2. Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold

As already mentioned in my last review, this year, at LibraryThing, we are doing a year long Group read of the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I have read 3 books in the series earlier, not in the chronological order though. This group read will be a time to make amends and with this hope I started with the first book in the series, one featuring Cordelia, mother of Miles, the protagonist in the latter parts of the series. We also meet another strong and fascinating character, Aral Vorkosigan, Miles's father, but it would be fair to say the book was more about Cordelia.

It would be difficult to define her characteristics, measure her with parameters, the character is so multi-faceted. She is a military woman, but the author has steered away from the temptation of making her a Wonder Woman. She is strong willed, smart and well, as others in the book would say, honourable. And yeah, she is not a love-sick teenager, but a mature middle aged woman, so is Aral (except the woman part!). She is also the one who with her smartness, resourcefulness and no small measure of luck, turns around difficult situations on their head, and supports Aral only like she could. I quite liked Aral Vorkosigan too, in all his military might, and yeah, he actually comes across more honourable than Cordelia even!

There is a war in the background and some really unpleasant incidents, but they all seem to be the setup for the Cordelia - Aral story. The author must again be applauded for exercising her good sense and not overdoing it with the romance part.

Needless to say, I will be starting with the next instalment, Barrayar, within a week.

1. Divergent by Veronica Roth

End of Day 5 of the new year, and I finally have my first read for the year! Divergent! While I have planned most of my reads for January, this one, ironically, was the last addition to the list. January is the month when we (with folks at LibraryThing) start with the year long Group Read of the Vorkosigan Series (Bujold), AND the year long read of Culture Series (Ian Banks) AND the quarterly read of Middlemarch AND the quarterly read of Bleak House, apart from a few other books of my own, planned for this month. Luckily, I finished my RL Book Club reads for January (Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami and Disgrace by Coetzee) in 2013 itself. I knew it to be the author's publishing debut, a Dystopian work, with a female lead character. Surprising isn't it? The surge in the number of strong female lead characters in Dystopian works lately? Or maybe not all that surprising, since most of these new authors venturing into Dystopian works are female authors AND that historically, female lead characters have been grossly under-represented in Sci-Fi / Dystopian works AND that there exists (existed) a huge (latent) demand for such work.

Getting back to the book in question, a strong plot, simplistic and executable, just like it should be - 5 factions, based on (dominant?) characteristics and traits - and while we don't get to see a lot of Amity or Candor or even Erudite, for that matter, one gets a good idea about those factions would be all about. The entire story is enacted within a city, and there is no clarity about the world outside the walls, which I am assuming will be left for the subsequent books. This is actually not a bad thing, rather, this was one of the things I liked about this novel, it didn't try to do too much, too soon. This was one of my complaints with Samantha Shannon's debut work, Bone Season.

Beatrice's is a delightful character, with all her values and contradictions, it was very well done. Unfortunately, this clarity seemed to be lacking in most of the other characters, including in that of Four, the main male character who is part scary, part brave, part mysterious and yet romantic? Clearly, this character needs some work. Many of the other characters (mostly other initiates) have been dealt very superficially, which could probably be an indication of Beatrice not being properly able to evaluate them herself, but I doubt she would know as little as we do.

The rating of 4*, is indicative of how much I still enjoyed this book, and anticipate reading the sequel.

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