Lois McMaster Bujold - The Sharing Knife: Beguilement

It's rather exciting to discover a new-to-you author. Lois McMaster Bujold - never heard of her, but recommended by a few people on Reddit as "who to read after you finish all the Robin Hobb books". I really wanted to read her The Curse of Chalion series, but all I could find in the library was The Sharing Knife. So I read it, mainly just as a sample of her writing.

The Sharing Knife is one long novel split into 4 parts, of which I've only read one, so I can't comment on the full story. Her writing, however, is fantastic and really quite Hobb-esque. It's fantasy you can live in. I love her attention to trifling domestic details. That's what I call worldbuilding.

The tale takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, after the end of a once flourishing society of high magic and lords. It's unclear how this civilisation collapsed, but what's left are "malices", forces that suck out the life force or essence of living things. A race of magical humans called Lakewalkers patrol the land and kill malices using the titular weapon. They live uneasily with the non-magical humans, called farmers, who have over the generations grown mistrustful of Lakewalkers.

The premise took a while to appear, and I'll admit I was impatient. The first third of the book was largely about throwing the 2 main characters, Fawn (farmer) and Dag (Lakewalker) together. Fawn gets mauled by a malice, Dag rescues her and nurses her back to health. Almost from the start the budding romance took centre stage, which was... not exciting.

It's not that I'm opposed to romance. For example I thought the sexual tension in Deanna Raybourne's Veronica Speedwell series drove the story forward without compromising on plottiness. In that case, Veronica and her paramour were well-matched in terms of abilities, if opposed in temperament and risk appetites. Which was good.

In Beguilement, Fawn literally starts fawning over Dag just 'cause he's tall and manly. Bleagh. It just took like 5 pages of her making heart-eyes at him for him to propose marriage. (?) I didn't find Dag very appealing either. He's just a typical hero, an honourable and caring sort who's good at killing bad guys. By the way, Fawn is 20 and Dag is 55, and the age gap is probably the most interesting thing about the couple.

I thought Bujold's portrayal of Fawn's dismissive farmer family was great. Petty cruelty among siblings, that kind of thing. I liked that Fawn was the runt of the family and became a stronger person after leaving the family home. That made me root for her. But don't marry the Lakewalker, ffs!!! Ah. Too late.

Anyway, I bought The Curse of Chalion on the strength of Bujold's writing. I don't think I'll continue with The Sharing Knife right now, but I might later on.