They form an alliance to put an end to a stupid war engineered by the fascists on his side, becoming more and more dependent on each other, and building a strong mutual admiration society. Shards , in its roots, is a romance novel. I had to wrestle with this concept. It is on the one hand a commercial attempt to cash in on the wildly selling romance novel trade, a probably brilliant transplant of the Fabio tropes into science fiction. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Shards is clearly the kind of book that can bring in a new type of reader, which is a good thing.
But as we constantly beat, dead-horselike, Bruce Sterling's concept that science fiction is about ideas, new ideas, I wonder. Humanity and relationship-driven stories are in no way contemptible ideas, but they are not necessarily the kind of new ideas I have in mind. Bujold's book answers insufficiently. And this is unfortunate, for Shards is well written, with an admirably light touch. The women characters are brave and empowered, but can't stop themselves from swooning over the butch, crypto-fascist men in the handsome uniforms.