Shards of Honor

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold was a rather hard read for me. It wasn’t hard to get into, rather it felt stiff and slow after throwing you into what I expected to be an energetic novel. Personally, it read  like a cheesy romance novel, minus any of the overtly romantic bits or uncomfortable pornographic content, which was confusing. I definitely didn’t want that element to be included, but I was holding my breath expecting it and felt almost nervous I was going to stumble across something “sensual”. It lacked something that for the longest time I couldn’t put my finger on. What it's missing is originality, it was terribly predictable. The emotional depth that the characters had was one of the few things about this novel I felt worked. It definitely makes sense as a space opera, I just feel it was a waste of time to read because of what it lacked.

I admit most of the intergalactic battles and alliances were a bit of a bore, but I persisted to get through this book. The final chapter seemed like its only purpose was to set up another book in a series (which I then googled, and found that it is a part of a series).

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