry them in six weeks, and then have ten children. EVERY CHARACTER has a partner of a different sex (EVEN BEL!) that they met relatively recently and then they want to start having children kind of as soon as possible. LMB has some good thoughts about gender vis a vis hermaphrodites and ba (also a millennial I found it fascinating she went with 'it' and not 'they' for herms), but the partnerships are such a dumb miss. In retrospect we all should have known that 1) Miles would never stay with Elli and 2) Duv would never stay with Laisa, because they were both together too long before getting married. (These are the kind of things that make book series kind of suck and I’m glad I didn’t really notice until the end.) Even though we do meet characters who have same-sex instincts, the only one who actually settles with another character of the same sex is Ethan. And Ethan EVEN ON THE GAY PLANET basically reaches out to Elli and says "hey i don't want to fuck you but I do want you to have my children.” It’s all just so fucking het.

• I've read some meta that suggests LMB is somehow revolutionary or amazing for spending so much time on childbirth as a topic. I don't think that's true. I think LMB is focused on the actual birthing act and how dangerous it can be, and it is actually cool that this is something she's decided to "fix," but it’s just a small category in the larger situation of reproductive politics. I don’t think the situation in the Cetaganda Empire with the Star Creche disproves this, but I’m open to arguments. However, no one in any of the 15 books ever wants OR gets an abortion. All the women seem very happy to marry the men. No one wants a same-sex partner. Everyone seems very happy with their, ah, “first” choice. Not to mention that, given the number of unwanted children that are around when you have to body birth them, I shudder with horror to think how spontaneously one might want a uterine replicator kid and then discard it. It is so easy for Oliver to just get a kid in OJ&RQ. Fucking terrifying.

• While I’m complaining about kids, what the fuck do you think Ekaterin thought when she married Miles, already had a teen, and then he was like “I want six children.” And by the way, THEN THEY HAVE SIX CHILDREN. She doesn’t have to birth them, okay, and I’m sure that that house has an insane amount of staff, but come the fuck on. Also, Miles sometimes has to drop everything and go off planet, for ????? time, to do Auditor shit! I don’t like that at all.

Early Book Structures

There was a whole category of Vorkosigan books I will sum up as ‘Miles puts his foot so far into his mouth the plot comes out the other end.’ I found the ‘Miles eating his foot’ part of every book pretty unbearable, though once the plot comes out the other end I’m into it. I acknowledge that he needed to put his foot in his mouth to make the plot happen. I just didn’t find it interesting. For example:

• TWA: Miles failing upwards at rapid speed making the Dendarii. Not interesting until we meet Elena Viscounti and Ivan. I was in fact SO bored by this book I asked several people if anything actually happens.

• TVG: Miles being very stupid at Kyril and then arresting his own boss. I actually remember almost nothing of this book. Maybe if I reread it, caring about everyone, it will become good. The only good part is where Gregor believes Miles won’t blow him up with the giant gun. That’s the shit.

• ACC: Literally everything with Ekaterin. So horribly cringe. Honestly one of Miles’ least flattering moments in the entire series. Although it is funny everyone points out how much he sucks, especially Mark, and it just bounces off him.

Some Posts About Individual Books 

Mirror Dance

• This book is so fucked up in every conceivable way, but also so much about how much you love the people you love, and how far you’ll go to save them, and how far you’ll go to save yourself once you know someone loves you. I love that shit. If you have spent any time with me in fandom, this will be a COMPLETE unsurprise to you how much I loved this book. It was honestly SO close between MD and Barrayar. Barrayar beat it out, but real fucking narrowly. It's a 1A/1B situation. Mirror Dance rules. 

Cetaganda:

• I love a book where you go to the horrible sworn enemy of the heroes and actually the sworn enemy has all the same fucking problems, all the same heroes, all the same villains.

Memory:

• I read the series largely in internal chronology order and broadly I think my response to that is: basically you should read all the books before Memory before Memory and then read Memory and then read all the books after Memory after Memory. It's probably fine if you read them in almost any order other than that. Memory is so good at just transitioning us over. It rules. It gives us Miles sticking his foot so deep into his own mouth so bad he literally gets shitcanned (and it doesn’t even take so long that was I was bored), and then after having a complete meltdown which involves Ivan putting him in an ice cube bathtub, puts back on all his fucking medals and is like LET ME SEE MY FOSTER UNCLE. So badass. Absolutely amazing Miles situations. When Ivan says to Miles, "Wow, you went Full Naismith, but with the Barrayaran accent," that's so fucking good. That's the stuff. Ivan, you genius. 

• And Simon! Simon is such an amazing transitional character in the whole arc of the Vorkosigan story (more on this later), and as such Memory is so important to him. Obviously.

• Also you know what I love about Memory, which changes everything for our heroes? Haroche is such a fucking weenie. Like, honestly what happened to him is he just got annoyed he wouldn’t get a promotion and he was sure he could do a better job. He’s such a loser weenie and Miles even knows it, pointing out that Haroche won’t look anyone he’s hurt in the eye. Miles may be a dingbat whackjob, but at least he acts with intention! The intention that so many of our heroes act with is wonderful and drives the story. Haroche, on the other hand, gets caught up in the Miles Vorkosigan Whirlwind and then he’s just making it worse and worse. I covered that we meet so many villains, and the fact that Haroche, a fucking weenie, has such an outside impact - transitioning everyone and everything into our new age! - is such a fun and interesting choice.

• Also (i’ll talk more about this later) but obviously I think Haroche is getting executed at the end of Memory. However, Gregor AND Miles are both so deeply uninterested in punishing him. There’s just … there’s no will to punish. There are obviously consequences. But he’s not cutting Haroche into pieces. He’s not even scheduling his public execution! “Tell me the story. Okay. Goodbye.” And then he just turns and walks away. It’s SO important.

Ethan of Athos:

• This book was bad. It wasn’t close. Narrators who have no control of the book aren’t interesting. Then LMB does like "oh wait I need him to have a homophobic interaction, let me get that out of the way," before not commenting on it again. Was it revolutionary-ish at the time she wrote it but now looks passe because we've made such great strides vis a vis gay people? God I hope so. It was by far the worst one. Not close. So bad.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance:

• This book is insanely fun! God what a fun book. Byerly Vorrutyer, the man that you are. Ivan! I’m so glad that Ivan got a book. And you know, it’s nice that he got a girl! A nice relaxed one who also lacks the ambition of his family! He’s probably never met anyone like this!

• But actually what I want to talk about in CVA is that Gregor is so good at not punishing anyone. Just like in Memory, Gregor is essentially deeply uninterested in punishment. His goal is to get everyone what they want. This is SO important. Also they all watch ImpSec sink, which is funny, but also SO meaningful.

Owing to this I generally enjoyed Memory, Cordelia's Honor, and everything Post-Memory because Gregor could point Miles at problems, and we didn’t need to watch him fuck up so bad he had to fix it.  Cryoburn doesn’t get a lot of play but the fact that the book STARTS with him hallucinating in a catacomb, made me like ‘Yes! Great! Now this is what I’m into!’

Other Miscellaneous Thoughts

One thing I love is that when Miles dies and comes back to life, his body is reconstructed into one of the most capable versions. Other than being weirdly and funkily short, he's basically the most physically capable he's ever been. But you know what LMB does, that i just LOVE? She gives him the seizure disorder. She wipes away a lot of his physical problems and gives him this whole different problem. And he doesn't know how to handle it! He doesn't learn! He just fucking immediately fucks it up. I love that she gave him this invisible disability and he has to be punished repeatedly before figuring it out. He's honestly more disabled than ever and you wouldn't even know.

Miles makes a great narrator because he really is an absolutely deranged person. It's funny when someone says in one of the later books "Doesn't anyone ever call you mad?" "Yes, but less since I became a Lord Auditor." because, that dude is a real whackjob. Genuinely has several screws loose. Which is good, by the way, because normal people make terrible main characters. Also he’s earned it, you know, given everything about his life.

It does make all the other narrators kind of boring, though.  Mark is great because he’s also legitimately unhinged. I found Ivan the best possible narrator for CVA, and also we spend so much time watching him try to do dumb Vor shit. But the other narrators in the series are meh at least. In comparison to getting your brains melted by Mark or Miles, or watching Ivan try to tie himself into knots, Ekaterin, the Koudelkas, etc, make meh narrators at best. Also I honestly couldn't give a shit about Enrique. I totally skipped past the part where they to arrest that guy. 

While we’re discussing middle books, I was like 50% Haroche sabotaging Illyan and 50% Laisa. Because the Laisa/Gregor thing I find very weird, but mostly in the same way all the random het pairings in this series are. Literally 70% of ACC is some Pair the Spares (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PairTheSpares) shit.

Poor Duv. Nothing good ever happens to that guy. First, he gets totally blamed for things in BIA. Then he’s framed again in Memory. Then the Emperor steals his girlfriend. Cut this guy a fucking break.

You know who’s also great? Ivan. Ivan as an odd foil to Miles works so great in the story. I love his response to Vor pressure, and I love how that impacts his maturity. Ivan is a Work Smarter Not Harder guy, and you know what? He’s killing it. CVA is fun.

Alright. This is the part where I look like this now, where I talk about a 16-book long structure of everything. This is me.



You see. The Vorkosigan series is about rescuing life from death. It is about creating a world where there can be joy, and life, and grief, and art.  

And this is about Aral Vorkosigan, who is born into death and has to die for there to be life. 

Aral IS the backbone of the vorkosigan books in an EXTREMELY important way. He’s also, by the way, is such a fucking tragic character. Most of his family brutally murdered in front of him at AGE ELEVEN. Then he’s an aide in a fucked up rebellion. His remaining family member is Piotr Vorkosigan, who basically has spent the past twenty five years fighting wars. Dude is NOT equipped to take care of a traumatized eleven year old.

It is nice to think of him hanging out in a rich person's cottage with Xav and Xav’s Wife for summers though. 

HE GIVES UP DOING ART TO DO VIOLENCE. HE QUITS ART AND GOES TO WAR. 

That guy works from age eleven, only takes breaks to have drinking meltdowns, only to be pressed back into service. And the service is fucking grinding! Does not rest. Does not get to retire. Does not get to chill. Has a major cardiac event, lives through it, and then instead of getting a nice retirement of doing whatever he wants, is shipped off to a barely-civilized new planet and dies far from home. Really fucking sad.

I can only imagine how absolutely fucking crushing the Escobar thing was on him. And you know what? But here’s the thing about Aral. Aral is fundamentally incompatible with the world he is born into. He is born into Piotr and Ezar’s world - he’s not born into Gregor’s world. And his death is the death that pulls us from Ezar’s world into Gregor’s world and closes the book on this terrible world. Early Vorkosigans, like SOH/Barrayar, force good people, over and over, to make terrible choices - especially to fucking kill each other. What the Piotr and Ezar era is is: the only way we can solve this problem is by murder. Ezar kills everyone in the Escobar scheme. Bothari kills Vorrutyer. Cordelia kills Vordrarian. Elena V kills Bothari. And we see Miles try to escape this era - first by saving Elli, quite memorably, but he can’t. What actually he does is make Naismith, a mercenary who kills people. And this is what makes Naismith so awesome and interesting as a character device. But you know what? He tries to save people too. Aral didn’t get the choice to try to save people. And mostly when we see Miles saving people, even in Naismith-era, it’s him doing crazy Miles shit. He saves Taura, the Dagoola hostages, doing dumbass Miles shit. But Naismith can’t be a person who saves people, really. And Naismith dies shittily hurting a guy! He has to die so Miles can save people, not kill them! (Ezar Era Simon also dies and becomes Gregor Era Simon in Memory. More on this later.) In this way, Miles and Simon straddle the Ezar Era and the Gregor Era, and they go through enormous transformations along the books.

And as the books go on, Miles tries harder and harder to save everyone. He gets better at it! He saves Mark (and converts him into Not A Murder)! He saves Simon (and converts him into Not Secret Police, Murderer)! He saves Bel (and thus makes it Not An Informant)! He stops a war in Diplomatic Immunity! (I never don’t think it’s funny when he’s like “FUCK DAG, THIS ONE’S REAL!”) He actually BRINGS JIN’S MOM back to the dead in Cryoburn!

It’s about life and death, you guys. Miles says Piotr is the last of his kind, but actually Aral is the last of his kind. Aral is the transition before Miles. Aral couldn’t save anyone, not really, as much he wanted to. He was forced, against his desire, against his principles, again and again, to be a weapon of death. The only person Aral saves is Miles, over and over. Aral protecting Miles from Piotr - ESPECIALLY Aral protecting Miles with Simon from Piotr - is the whole structure of all 15 books going, “You were of an era where the only way we could solve anything was by killing. I’m trying so fucking hard to end that era even though I know that I can’t. No. More. Killing.”

In a previous draft of this point I discussed how I actually think it's okay that Kareen dies. And I will repeat that because I still feel that. Because you know how all the old Vor have to die because all they know how to do is kill? Well, Kareen is Old Vor too, and when she dies it's erasing her standing there, trying to protect herself, trying to be firm, but also resoundingly having been conquered. She dies because she acts out - and that's the way of New Gregor Era Women. She, like Aral, is punished for trying to act like she would be able in the New Age. Aral is punished for wanting peace, and Kareen is punished for wanting freedom. All the women we meet after - the Koudelkas, Elena, Drou, etc - these are New Women and they have their own shit going on, pushing forever, making new and amazing lives. Kareen dies so Elena can live. 

Anyway. The men mostly guide the story in this series, so. Patriarchy. Sorry. All of those guys after Aral? Miles becomes really good at choosing life. But you know who else becomes really good at choosing life. GREGOR VORBARRA. This is a boy who is born into a HORRIFIC legacy of death. And then! And then! Look at him! Gregor is so good at finding ways to not kill people, at least on the page. Dorca, Yuri, Ezar, even Serg - these are people who use violence as a weapon. Who love using violence as a weapon. Who, when given a problem, solve it with violence. And violence works for them, as a solution. Because they’re Ezar Empire people.

But Gregor is Gregor era. And you know who is the only person who is the person to TEACH Gregor to be Gregor era? To teach Gregor how to be just, how to NOT use violence, how to solve problems without killing?

Ezar knows it. It can’t be him. It can’t be ANYONE BUT ARAL VORKOSIGAN. He’s the only one! He’s the through-line. And Ezar knows it. Ezar doesn’t want it to be just endless violence and killing, but he can’t do anything else. The only way he knows how to solve problems is with violence. He is wise enough to know he could NEVER end the cycle. But you know who can? Aral. Aral has been trying and straining against the bonds of murder and death, and he can teach Gregor to NEVER have those bonds. 

And Gregor is so good at it! He’s so good at showing he DOESN’T need to create violence and death. Aral teaches him and he learns.  Gregor NEVER chooses death, when he could:

• He doesn’t kill Miles in TWA, multiple times.
• He doesn’t kill Miles again TVG!
• He’s not cruel and aggressive to Haroche, over Simon.
• He’s trying to fix the solar mirror in Komarr! He could punish the Komarrans, but he doesn’t. (And yes of course there are political reasons. But remember, there are all kinds of Komarran revolts under Aral, and none we ever hear about under Gregor.)
• He honestly lets everyone get off SO easy in CVA! CVA is such a PERFECT and PINNACLE Gregor moment. CVA REALLY shows off just how far, just how amazing, just how just, just how not about killing Gregor is. It’s so important. It’s so strong. It’s so good.
• He immediately pulls back in Cryoburn after Miles gets everyone to call off the war.

And you know who else is good at converting from wartime to peacetime? Simon. Simon, like Aral’s death, is forcefully retired from his role as a death dealer. Not as finally and ferociously as Aral, because he is fifteen years younger than Aral - he’s more Gregor Era than Ezar Era, so he gets to leave. Just less. He’s deprived of the weapon that permitted him so much violence. Simon is deeply disarmed, and he gets to live a fresh life after violence. He gets Alys in ACC! He gets to play this insane stupid game with Cordonah in CVA. And then, most WONDERFULLY, most METAPHORICALLY: that stupid horrible building, that great block of misery and suffering and pain, BUILT IN THE YURI ERA, THE WORST ONE – the building LITERALLY sinks to the ground. And gets to see it happen. Simon lives! He grows! He gets an amazing new peaceful life! The Ezar Era is violently ripped from Simon, and you know what? He pulls his act together. He becomes such a fucking dad. I love him so much. Simon so amazing of the fucking recorder he’s wearing around his neck. Live, Simon. Get a new chance to be something other than a recorder weapon.

But you know what? Aral is too stained. He’s too Ezar Era, no matter how much he did for everyone else. He doesn’t get a second life. What he gets is peace.

So Aral dying is sad. Obviously! And what makes his death so crushing is that he stood up against everything about the world that was horrible, and even though he did his best he still ended up killing so many people. Living with so much hardship. Being forced to be conniving, to lie, to cheat. But what makes Aral stand out as a character is that he’s the only one with a sense of justice. He’s the only one that it feels like it hurts him have to kill.

And that’s bad, you know? You want it to be totally unmemorable that a person didn’t want to kill people. But it isn’t at all for Aral. And when he dies, it’s that contrast that makes it so clear just how memorable he was, because the world was so bad.

Aral dying closes the book on that world. He gets to rest. The world gets to be a world where the way to fix things isn’t to kill everyone. Good night, Ezar Era. Good morning, Gregor Era.


Which brings us to Oliver Jole & the Red Queen.

So I hadn’t come up with this whole theory at the time I opened OJ&RQ. In fact one of the FIRST POSTS I EVER WROTE about the Vorkosigan books was:

I can't say after ending cryoburn with "your father is dead," I expected Oliver Jole to start with "btw you parents have been in a thruple with their admiral for SOME books now; btw admiral want to have n+1 daughters with me and my dead husband?"(source)

Because you don’t always know, when a new day dawns, that it’s a new day, right? I definitely didn’t! And obviously none of our heroes did. They’re still grieving. They had to do all those horrible state funerals. Especially Jole. :(

But it’s a new day. And that’s why OJ&RQ feels so weird and different and confusing. It’s not a book about killing anyone or saving the world or untangling some global crisis. This is why I didn’t particularly think at the time I read it that it was that good of a book, but in the broad scheme of telling a massive story it is MASSIVELY important. You know why? It’s a story about a new day. It’s just about a guy deciding whether he wants to have kids or take a new job. That’s the kind of story you get in the new day, you know? Grief is something you get to experience in the new day. You don’t just have to pick yourself up and move to the next horrible crisis (like Piotr and Aral had to do). You can really just .. be sad.

So. Now I’m going to tell you the person who changes the least in this series: Cordelia. The Cordelia we meet in Shards of Honor is pretty similar to the Cordelia we meet in OJ&RQ. She’s grieving the loss of her husband, of course. But she still wants the same thing (as opposed to Miles and Ivan, who change dramatically), and, noticeably, she is the only one who hasn’t gotten it yet. Everyone who wants a family and kids gets them, but not her. She didn’t get her big family. Aral dies, which is tragic, but Cordelia lives, which is a whole different tragedy. Aral walked a straight line and died at the end, closing the door of the hallway; Cordelia went in a big circle, improving it along the way, and appeared exactly where she started, with her single son's family on a different planet than she is.

And Cordelia comes into SOH fully formed because everyone else is so trapped in Ezar Era, where the only thing you could do was kill. Cordelia was always baffled by it. Where Aral stood up to it, an insane bulwark of justice, a shining light which let Miles thrive (and, by the way, what do dads love more than their sons thriving?), Cordelia is right there with him, dragging Barrayar forward. Aral gets sucked down by it, and dragging himself out of the mud is what makes him heroic. Cordelia stands on top of it in a very different and memorable way, but he wouldn’t be able to do it without her. But she needed to be a lot closer to fully formed to take his hand and pull him up.

So. You need this book, where Cordelia isn’t dragging them all to becoming more fully formed, where Cordelia can do it herself. It’s honestly so ‘flourishing with an empty nest’ era, only Cordelia’s idea of flourishing with an empty nest is getting a fuckton of kids. And she does get the boyfriend that makes her family, and I think she needs someone who understands her, and Sergyar, and Aral. She needed someone who understood so much of it. And Oliver’s perfect for that.

And also? Something else you talk about in the new day is relationships that don’t fit a traditional mold, like smooching your lieutenant. (Thank god I saw that post where dsudis called it.) Aral has to be the bulwark of justice. He can’t be queer. ANOTHER thing, by the way, which is so tragic about him.

What Aral does, by being this bulwark of justice in a horrible world for so long, so persistently, and then taking the long sweet rest of death after - is make a world where Oliver feels like it’s okay to just be a dad. Piotr and Aral never got that choice. Jole gets to decide to study the oceans rather than continue his career in the army. JOLE GETS TO LEAVE THE ARMY!!  No one in these books has ever gotten to LEAVE THE ARMY. Ezar, Piotr, Aral, Miles, Simon, Ivan. Alys! The Dendarii! Cordelia didn’t get to have all the kids she wanted. But Aral made a world where she could. Now Miles is visiting his mom with his giant family he got to have (life life life life life) and a Cetagadan is trying to date Oliver’s assistant (life life life life life), and Oliver and Cordelia are thinking about having 5000 children (life life life life life) and then Oliver’s saving the children from radials (life life life) and Oliver’s birthday party (life life life), which so many people attended.

Life Life Life. LIVE, WORLD. LIVE, LAUGH, GRIEVE, KISS. QUIT THE ARMY AND STUDY THE OCEANS. INSTEAD OF DEATH MAKE LIFE. 





RANK OF VORKOSIGAN BOOKS MY FAVORITE ACCORDING TO ME.
yes i will take questions.

Barrayar
Mirror Dance
Shards of Honor
Memory
Cetaganda
Diplomatic Immunity
Cryoburn
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
Komarr
Borders of Infinity
Labyrinth
A Civil Campaign
Brothers in Arms*
Oliver Jole & the Red Queen
The Warrior’s Apprentice
The Vor Game(+Weatherman) *
Winterfaire Gifts
The Flowers of Vashnoi
(big gap)
Ethan of Athos

*Even though I read these, I honestly have no recollection of doing so. I did just get TVG from the library again… maybe it will be better the second time?