The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [71]
To those familiar with her works it is evident that SoH is an early one; the background to her Universe is still comparatively sketchy. But she already has all her skills of insight, compassion, characterization, a sly and subtle wit which comes back and bites you three sentences down the page (never read an LMB story while eating or drinking), and an ability (which she ascribes to "an unreconstructed inner thirteen-year-old") to create plots which excite by leading the reader's expectations one way and then delivering an entirely unexpected dénouement. In Barrayar Cordelia reflects that as a stranger to the planet of Barrayar one must "Check your assumptions—in fact, check your assumptions at the door." (Barrayar Chapter 5) Lois's readers should do so, too. (Barrayar [1991] is the direct sequel to SoH, and the second half of the story arc [Lois's term for an entity comprising two or more separate novels] which she has described as "The Price of Becoming a Parent.")
Lois is well read in many areas, including, of course, SF, and, as the daughter of an engineer and herself a sometime medical technician, does not confuse the unrealized with the unscientific. Her works contain echoes of Austen, Heinlein, Heyer, Russell (Eric Frank), Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and many, many others.
Her skill in characterization is impressive. Even her minor characters grow as the stories progress, and we can feel the emotions and motivations of all of them, even walk-on "prop-box" characters like spaceport officials and hero-worshipping starship pilots. (I loved the response of Cordelia's CO to the psychiatrist's comment that "A middle-aged career officer is hardly the stuff of romance." [SoH Chapter 13]) Her major characters, heroes and villains, are three-dimensional—none is all good or all bad—and here again we need to be careful of our assumptions.
Throughout her SF Lois uses the "tight third person" point of view (POV) where, although the text is written in the third person, the reader sees and knows what the POV character sees and knows—almost like a first-person account—which does not necessarily correspond to objective reality. In Shards of Honor we are confined to Cordelia's POV, but in later works she uses more—there are five in A Civil Campaign—and it is further evidence of her skill that the personality of each POV character illuminates the narrative.
But one of her greatest attributes is her empathy. She makes us feel for all her characters, even the villains. In fact it is this empathy, manifest in Cordelia, the heroine and POV character, which gives us the title of the book. She and Aral Vorkosigan both seek to do what is right rather than simply follow rules; she calls the quality "grace of God," he calls it "honor," and it drives them both to very hard choices. It is Cordelia's honor, manifested in burying the dead and helping the injured despite practical imperatives to do otherwise, which first attracts Aral in the first few pages of the book and the first few minutes of their acquaintance. Cordelia's Honor is actually the title of an omnibus volume containing Shards of Honor and Barrayar.
Lois's practical policy, that the best way to advance a plot is to work out the worst possible thing that can happen to her characters—and do it to them—gives ample scope for the exercise of empathy!
This particular combination of qualities attracts SF readers who are practical, widely read idealists. The Internet mailing list devoted to her works is erudite, compassionate, courteous, and wide-ranging in the topics discussed and (non-Bujold) books recommended—and contains members of all ages and many nationalities. (Lois's works have been translated into about twenty languages.) If you have access to the Internet you can find more about Lois herself and this mailing list at www.dendarii.com.
C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have both said that they wrote children's stories because