vorkosigan | Vorkosigan Readthrough: Shards of Honor, Aftermaths

So, we've read the book and are here to discuss! I am unfortunately not all that good at thematic analysis or arc stuff, but here are some jotted-down notes from my read:

Requests for next Bujold Fest: A treatise on Sergyaran nature.

Huh, nerve disruptors cause blisters?

Nuovo Brasil is name-dropped along with Barrayar and Cetaganda – now I'm curious about the Nuovo Brasilians!

Do they have no blue cheese dressing on Barrayar, or does it taste different from the Betan artificial version?

Aral's command issues, lol. "Now who in my command is so confused in his thinking as to betray both sides at once?"

As was mentioned in the Tor readthrough, Aral confesses to 0.6 murders per day on their trek to the supply cache. I like that this is a valid statistic to measure. :P

Koudelka! Gottyan? Nilesa! (I have no idea what I was aiming at with this note, but whatever!)

Aral: very abrupt, and not all that good at convincing. "My planet sucks and I fell in love with you while you were puking!" is not the height of romance.

It seems like Aral's almost trying to sabotage the invasion by telling Cordelia a lot about the plans.

Cordelia: very ingenious. I can definitely see where Miles gets it from!

What happened to Cordelia's belt???? It was used to tie up Gottyan, but Aral released him and no further mention was made of the belt. Did Aral keep it as a memento? (Oh, and Aral, get better pants. Yours don't fit. Pants should stay up without a belt!)

Cordelia: very good at emotional band-aids

17 replicators, just given to Barrayar, and some of what was said there makes me a bit uncomfortable. "A couple of them were pretty emotionally divided about abortions." Um. And they were given to Barrayar, with the expectation that... they'd be aborted? They'd grow up to be cogs in the Barrayaran machine, off to kill their fully Escobaran half-siblings should a second war happen?

How come no-one voted for Steady Freddy?

Hm, the Betan and Escobaran psychs seem to have done nothing more than give Cordelia a stutter.

oh Cordelia's daring escape :D (an excellent combination of ingenuity and emotional band-aids!)

Hm, Aral loathes tiny women? (Another things Miles seems to have inherited...)

The Bothari bits make me uncomfortable.

Count Vortala A+ snark. I don't suppose we see much more of him?

"declare everyone a Vor and be done with the whole bloody nonsense forever" oh, Aral.

The Escobaran war's called the 120 day war, despite only lasting for 118 days and a part of an hour!

Mother's Tears charms don't seem to return IIRC?

Medtech Boni carries around a wedding dress??? Okay this section is creepy.

All in all, better than I remembered, especially re: Cordelia and Aral's relationship. It is still structured so that Cordelia gives up everything while Aral gives up pretty much nothing, but it's more that Cordelia is driven away from Beta than that she walks voluntarily. I wonder what it'd have been like had Dr. Mehta and her colleagues not been such colossal assholes to Cordelia.

Next up is Barrayar, with a discussion post hopefully up on the 18th or 19th.