There is escape from revolution, backcountry flight, medical calamity, hostages to fortune dangled over various abysses. The Vorkosigan Saga spans over a dozen novels and has won multiple awards and sold 1.8. Mass Market Paperback 6.73 23 Used from 3.03 Ravaged by the Barrayaran-Betan War and turned into outcasts, Cordelia Naismith and Lord Aral Vorkosigan have no idea what vile plans are being hatched around their cell-damaged son. Subsequent espionage by General Piotr Vorkosigan twists the family and Cordelia unmercifully. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold - THIRD ENTRY IN A BELOVED SERIES. Koudelka, Aral’s secretary, and, with the regency, the redoubtable Kareen Droushnakovi, bodyguard for Cordelia and formerly of the minor Emperor Gregor.įamily dynamics become taut with Cordelia’s pregnancy an assassination attempt upon Aral leaves Cordelia terrified.Īdd Koudelka’s uncertainty of his manhood post-damage and his attraction to Kareen to ratchet up tension and sympathies.Īnother assassination attempt involves Cordelia and her unborn. That family includes the disruptor-maimed Lt. This introduces great danger to the new family. I would love to see Kareen reach beyond those limitations, but as the Emperor’s mother, they weigh more heavily.

I have to say this story contains more conflict, on more levels, than any writing I’ve ever read.Ĭonstrained by the near-medieval legal and social situations on her new world, Cordelia is often foiled in her desires to liberalize a gender-biased system.Īral Vorkosigan, her husband and intent lover, finds himself attending the death of the elderly emperor Ezar, and has the regency foisted upon him. At this point in the story, Barrayar is a world that limits women’s opportunities.

She married her former foe, emigrated to Barrayar, and does not know if the hostilities have truly ended. Barrayarans were Captain Cordelia Naismith’s enemies in the Cetagandan war.

Barrayar book