fajrdrako | The Sharing Knife: Beguilement... (Reply)

Thanks to some wonderful people, including

commodorified and Alayne, I read the advance copy of the new Lois McMaster Bujold novel The Sharing Knife this weekend. Loved it.

Mostly, I've liked all Bujold's fantasy novels less than all her SF novels, and the setting and situation of this one hadn't sounded promising to me when I read the advance publicity. Not that I didn't want to read it, of course. I was avidly curious.

Well, it was quite wonderful, and a joy to read. Thank you,

commodorified.

As is usual with Bujold, the best thing about her books are her characters. The protagonists, Dag and Fawn, were delightful - just vulnerable enough to be real, just short of t00-good-to-be-true. As heroes go, Dag manages to tap into a number of my favourite heroic attributes, besides just being heroic and clever. (Which is a damn good way to start.) The man plays to all my archetypical kinks: he specializes in interpersonal diplomacy - that is, controlling a situation by tact, persuasion, beguilement and trickery in lieu of violence, as necessary. He is mature, of a long-lived race, with a troubled past - while the woman he loves is much younger than he is. He is a Ranger - well, in this culture they are called Lakewalkers, but I kept thinking of him as a Ranger. He is deeply loving and loyal where he loves. He thinks independently, imaginatively, and not traditionally. He knows what he wants and goes after it, often at great risk. And - oh joy of joys - he has only one hand. Not ot mention that he is sexy, understanding, inventive, and good in bed. Not to mention that he is an outsider, unique even in his own culture. Was Bujold tapping into my subconscious for this gem?

The only flaw I could think of in him is that he has rather short hair. But the book sets up a situation where he could grow it longer.

Now, I had certain expectations through the first third of the book. An enemy entity is set up - no need to go into details here, though I thought of the creature, the malice, as an alien soul-eater. There are several hints in the first section, when Dag is hunting the malice and its creepy minions are hunting Fawn, that led me to think certain things were going to happen in the second part of the book. Lines about the worse case scenarios with the malice made me expect that these scenarios would come to pass.

And none of them did. Instead of being a story about defeating the malice, it turns out to be a story about relationships: how people treat each other. I would say it is primarily a romance, except that it has none of the genre romance plot, no misundestandings between the lovers, so real obstacle to their love. The last third seems to be a bit of a paeon to marriage, as Dag sets out to win Fawn's family over to acceptance of him as her husband, and to reconcile her to her family, from which she had been estranged.

There are some great character scenes, such as Dag's humiliation of Fawn's nasty ex-lover, and the conversations with her best relative, Aunt Nettie. I think the relationship I enjoyed most was that between Dag and Fawn's father, a suspicous old farmer - well, not old, he's 53, actually almost the same age as Dag. And me. Not old at all.

There were a few places I wanted to learn more. I wanted more of the Lakewalker culture, and less of the Farmer culture. I wanted to know why Fawn's twin brothers Reed and Rush were so nasty to Dag (whom they considered evil) and so ready to destroy Fawn's life through violent means.

There's a lot left for my curiosity in the second book - where I would hope we will meet Dag's family, and have more about the Lakewalkers? It looks as if Dag is making a sort of transition from being a Patroller to being a Maker - that's intriguing even if we hear no more about the malice.

Other questions may remain unanswered. Is this an anarchic society, without government?

I cried over the scene with the glass bowl.