Of Swords and Parasols

I'm actually reading the Cordelia's Honor omnibus that collects this and Barrayer.  Normally with an omnibus, I'll just wait until I finish the whole thing, but I decided I wanted to address these books separately.

Shards of Honor kicks off Bujold's much vaunted Vorkosigan Saga, and, for the most part, does so extremely well.  On an expeditionary survey for the Betan Empire-a technologically advanced empire that is extremely forward thinking-Commander Cordelia Naismith's crew is attacked by a ship of the Barrayaran Empire-a more militaristic empire based on the middle ages.  Stranded on the planet, she finds herself face to face with-and prisoner of-Aral Vorkosigan, a Barrayaran noble and officer who is known as "The Butcher of Komarr," for slaughtering many surrendered prisoners, and learns that she and her people got caught in the middle of a mutiny.  Travelling together for five days, the two get to know each other, and Cordelia learns how much of his dark reputation he's earned, and how much he hasn't.

Bujold manages to avoid all the bad cliches of the "enemies in love" trope.  Cordelia isn't his prisoner for long, and when she is, it's almost a formality.  Though their social statuses in their individual societies aren't quite equal, they're close enough to avoid a power imbalance, and Cordelia not only manages to avoid needing rescueing by Aral (quite a feat, actually) but actually manages to leave him in her debt and rescues not only herself, but also her misguided but well-intentioned crew.  Not to mention Aral himself.  Aral and Cordelia are both very mature, and their developing romance is pulled off very convincingly, avoiding all the angstridden cliches of the trope and approaching it as two adults who completely understand the situation they're in.  (Leading to a proposal-early on, not the climax-that reminded me of the first proposal in Sayers's Strong Poison.)

There is, however, a "but."  And while it's not enough of a "but" to ruin the book for me or even to really lower my opinion, it is a big one.