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Vorkosigan reread: Cordelia's Honor
... so, progressing merrily backwards, I've made it to the first two books in the series, Shards of Honor and Barrayar. (Which are collected in the omnibus Cordelia's Honor, but having been written several years apart, I think they deserve considering as separate books.)
It is completely fascinating to go read these two books with the later parts of the series fresh in my head. Discovering the younger versions of all the characters was such delight. Cordelia! Aral! Illyan! Everybody! Even if the series is meant to be read in chronological order, I think it really adds something to have already encountered the older versions of the characters, especially for Barrayar, which was written after she'd already written several of the Miles books. It was so weird and fascinating to see powerful, self-controlled Alys Vorpatril as a terrified, pregnant widow, or Kou and Drou as struggling, angsty young lovers. Tiny Gregor! ♥ And LOLOLOL forever at newborn Ivan being recognizably Ivan. (Literal LOL'ing occurred, in fact, at Alys's "Ow!" of surprise when tiny Ivan latched onto her breast "with a grip like a barracuda". Yep. Poor Alys.)
Even more fascinating, though, was reading Shards of Honor and knowing that it was Bujold's very first foray into original fiction, as well as her first venture into Miles' universe. It was so interesting seeing the characters start to be themselves; because in the beginning, they are and yet they aren't. In the early scenes I can really see the Star Trek influence, and while it's fun adventure fiction, there's something oddly generic about it. And then is a point about halfway through when it just clicks, and becomes Bujold -- Aral and Cordelia's first scenes after Cordelia was captured by Vorrutyer made me nod and go "Yep, that's Aral", and made me realize that it hadn't quite been Aral yet in the earlier scenes. (It was doubly interesting, then, to read Bujold's afterword, and realize that the point in the book where I had noticed a distinct tone-shift and increased Bujold-ness, between the first half of the book and the Escobar invasion, had actually been a turning point when she was writing it, too -- it was the point where she went from "Whee, I am writing a novel, I do not know what will happen next!" to actually figuring out the plot ... the point where she started figuring out what she wanted to write about, and you can see the same themes in that part of the book that she goes ahead and explores throughout her subsequent books as well.)
It is completely fascinating to go read these two books with the later parts of the series fresh in my head. Discovering the younger versions of all the characters was such delight. Cordelia! Aral! Illyan! Everybody! Even if the series is meant to be read in chronological order, I think it really adds something to have already encountered the older versions of the characters, especially for Barrayar, which was written after she'd already written several of the Miles books. It was so weird and fascinating to see powerful, self-controlled Alys Vorpatril as a terrified, pregnant widow, or Kou and Drou as struggling, angsty young lovers. Tiny Gregor! ♥ And LOLOLOL forever at newborn Ivan being recognizably Ivan. (Literal LOL'ing occurred, in fact, at Alys's "Ow!" of surprise when tiny Ivan latched onto her breast "with a grip like a barracuda". Yep. Poor Alys.)
Even more fascinating, though, was reading Shards of Honor and knowing that it was Bujold's very first foray into original fiction, as well as her first venture into Miles' universe. It was so interesting seeing the characters start to be themselves; because in the beginning, they are and yet they aren't. In the early scenes I can really see the Star Trek influence, and while it's fun adventure fiction, there's something oddly generic about it. And then is a point about halfway through when it just clicks, and becomes Bujold -- Aral and Cordelia's first scenes after Cordelia was captured by Vorrutyer made me nod and go "Yep, that's Aral", and made me realize that it hadn't quite been Aral yet in the earlier scenes. (It was doubly interesting, then, to read Bujold's afterword, and realize that the point in the book where I had noticed a distinct tone-shift and increased Bujold-ness, between the first half of the book and the Escobar invasion, had actually been a turning point when she was writing it, too -- it was the point where she went from "Whee, I am writing a novel, I do not know what will happen next!" to actually figuring out the plot ... the point where she started figuring out what she wanted to write about, and you can see the same themes in that part of the book that she goes ahead and explores throughout her subsequent books as well.)