[ SECRET POST #5155 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5155 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #738.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

04. https://i.imgur.com/zz7OaDw.png

[(Anonymous)]

Honor Harrington books? You mean the series where a cardboard-cutout Mary Sue goes through the most heavy-handed, simplistic, black-and-white version of The French Revolutionary Wars In Space without anything interesting happening at any point? Seriously I would be so ready to love the Honor Harrington books if they were any good at all

Also, the Vorkosigan books are rock-solid starting from The Vor Game (I like the earlier books too but I consider the Miles series to begin with The Vor Game) (and definitely better than David Weber) if you're not into it by then you probably never will be

[philstar22]

Personal taste is personal taste and entirely subjective. And I don't like either series.

[kaffy_r]

I love the Vorkosigan Saga with a bright burning love. but I understand bouncing off books. I tried reading Weber quite a while ago, and bounced hard enough (can't even remember which book at this point) that I never wanted to try the Harrington books. Perhaps at some point I'll give one of them a go, but that would be at some point in the far future, given the number of books I have on my TBR pile.

One of the commenters below had what I think is a good review of what she (and I) think makes the Vorkosiverse good storytelling. And I do tend to agree with people who say that Bujold's writing is pretty damned good.

Reading is, as others have said, a very subjective thing. If you've tried Vorkosigan books and can't get into them, then you can't get into them. That's taste.

[(Anonymous)]

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[(Anonymous)]

I really like HH but have no context for the other series you mentioned.

Maybe they haven't read any other books in thus specific niche and want a friend to share it with?

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read the Harrington books but Vorkosigan is rock solid writing, IMO. Especially the characters, Bujold knows what makes them tick and her grasp of how people interact just blows me away.

[(Anonymous)]

I absolutely ADORE the Vorkosigan books, but the slower pace was, admittedly, part of what I liked about them. With the Honor Harrington series I sometimes got lost because of how quickly characters would be introduced and stuff would happen. Vorkosigan is more my speed.

[(Anonymous)]

I found the parts about Honor entertaining. As soon as it moved away from Honor, my eyes glazed over and I eventually started skipping it. Weber couldn't make his villains compelling.

Then again, I'm not really a huge fan of political scifi partially because of that aspect of Weber's books.

On the other hand, I haven't read the other series, so, I can't comment. Despite favoring female authors, for some weird reason Bujold never actually hit my radar. Maybe it wasn't in the teeny tiny library near where I lived. Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

Having read and loved both, hmm.

I will say that I do find the Harrington series easier to read, personally. They’re drier and tighter and move better for me (I realise this is entirely personal and will depend a lot on your ability to roll with mil-sf technobabble, since Harrington is much heavier on that than Vorkosigan).

For Vorkosigan, my favourite parts are actually the early books, as in the Cordelia & Aral duology, and then select parts of the later books, and when I focus in I do realise that they’re basically the books that focus on Barrayar as a nation and a character in and of itself. Barrayar is incredible as a character, and its shift from an agonised nation of broken oaths and desperate honour to a more healed, functional society over the course of Aral and then Gregor’s reigns is the best arc.

It’s actually similar to the feeling I get from Haven in Harrington, despite them being incredibly different forms of government. But the feeling I get from Aral and Simon and Cordelia is very much the same feeling I get from Theisman and Eloise and Warner Caslet. Decent people stuck in the horrifying machinery of empire and struggling to keep that decency and still survive. They echo quite nicely to each other.

Vorkosigan is generally better at the oomph, the grand operatic emotions, the manic struggles and personal tragedies. Harrington is better at the slow, stark etching out of a struggle, the big looming forces and tightening political nets. It feels tighter and more deliberate than Vorkosigan, though it does get in some amazing (and often horrifying) lightning-bolts of emotion.

But I’m not really much help here, because I love them both. If you can’t stand Miles, Vorkosigan will be difficult for you. If you get bogged down in a lot of made-up military terminology, Harrington will be such a slog. It depends on your personal preferences and tolerances.

But I will forgive a LOT for Simon Illyan, Cordelia Naismith, Aral Vorkosigan, and the entirety of ‘Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance’, which is a book without peer but unfortunately requires having read the rest of the series to understand. For Vorkosigan, if you’re anything like me, start with the first two Miles books, ‘Warrior’s Apprentice’ and ‘The Vor Game’, just to get an idea of what the series started from and where it wants to go, allowing for them being the weakest of the books, and THEN go and read ‘Shards of Honor’ and ‘Barrayar’ instead. They’re the prequel duology with Miles’ parents, and they dump you straight in on the good old horrific old days of Barrayar, and set you up much better for the slow steady victory that is the rest of the Miles books afterwards.

For Harrington … part of the difficulty with Harrington is that it kind of does need to be read in order, and by the time you get up to all the interlocking subseries in the latter end of things, it’s hard to keep up with. The early books up to about … honestly, until ‘In Enemy Hands’, really are a bit of a slog. They have flashes of brilliance (Warner Caslet), but they’re slow and bogged down in following Hornblower’s lead. After that, though, they explode, and I do love both the Zilwicki & Cachat subseries and the Talbott Cluster subseries as well. Probably more than the main one, in the latter case. Honestly, it might not even hurt to jump in on Talbott with ‘The Shadow of Saganami’ to get a semi-self-contained idea of what the later books feel like, and then go back to the main series.

They’re both great series, though. For a lot of the same reasons, even. If you like tortured honour, decent people stuck in horrifying situations and staying decent anyway, the slow and painful reformation of corrupt systems, and some incredibly operatic emotional struggles along the way, either of them will do you. Take your pick based on personal preference!

[kaffy_r]

OMG, agree so very hard, especially about Simon, Cordelia and Aral (and Lady Vorpatril!) Also agree with you on Captain Vorpatril's alliance!!!!

So, uhm, just dropped by to say that.

[(Anonymous)]

I've never heard of these books before, but due to the interesting comments here I'm going to see if my library has a book from either of the series. I've been looking for an interesting read after Reddit's suggestion of Hyperion was a bust for me. (first real flashback was interesting, but the intro chapters and the way the author constantly writes women just made me think it was too horny and pretentious).

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but both series get dramatically worse as they go on.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I bounced off the first Honor Harrington book around the same time I started mainlining the Vorkosigan books, but I don't remember why. I'm not big into military sci-fi, I guess? I mean, technically the Vorkosigan books are sci-fi with military elements, but that's not why I read them. Idk, maybe I should give the Harrington books another go.

[(Anonymous)]

The only thing I know about either of these is that my father loves the Honor Harrington books. I'll have to ask him whether he's read the other series and if he has any opinions on it.

[(Anonymous)]

My father: "Pshh, it's way better than the Vorkosigan Saga!"

[thewakokid]

Man of taste