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lightreads) wrote2006-11-13 02:13 pm
lightreads) wrote2006-11-13 02:13 pm
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The Sharing Knife: Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold
This is the first book of a duology, a fantasy/romance with the emphasis on the romance. Our couple consists of Fawn Bluefield – farmer girl, eighteen, pregnant, running away from home – and Dag Redwing – one-handed, widower, fiftyish, from the militaristic Lakewalker culture. Dag and his patrol are tracking a malice, an immortal life-leeching menace which can only be dispatched with a sharing knife (a nice little conceit that is not worth ruining). The malice captures Fawn for nefarious purposes – you see where this is going – and in the course of rescue and saving the world, Dag and Fawn are bound together by a bit of a magical accident.
Huh. That was . . . fine. Kinda weird, though. The summary above sounds like a whole book, but it’s barely the first seventy pages. The rest is unapologetic romance, the sort of stuff that is usually relegated to the last five pages of a fantasy book where the couple mutters to each other about how the folks back home really aren’t going to like this. And I don’t object to the romance. I like Dag and Fawn – though I really hope there’s an actual, you know, reason for such an unnecessarily large age difference, because he’s older than her father and it’s distractingly icky once or twice. Part of the point is, of course, the innocence/experience trope, and the wisdom and revitalization they give to each other, but seriously, he could have lost fifteen years just fine. And while we’re on the subject of things that through me out of the narrative, let’s talk about anachronisms – your barely literate farm girl should not be thinking in percentages. She gets the concept of half and half probability, I’m sure, but she does not know what fifty percent is. I’m just saying.
Anyway. Like I said, it’s really not the romance I object to, because I was the one shaking my head and muttering about how sketchy and unsatisfying the tiny pagespace given over to developing the romances was in her Chalion books. And I’m reserving judgment on the frankly weird shape of this book, considering it is the first volume of a duology.
It’s just that the last two hundred pages of the book felt more than a little candy-coated, and there is nothing more likely to bore me in a book. It’s not the pure domesticity I’m having a problem with, nor the fact that the single dangling magical plot thread is all but ignored for two-thirds of the book, because after they save the world the heroes really do go home to the folks and hang out in the kitchen a lot. We just don’t normally get to see it. And the next volume promises to address the plot. But there was just something sort of pat about the whole thing as they tended to each other’s old, quiet damages (and I genuinely like that sort of thing, too). I like both my romance and my fantasy to have a lot more rough edges to them, and romance/domesticity are not by definition candy-coated. This book had an awful lot of smooth edges, pregnancy out of wedlock and all. This sort of polished smooth structure worked very well in Curse of Chalion because the very ordained, this person fits into this slot in the story quality was part of the plot. But when you’re playing that out back home on the farm, it’s just, well . . . fine.
It’s a good book, certainly, with clever writing and a nice little cultural divide to explore. But I believe the intent was to loft a romance up there, arching over plot, rather than dangling it from underneath as an afterthought. And, well, I just didn’t make it all the way up there – I walked around carrying this book with me all weekend, rather than the other way around. I’m glad I borrowed and not bought, and I hope the second volume accomplishes a lot more for me.
Huh. That was . . . fine. Kinda weird, though. The summary above sounds like a whole book, but it’s barely the first seventy pages. The rest is unapologetic romance, the sort of stuff that is usually relegated to the last five pages of a fantasy book where the couple mutters to each other about how the folks back home really aren’t going to like this. And I don’t object to the romance. I like Dag and Fawn – though I really hope there’s an actual, you know, reason for such an unnecessarily large age difference, because he’s older than her father and it’s distractingly icky once or twice. Part of the point is, of course, the innocence/experience trope, and the wisdom and revitalization they give to each other, but seriously, he could have lost fifteen years just fine. And while we’re on the subject of things that through me out of the narrative, let’s talk about anachronisms – your barely literate farm girl should not be thinking in percentages. She gets the concept of half and half probability, I’m sure, but she does not know what fifty percent is. I’m just saying.
Anyway. Like I said, it’s really not the romance I object to, because I was the one shaking my head and muttering about how sketchy and unsatisfying the tiny pagespace given over to developing the romances was in her Chalion books. And I’m reserving judgment on the frankly weird shape of this book, considering it is the first volume of a duology.
It’s just that the last two hundred pages of the book felt more than a little candy-coated, and there is nothing more likely to bore me in a book. It’s not the pure domesticity I’m having a problem with, nor the fact that the single dangling magical plot thread is all but ignored for two-thirds of the book, because after they save the world the heroes really do go home to the folks and hang out in the kitchen a lot. We just don’t normally get to see it. And the next volume promises to address the plot. But there was just something sort of pat about the whole thing as they tended to each other’s old, quiet damages (and I genuinely like that sort of thing, too). I like both my romance and my fantasy to have a lot more rough edges to them, and romance/domesticity are not by definition candy-coated. This book had an awful lot of smooth edges, pregnancy out of wedlock and all. This sort of polished smooth structure worked very well in Curse of Chalion because the very ordained, this person fits into this slot in the story quality was part of the plot. But when you’re playing that out back home on the farm, it’s just, well . . . fine.
It’s a good book, certainly, with clever writing and a nice little cultural divide to explore. But I believe the intent was to loft a romance up there, arching over plot, rather than dangling it from underneath as an afterthought. And, well, I just didn’t make it all the way up there – I walked around carrying this book with me all weekend, rather than the other way around. I’m glad I borrowed and not bought, and I hope the second volume accomplishes a lot more for me.
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The SK resumes (and I've read others, not just yours) remind me too much of Harlequin romances published in the 50s.
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The romance bit in Chalion was well done, I
thought.
I was thinking of Hallowed Hunt, mostly, where the romance is so automatic and secondary that it really did nothing at all. Though for fairness I should say how much I adore Curse of Chalion, so I'm much more willing to take anything lying down there, so to speak.
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(One could think of Komarr and A Civil Campaign similarly, except that each of those books is full novel-length and can be read independently of the other. ACC was the first Bujold book I read, and I generally liked it, though I couldn't keep all the characters straight sometimes. I read Cordelia's Honor next, and ACC started making a lot more sense even though it's set 30 years later. Komarr felt like a full story; *of course* we know at the end that the Ekaterin/Miles romance will be developed more fully, but none of the other important plot points are left dangling.)
However, I found the story enchanting; the age diff was a bit squicky, but it is true that Lakewalkers age more slowly than Farmers. But I read it more as a romance than as SF.
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Agreed, on all points.
I don't really think Komarr/ACC is comparable in structure partly because, as you say, they're entirely independent stories. And part of my lack on engagement in the romance here was part of my general lack of engagement in some romance -- it was just too easy. I want to love two people separately before I love them together. Which is why I love Komarr/ACC so much -- the time and pagespace are there to make me start pulling for them as people and to be a couple. Where as with Dag and Fawn, we don't really get to know the important things about them until they are a them, so to speak.
Still, I do agree that the second book should cap it off nicely. I do trust her to carry this off decently well, at the very least.
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My reaction to Beguilement was pretty similar to yours. The fact that the action climax came so far before the romantic climax made the second seem, well, anticlimactic.
The age difference didn't bother me so much per se. I love mature heroes and find them very attractive, especially when the author shows us how the hero's experience and the ways he has been damaged have led to the person he is. But the fact that so much of Dag's appeal comes from his maturity undercut Fawn's strengths, IMO. When we first meet Fawn she seems independent and resourceful, if a bit naive. By the end of the book she is positively in Dag's shadow. I hope Fawn comes into her own in the next installment.
I liked Mari, especially where she talked about the "woman's path". Appreciated LMB for showing how the Lake Patrollers' long life span makes it practical for a woman to be both a warrior and a leader, without either forgoing or neglecting her children. A LP woman can take decades to raise her brood, then do the warrior thing.
The way Dag handled the village toughs was positively Milesian. Made me homesick for Miles. In fact, that was pretty much my reaction to the whole story. There was enough Bujold goodness to make me hungry for Miles, but not enough to satisfy me. So far I'm still willing to wait Lois out and trust she will make things right with the next book.
I missed the news that this is a duology. Was that on the jacket somewhere?
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By the end of the book she is positively in Dag's shadow.
That's a good point. I was mildly frustrated by the ways Dag seemed to solve her problems for her at home -- though I don't neglect the possibility that she will do something similar for him when he gets home.
I'm not sure what the jacket says -- I didn't scan it, as it's too graphical. My understanding is that the second volume is coming out next summer sometime. I assume it's about their trip to see his people, and that it resolves the knife issue somehow. Originally this was supposed to be one very large book, but I get the impression her publisher decided to split it. Personally, I think that I will believe after the second comes along that it was a bad idea. I do trust her to write something entertaining, though, but like you I'd just rather have a Miles book. Which we won't get for several years yet, but I'm a pateint girl sometimes.
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Yes. I expect we'll see a lot of reciprocity in the next book. We've seen how Dag is disabled in Fawn's world (though he functions a lot better than the farmers expect); next we'll witness Fawn's disability in his world, i.e. how her lack of groundsense makes it difficult for Fawn to function in the Lake Patroller community.
Although, given that Nattie has a trickle of groundsense, it's not impossible that Fawn will turn out to have a bit as well (runs in families?). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Dag's and Fawn's halfbreed children turn out to be the salvation of this milieu where the Patrollers' ranks are suffering from attrition but there seems to be an inexhaustable supply of malices to fight.
Roadworn. What a perfect word for Cazaril!
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farmers expect); next we'll witness Fawn's disability in his world, i.e. how her lack of groundsense makes it difficult for Fawn to function in the Lake
Patroller community.
Oh, I like that formulation of it, and it makes me wonder if she'll more directly address the internal strains of a relationship where one party has ground sense and the other does not -- we're getting a lapful of the external on everything, and it seems only fair.
The point about their potential children is particularly interesting in the light of the fact that there are apparently two more books after the sequel to this one -- another duology, I think. Though if it's even centered on Dag and Fawn/their family, I don't know. I also don't know why farms and lakewalkers don't interbreed -- why there seems to be a very specific lakewalker prohibition, that is. Simple insularism and pragmatism about the demands of their life, or . . . something else?
A romance with worldbuilding, indeed. Frustrating.
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Some of it may be simple racism. But I think some may also be practical conservation of resources. If groundsense is a necessary tool in hunting malices, and if there aren't enough Lake Patrollers to go around (as seems the case given the way Mari scolded Dag for not producing LP babies), then to raise half-LP children who would presumably have less groundsense could, well, doom the world.
Dag was able to use his groundsense to make up for his physical limitations when dealing with Fawn's family. His maturity and insight into human nature stood him in good stead as well; he was able to revise his approach to the Bluefields when he learned how their cultural expectations were different from his own.
I want to see whether Fawn will demonstrate any special strengths to balance her lack of groundsense when she's in the LP camp. She will be going in as a deaf person among the hearing, into a culture that prizes hearing highly (shades of Miles again). I'm hoping LMB will show us something other than determination and charm on Fawn's part when it's Fawn's turn to meet the inlaws.
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Options I just thought of:
* Fawn's going to get a lot of flack for being barely out of diapers, among Lakewalkers... (I suspect this may be her opportunity to shine.)
* It's being made very clear that Dag's not on the rebound, he's not going to go angsting over his first wife, he has had his old fling and he's not going to go doing stuff like that...
* Lakewalkers are elves, or at least occupy the same ecological niche. We have the classic elflord-human pairing.
* Dag's astounding performance with mending the bowl is not the Spunky Young Hero With Talent! It's the battered, seasoned guy figuring out a new trick that he's spent much of his life learning the discipline to achieve, though he didn't know it.
* Dag is old and canny enough to solve the problems Fawn has at home. (As opposed to Miles, who is young, brilliant, and a prodigy. Two Milesian heros might be a bit much.)
Some of those are meta-reasons, mind.
[I'm not bothered by the age gap, really, since... well, spouse is 17 years older than I was, and I met him when I was 17, and married at 19. 18-55... It's going to cause stutters, like as not, but they come from such different cultures, it's almost not going to be noticeable as an age stutter instead of a culture stutter.]
As a note, I rather did like the bit where Fawn doesn't have the matching groundsense; I don't think there are a lot of "mundane-mage" pairings that emphasize that sort of thing, in that sort of way.
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The age thing, it's funny, because it's honestly not the thing itself that bothers me. I actually have a pronounced age difference kink. It's that there was a specific thing made out of it in a very particular way, as if it was supposed to signify something . . . and then it didn't. Nothing. And I'm hoping it does signify something, because that's the kink, after all, the rough patches and the misunderstandings and the power differential that needs to be worked through. And so far . . . nope.
I will join my voice to the choir in saying this really should have been one volume.
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I think this is my main issue with it. I really didn't give a toss about the folksy farm stuff. 70 or so pages of that kind of thing left out, and whatever happens in part II might make a more faster-paced book. In one volume! It's not as if anyone else seems to have problems publishing 400-500-page fantasy monsters, and we can even point to the Kushiel books as examples of fantasy + romance that have done it successfully.
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