This review contains a few spoilers.
The news story of the past week (ignoring the current political circus) has been the death and funeral of Nancy Reagan, and much of it has centered on the love story that was Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
I find it a fitting frame for a discussion of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which is also a love story, albeit in Bujold fashion, which is to say, with a few twists. Bujold’s described the book as “not a war story. It is about grownups.” She’s made comments that it’s difficult to market, that she expects it to be controversial, and that perhaps it should come with a warning label for her readers.
That may well be true. We fiction fans often don’t want to grown-ups; sometimes we want simple escapism. And Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is certainly quite different from some of the most popular Vorkosigan novels: it’s not a space opera, and Miles isn’t center-stage. On the other hand, the sixteen preceding Vorkosigan books aren’t of one stripe. Consider, in no particular order, Falling Free, Ethan of Athos, Komarr, Cryoburn, and A Civil Campain.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen takes place three years after we learn of Aral’s death at the end of Cryoburn. Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan is Vicereine of the planet Sergyar where she and Aral, as Viceroy, retired after relinquishing Aral’s roles as Prime Minister and Emperor Gregor’s Regent. Sergyar is also where Aral and Cordelia met, almost a half century earlier, she as a Betan Survey Ship Captain, he as the Captain of a Barrayan warship. Their love affair and marriage are described in Shards of Honor and Barrayar.
Oliver Jole is presently Admiral of the Sergyar fleet. We first met him as Aral’s secretary; he’s mentioned in a few of the novels, but only as a minor character.
He and Cordelia are the viewpoint characters of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. We soon learn that he was Aral’s lover. We know from Barrayar that Aral was bisexual; his horrific affair with Ges Vorrutyer after the death of Aral’s first wife, Ges’ sister, is related in Shards of Honor. That affair was common knowledge; Oliver’s long-term relationship with Aral, which was also a polyamory with Cordelia, was a secret known only to the principals and to Simon Illyan, head of the Barrayaran Imperial Secret Service during Aral’s time as Prime Mister and Regent.
Thus, when Bujold calls this novel ‘about grownups,’ one of the adult themes she refers to is the nature of secrets and openness in relationships. It becomes more of an issue when Cordelia and Oliver become lovers again. And when Cordelia, who’s decided to have a child with her dead husband Aral through the use of a frozen gamete, suggests that Oliver do likewise, using his genes and another frozen gamete, forcing him to make a life-changing decision. And yet again, when her son Miles, who has not known of the affair, comes to visit.
The questions involved are many and complicated. The role of technology such as uterine replicators and genetic manipulation in reproduction. Of age and sex: Cordelia is, I think, in her late sixties. Of what’s public and what’s private, and how even well-meaning secrets have a way of coming back to bite you. Of what to tell the children.
Ultimately, I think, the question at the heart of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is, simply, whose life is it?. It’s an issue to which we can all relate; culture change and technology collide in our world just as they do in Cordelia and Oliver’s universe.