The Sharing Knife: Passage...

[fajrdrako]

I finished reading The Sharing Knife, vol. 3. Passage today. This is the third of four volumes in "The Sharing Knife" series, set in a sort of low-tech post-holocaust America, a world that reminds me of the 17th century American frontier. The hero Dag is a Lakewalker, his wife Fawn is a Farmer - and the two groups of people live contrasting lifestyles. The Lakewalkers use their magical powers - or their superpowers, take your pick - to fight the Malice who threaten the world. The Farmers barely believe in the Malice.

Which, given the devastation that we've seen the Malice cause, I find a little hard to believe, but it's one of the premises of the novel and I can live with that.

Generally speaking, I like Bujold's science fiction more than her fantasy. Colonial America (especially rural colonial America) is not a setting that excites me. I have no interest - less than no interest - in the Malice, which is an amorphous bogeyman. But I love the characters in these books, and their personal story, and I thoroughly enjoyed this volume - in which the presence of the Malice is barely mentioned. I had thought the Malice would turn up towards the ending, as a climactic surprise. I was so pleased it didn't. The enemy in this book is human, and I loved it as such.

In this volume, Dag has left his people to make his own personal journey in an attempt to reconcile the Lakewalker and Farmer schism, at least enough to strengthen both groups in the ongoing battle against the Malice. They take a flatboat to follow the river to the sea - one can't help picturing the Mississippi - in the company of a young female captain who is in search of her missing betrothed and her father. Along with them comes Fawn's brother Whit, a runaway Lakewalker and his former partner, and assorted crew.

As they travel, Dag reveals more and more of Lakewalker's secret ways to the Farmers as he experiments with his own ground sense, healing Lakewalkers and Farmers both in his attempts to become both a healer and ultimately a knife-maker. That was the part I liked best by far; Dag's experiments in his craft, going further and further with it. And getting his own entourage of acolytes at the same time.

I thoroughly enjoyed the battle that becomes the climax of the book, and its aftermath as well. I hadn't previously been very interested in this making of the sharing knives, but the outcome of Dag's fight with Crane had me riveted.

Comments

[xinef.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading it last night. Loved it! I prefer LMB's SF to her fantasy, but do love this series. I need to re-read all 3 in order, again. Didn't re-read the first two before reading the most recent.

As far as I can recall my reactions to the first two, I'd give 10/10 to the first, 8/10 to the second and 9/10 to the third. I loved watching Dag learn more about his talents and develop them. The growing relationship between him and Fawn was also fun to "watch".

The battle surprised me, too, by not being with a Malice.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Loved it! I prefer LMB's SF to her fantasy, but do love this series.

Yes, that's how I felt. I like the characters so much.

I'd give 10/10 to the first, 8/10 to the second and 9/10 to the third.

That sounds about right.

So I wonder now what will happen in the fourth one - ?

[sraun]

I just loved the way she took a one-sentence molehill from book two and turned it into a mountain in book three!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I loved it that it followed up on my favourite themes.

[sraun]

I actually find the Farmer's disbelief fairly believable. What percentage of the Farmers (as opposed to the Lakewalkers) ever travel farther away from home than the nearest village? Of those, who go farther than the next village?

I vaguely recall a statistic that claimed the average person in medieval Europe never got more than 25 miles from his birthplace. With that kind of lack of travel, if the Lakewalkers are doing a good job of keeping Malices cleaned up in the southern areas (which they apparently mostly are), I can believe that Malices have achieved the state of mythological beastie. That's a big part of the world's problem at this time!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What percentage of the Farmers (as opposed to the Lakewalkers) ever travel farther away from home than the nearest village?

I don't know; do they not go to market, sharing stories and goods? It's Bujold's world so of course it's as she makes it, but it still does seem likely to me that that death on a scale as caused by the Malice would be well known among the population it affected.

I vaguely recall a statistic that claimed the average person in medieval Europe never got more than 25 miles from his birthplace.

Well, no one knows the numbers, but what is the 'average person'? Many people didn't travel at all; others travelled hundreds or thousands of miles on pilgrimmage or to go to war or for any number of reasons. The average Viking travelled a lot, for example. Moreover, people in Scandinavia knew what was happening in Rome or Jerusalem. Their information might not be up to date, but they got it.

I can believe that Malices have achieved the state of mythological beastie

Yes - the text does imply that there are fewer Malices, but those they find tend now to be more powerful.

[sraun]

I agree with the fewer, I disagree with the more powerful. I think the curve is flattening - of the total number found, there are more weaker and more stronger, and fewer in the middle.

I still feel sorry for the world come end-game - how do they know when they've killed the last Malice? Herself has said that they have a limited population, but the way they pop up is essentially random. The last few are probably going to be generations - even Lakewalker generations! - apart, so how do they keep the knowledge on finding them and killing them sufficiently ... present? - can't think of a better word - so that they can win.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Do you think the text will present a solution to this problem in the next book?

[sraun]

Yes and no. I think that Dag & Fawn are heading towards a solution to their current demographic problem. That should, in the long run, lead to institutionalizing some knowledge on watching for and defeating Malices, and getting it spread out among the Farmers.

One of the big end-game problems is sharing knives - how long will a sharing knife keep? How difficult will it be to keep the knowledge of how to make them alive? Will you get enough assisted-suicide volunteers to prime them if you know how to make them? How many is 'enough' to have on hand? This last ties in to geographical coverage and speed of transport. Given that they have carts, glass, and brick now - what is their speed of technological development likely to be over the next 200-400 years? I notice that they don't have gunpowder - are they likely to develop it?

One of the options that has - I think - been discussed elsewhere (on the LMB list, maybe?) is the development of other forms of sharing weapons. Could you make a sharing cross-bow bolt? That would help with the end-game - another problem there is that uniformity of education leads to a big jump in the early capabilities of a newly-born Malice. Including knowing that sharing knives exist, and some basics on how they work. This is going to lead to very paranoid Malices!

Herself has admitted that I have a valid set of concerns about killing the last Malices - and also that it's their problem, and she's not worrying about it!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

One of the big end-game problems is sharing knives - how long will a sharing knife keep? How difficult will it be to keep the knowledge of how to make them alive?

My current interpretation is that because with their current techniques the Malice problem does not really have a solution, is that something is going to happen to change the situation as it stands - that Malice might transform into something else, or turn out to be vulnerable to something besides sharing knives, or some such thing.

Could you make a sharing cross-bow bolt?

I can't think of any obvious reason why not.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Colonial America (especially rural colonial America) is not a setting that excites me.

It does me. I was entranced by Orson Scott Card's "Hatrack River" stuff until he totally dropped the dialect in the third book, and also started making horrible people out of his characters... and that was long before I found out how homophobic the man himself is. No, I like the Colonial America-era setting, yep.

I also thoroughly dislike boogie-men like the Malice, as you described it here. I think it's a total cop-out for a writer to try to work with something "so vast you cannot understand it!!!" Right. Give me human stories and human beings within them, and you already have something so vast that it is difficult to fully understand it.

Thanks for the comments on this book (which I guess is the one you were napping while reading, when I phoned you on Monday afternoon, eh?) -- I think I'll look it up.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like the Colonial America-era setting, yep.

I sometimes like Western setting. The only colonial setting I can think of that I liked was "Journey" - remember that, with Wolverine McAllister? And "The Last of the Mohicans" is one of my favourite movies, but that's as much due to the thighs of Daniel Day Lewis than the setting.

I also thoroughly dislike boogie-men like the Malice, as you described it here. I think it's a total cop-out for a writer to try to work with something "so vast you cannot understand it!!

I suspect the situation is that the Malice is a magical creation like a Gollum (not necessarily made deliberately, I'm thinking of something like a magical toxic spell) or a created demon (same difference) or an alien. Frankly I picture it like the alien of "Alien", which isn't exactly accurate for the book, except maybe metaphorically.

Anyway, I was glad the Malice didn't appear in this particular volume of the story. Dag's story is so much more interesting without it.

Give me human stories and human beings within them, and you already have something so vast that it is difficult to fully understand it.

Yes - and this particular encounter with baddies was most exciting and satisfying.

which I guess is the one you were napping while reading, when I phoned you on Monday afternoon, eh?

The very one!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I normally love Bujold greatly, both for SF and Fantasy, but I really find this series dull. Not *bad*, the people are likeable, the writing is good, but just totally uncompelling. To the point where I went from "buy in hardback" -- my default for Bujold -- to only reading the latest one because I needed to hide out from a heatwave for a few hours.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I normally love Bujold greatly, both for SF and Fantasy, but I really find this series dull.

I liked the first book for the romance and the third book for the plot, but I found the second book fairly dull and uninteresting. I like them better than the Chalion books so far, though it may not be fair to say, since I haven't yet read Paladin of Souls. To my mind, none of the fantasy has the oomph of her Vorkosigan stories, or the characters in them.