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Beguilement (The Sharing Knife, Book 1) Mass Market Paperback – September 27, 2011
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“Bujold builds a better fantasy romance with compelling characters and the fascinating clash between their cultures, she a farmer’s daughter, he an adventurer on the trail of a deadly demon.”—Locus
One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold has won numerous accolades and awards, including the Nebula and Locus Awards as well as the fantasy and science fiction genre’s most prestigious honor, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, four times (most recently for Paladin of Souls). With The Sharing Knife series, Bujold creates a brand new world fraught with peril, and spins an extraordinary romance between a young farm girl and the brave sorcerer-soldier entrusted with the defense of the land against a plague of vicious malevolent beings. Meet Fawn Bluefield and Dag Redwing Hickory in Beguilement, the first book in Bujold’s unforgettable four-volume fantasy saga, and witness the birth of their dangerous romance—a love threatened by prejudice and perilous magic, and by Dag’s sworn duty as Lakewalker patroller and necromancer.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Voyager
- Publication dateSeptember 27, 2011
- Dimensions1.06 x 4.24 x 6.76 inches
- ISBN-100061139076
- ISBN-13978-0061139079
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A quiet, beguiling and transcendent tale of love, mystery and magic...The main characters are...complex and beautifully written.” — Romantic Times BOOKclub
From the Back Cover
An epic fantasyof devotion, destiny, and perilous magic,from one of the mosthonored writers in the field—multiple Hugo Award-winning author Lois McMaster Bujold
Troubled young Fawn Bluefield seeks a life beyond her family’s farm. But on the way to the city, she encounters a patrol of Lakewalkers, nomadic soldier-sorcerers from the northern woodlands. Feared necromancers armed with mysterious knives made of human bone, they wage a secret on-going war against the scourge of the “malices,” immortal entities that draw the life out of their victims, enslaving human and animal alike. It is Dag—a Lakewalker patroller weighed down by past sorrows and present responsibilities—who must come to Fawn’s aid when she is taken captive by a malice. They prevail at a devastating cost—unexpectedly binding their fates together as they embark upon a remarkable journey into danger and delight, prejudice and partnership . . .and perhaps even love.
About the Author
One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold burst onto the scene in 1986 with Shards of Honor, the first of her tremendously popular Vorkosigan Saga novels. She has received numerous accolades and prizes, including two Nebula Awards for best novel (Falling Free and Paladin of Souls), four Hugo Awards for Best Novel (Paladin of Souls, The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance), as well as the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella The Mountains of Mourning. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. The mother of two, Bujold lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Voyager (September 27, 2011)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061139076
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061139079
- Item Weight : 6.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 1.06 x 4.24 x 6.76 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,108,634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,298 in Historical Fantasy (Books)
- #24,958 in Epic Fantasy (Books)
- #26,724 in Fantasy Romance (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
A science fiction legend, Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most highly regarded speculative fiction writers of all time. She has won three Nebula Awards and six Hugo Awards, four for best novel, which matches Robert A. Heinlein's record. Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan saga is a massively popular science fiction mainstay. The mother of two, Ms. Bujold lives in Minneapolis.
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There's so much to like about this book series that I feel bad mentioning anything negative about it, but I do have to say that despite everything, the romance between Dag and Fawn bugged me. I really dislike romances with a drastic age or power mismatch between the couple, and unfortunately we've got both of those here. Dag is much, *much* older than Fawn (about thirty years!), and due to his time as a Lakewalker patroller, he has much more experience and worldly knowledge than she does. (In fact, much of the first book is taken up with Dag patiently explaining things to a curious but ignorant Fawn; needless to say, this flow of information only goes one way.) Not only that, but the "groundsense" that he and all Lakewalkers possess gives him an additional power that Fawn does not have, and Fawn is given no powers or advantages to compensate for this. In fact, at one point in the second book, Dag rather condescendingly refers to Fawn as an "apprentice adult," to which my response is, Dag, if that's *really* what you think of her, then you shouldn't be going anywhere *near* her in a romantic sense until you can see her as a *full* adult. By the fourth book, Fawn has basically turned into Dag's appendage; she accompanies him uncomplainingly on his quest to learn how to be a medicine maker, puts up with scut chores in the medicine tent so that she can learn how to be Dag's hands, and spends a lot of time basically assisting Dag in doing whatever he's doing. Does she have *any* talents and wishes of her own that aren't related to helping Dag to be a good medicine maker? Well, it doesn't appear so. Oh, wait: no, she wants to settle down and have kids. Which, there's nothing *wrong* with that, but what *else* does she want to do as well? (I'll also point out that I did find it somewhat unrealistic that the Lakewalkers' mechanical medicine skills would be as highly developed as those of the farmers, given that they can do so much with their groundsense; perhaps that could have been one area in which Fawn was allowed to shine.) The characters are so well-drawn and their romance so concretely realized that it's not a huge deal, but it did keep irritating me at odd moments during the series.
Nevertheless, the series is so solidly written, so well-constructed, the world so well-developed, that despite the irritating features of the romance, I still have to give this book series five stars. I would really like to see more books written in this world and I hope Bujold returns to it in future.
Beguilement (The Sharing Knife #1) by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is basically a romance novel set on a pastoral planet with two cultures - Farmers, which includes townsfolk, who live a settled life, and Lakewalkers, a nomadic culture that patrols the world, protecting everyone from the mysterious, alien, and deadly blight bogles.
The story is told from the view of Fawn, a young lady of the farmers, running away from home, and from Dag, a seasoned Lakewalker, who rescues her from a dangerous situation related to the blight bogles.
The strength of this book is the characters, who have serious but relatable problems, and the sheer storytelling. Very enjoyable.
The two main characters are likable enough, though they lack some of the depth of the characters in the World of the Five Gods books. Fawn is a bit too innocent and wide eyed, and Dag wallows a bit too much in a tragedy that happened 18 years before.
Which brings me to the thing about their age gap. It was pushing the edge of my usual comfort level when I figured Fawn was 20 and Dag was maybe fortyish. I've known couples are more than a decade apart in age, and sometimes that works, so I was willing to go with it. I thought Bujold did a good job with the 15 or so year age gap in The Curse of Chalion, and she made the central romance feel real and plausible in spite of the difference.
When Dag's and Fawn's true ages were revealed, it wasn't just the characters' jaws that hit the ground, though. Even though Dag's people were revealed to age more slowly, it still felt off. Maybe this is because Fawn feels so doe-eyed and naive, even for her "barely-legal-by-modern-standards" age, and it's hard not to feel that their love is really just hero worship and her desire to get the heck out of her toxic family situation. The power and maturity differential is simply huge, and the power gap will widen because she will be leaving her people to go live with his. The fact that he is hulkingly tall and she is very petite, and doesn't even seem to have any hidden magical talent or anything to level the playing field accentuates this too.
Another thing that felt a bit off was Fawn's treatment by her family, most particularly her brothers. I get that the boys had been cruel when they were all little, presumably because she was the only girl, and kids gang up. But boys usually become more protective of their younger sisters (even overprotective) by the time they enter their teens. Especially WRT the twins, their cruel, aggressive behavior felt like it was coming from a place of genuine malice and scorn for her wishes, not a desire to protect her. It's like they wanted to keep her around as a punching bag or something, since no one seemed to value her except her great aunt. Her parents seemed to become nicer as the story progressed, but they were nothing to write home about either.
I will read the sequel, because I am curious about the world Bujold has created and hope more about its history and the nature of the magical menace will come out. For readers not bothered by huge age and power differential gaps (which can be a preferred trope in some romantic fiction), it may be worth a higher rating.