The Curse of Chalion (original 2001; edition 2002)

Bujold's gift is to write internally consistent fantasy with well-developed characters.
The religion of Chalion makes sense. The rules are established and never broken. It's possible to make intelligent plot predictions (without the story being given away) because the story gives you information (always worked into the plot and never info-dumped) as to what the rules are.
If I could write this well, I'd be a very happy woman! ( )

This is a book I can pick up over and over again. It never gets old...how did she do it? Reasons I love this series:

1. The religion has 5 deities: Daughter, Mother, Son, Father, and Bastard. The Bastard! How great is that? They each have their special areas of godliness but the Bastard is like the thumb, able to touch and balance all the others. In a way, the Bastard is the most powerful. Yeah! (Note: Me being tickled by there being a Bastard god does not mean I am a bastard*)

2. She writes so that I could nearly feel the relief of finding a place to belong, the wind blowing off mountain passes, the sudden absence of tension at a forced marriage being derailed by the death of a bad guy, the impact of a sword sliding into guts.

3. She is funny. If I tried to repeat it would not be funny. It would end up being one of those situations where I get the funny look and the 'I guess you had to be there' platitude. But she is very funny, in context.

4. The plot seemed to sprawl out in a tangle of threads but by the end wove together into a totally coherent...woven thingy. There is no argh-feeling of wtf. It all makes sense in the end.

The end rushed a bit. Climax, few loose ends, the end. But it was gentle and satisfying.


*Not that there's anything wrong with that, since I have friends who fit the formal definition of "bastard" and are excellent people. Mostly. :) ( )

A nice way to start off the new year--the first book I finished in 2008 turns out to be, I think, a perfect genre novel.

And it's not as easy to write one of those as you might think. You have to give your readers some of the conventions of the genre, because that's usually why they're reading it in the first place. You also have to make it seem fresh, not just a tired rehash of whatever came before.

This book has all the stuff you look for in a political-intrigue-type fantasy (princesses, dark magic, sinister courtiers, etc.) and takes it seriously unlike some of those lame Hey Look At Me Subverting The Conventions writers.

At the same time, it has characters that are more than just chess pieces (imagine, women that are strong but still believable within the society of the period!), and a plot that's kind of like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel--you just jump in and hold on and have faith that it's going to come out all right in the end. ( )

This was my first taste of Lois McMaster Bujold and I will definitely be back for me. While the magic was very understated and there were no fantastic creatures or races to mark this as a fantasy, nonetheless it was a fantastic tale of dynastic misfortunes, political machinations and self-sacrificial secretaries.

Cazaril was the embodiment of a humble intelligent man seeking respite from his wearing and near fatal travels. We meet him [b:on the road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21E8H3D1JSL._SL75_.jpg|3355573], walking back to Valendra, fondly remembered from his days there as a page. His hope is to be hired on as a lowly scullery, but fate or the gods, have much grander plans for Cazaril. The Provincara remembers him and assigns him to her granddaughter's household, Iselle.

Just as Cazaril is settling into his secretarial and stewardly dutes, the Roya Orico, rules of Chalion, bids Iselle and her brother, Teidez, his Heir, to attend him at his court in Cardegoss. They travel to the fortress Zangre, where they are wined and dined by the corrupt courtiers, especially the Chancellor dy Jiornal's son, Dondo. Eventually, much to the shock of Iselle, Orico forces a betrothal between Dondo and Iselle with a wedding to follow in just three days. Iselle rails against it, petitions heaven, fasts and determines she would rather die than wed the odious Dondo. Cazaril spends the last day before the wedding attempting to assisinate Dondo, but fails to get close enough. He decides instead to attempt death magic, which if successful, would result in the death of Dondo, but also of himself.

Since Cazaril awakens on the morning of the wedding, he assumes that his death magic has been unsuccessful. He returns to his rooms, where he remains due to an unexplained sickness which weakens him almost to insensibility. He is rudely awakened by the Chancellor, dragging the Roya Orico in his wake, and demanding to see Cazaril, whom he is convinced murdered his son by death magic. Since Cazaril is alive, he obviously couldn't have been the murdered. From this day forth, Cazaril can see strange auras around various people - a black clinging shadow to Orico, his wife Sara, Teidez and Iselle; a white aura around the menagarie keeper, Umgaut; a green order around a midwife of the Holy Mother's Order; and the foggy gray remnants of forgotten ghosts in the fortress.

After seeing the white aura around Umgaut, Cazaril discusses his predicament and learns that he has become a "saint" of the gods, specifically the Daughter and the Bastard. His illness is a tumor created by the Daughter, encapsulating the soul of Dondo and the demon the Bastard sent to retrieve Dondo's soul. It continues to grow, slowing, and every night Cazaril hears the screams of Dondo around the time when the death magic occurred, shortly before midnight.

In order to thwart the next move by the Chancellor to further squander Iselle's marriage prospects, she orders Cazaril to journey in secret to Ibra to propose a marriage contract with the Fox's heir, Borgan. She proposes that they be equals in each domain and that their heir shall inherit the empire of Chalion-Ibra. The journey is long and arduous, but Cazaril's wit, cleverness and intelligence wins him through. He negotiates the treaty and returns, again as secretly as possible, with Borgan to Valendra, hoping to outfox the Chancellor's spies and army.

Within a day's ride of Valendra, they encounter the army of the Chancellor, but also receive word that Iselle has escaped to her uncle's fortress nearby. Cazaril and Bergan arrive safely, and Iselle and Borgan are married a few days before Daughter's Day. Unfortunately, the curse of Chalion not only remains after the consummation of the marriage but has spread to Bergan. Cazaril is chagrined and distraught.

There is not much time to ponder this predicament before the Chancellor invades the Daughter's Day ceremonies with the intention of widowing Iselle. He is distracted when he sees Cazaril and proceeds to skewer him in revenge for his son. He succeeds only in piercing the tumor, releasing the demon, which takes not only Dondo's soul, but the Chancellor's as well. Cazaril's soul is also caught up in the vortex.

Just as he did when performing the death magic, Cazaril submits completely to the will of the gods, in this case the Daughter, allowing her to enter the world through his death and remove the curse of Chalion. In return, the Daughter return's Cazaril's soul to his body, allowing him to live again, having tied twice in the service of the gods and Chalion.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale and felt the morals of self-sacrifice, humility and submission were well thought and told. Cazaril's very human struggle, his doubts and his ultimate release of will reminded me of the saying "Let go and Let God" which is much harder to do than it sounds. ( )

I believe I read a comment from the author somewhere that this book was her exploration of various issues of religion. That sounds hideously dull to me, but it's actually a pretty fantastic story. Even the sort of throwaway answer to the perennial "why me?" whine is brilliant - basically, "Why do you think we just picked you? You're just the only one who managed to get this far." There was maybe one too many foreseeable coincidence, but it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the story. I'd definitely recommend this to fans of traditional fantasy. ( )