Rating: 
Summary: A very good place to start...
Review: This was the first book by Lois McMaster Bujold which I'd read, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. This book is funny, sad, witty, and occasionally poignant. Unlike some of Ms Bujold's other novels, it has a quality of "depth" to it, in the way in which it examines certain issues. Definitely a good place to start, either on its own, or as an introduction to Ms Bujold's work. Be warned thought : Shards of honour will leave you craving more -I bought "Barrayar" two days after finishing "Shards of Honour"....
Rating: 
Summary: Buy it collected in "Cordelia's Honor" instead
Review: Unless you absolutely must own hardcovers, don't buy this book: instead by all means buy and read it in the mass-market paperback titled "Cordelia's Honor," which collects Shards of Honor with its followup, Barrayar. Though originally published under those separate names, these really are halves of a single exceptional novel.Trust me, you wouldn't be at all happy at the end of "Shards of Honor" if you couldn't immediately find out what happens next.
Rating: 
Summary: Appallingly stupid
Review: Well I exaggerate, but i felt i needed to off-set the rave reviews this book was getting, which i felt it did not merit. at best this book is OKAY and i would give it 2 and a half stars, but it certainly isn't as brilliant as most reviewers would have you believe. The characters are poorly developed, with this whole sense of things happening from out of nowhere. At first it's like, "lalala we are respectful enemies" and then it's like "Wham! Bam! I love you!" The way things occur without any real build-up just seems incredibly ridiculous. Readers are given plotlines without any real development, and it is due to that manner of storytelling that the book suffers. But the thing is, i know Bujold is supposed to be a great writer because she won a couple of Hugo awards or whatever, and those are really great, ie they really say something about the quality of work. Therefore...i'm going to give Bujold another shot and read the one that got the award in the first place. if it sucks, then i give up. To each their own, after all...
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