Penric's Mission

Penric’s Mission is my favourite of these Penric novellas. Penric arrives in Cedonia with a message for General Arisaydia (I had to look up how to spell his name because, audiobook). Before Pen can deliver it, he is arrested and thrown into a bottle dungeon.
Meanwhile Arisaydia has been also arrested, albeit under rather different conditions to Pen, and Nikys, his widowed sister, tries to rescue him.

This is a gripping, high-stakes adventure with excellent character dynamics. I was initially surprised by how much time has passed between this book and Penric and the Shaman, but then really liked how this story fills in some of the gaps.

I would have listened this one twice if I hadn't had the next book waiting for me. (And then the show more audiobook was due back at the library, so I ended up buying the ebook.) show less

Penric's on a covert diplomatic mission when he's arrested and thrown in a hopeless prison. Of course he doesn't die (there's 6 more books) and this is the tale of how he got out and what happened then.
I enjoyed exploring Penric's healing talents more and as always learning about Desdemona 's prior lives. The gentle romance is heartening.

These Penric novels are getting very good. Bastard be praised. :)

We've seen Penric grow as a person and a cleric/sorcerer and now he has eleven years of Desdemona inside his flesh. I love how he's struck off on his own (for very persuasive reasons) doing spywork for a Duke.

So of course, it perfectly follows that this should be a tight and fun novella about magically healing a soldier's wounds and beginning a romance with the soldier's sister. I can see it! :) Plus it gets rather exciting but not for the whole romance thing. There's still some other kinds of action going on here. :)

For everyone not in the know, this takes place in the universe of Chalion by the wonderful Bujold, focusing delightfully on the life and inner life of a show more disciple of the Bastard God. He was unwilling at first, but it is really fascinating to read how a boy learns to make friends with twelve demons who've been skinwalking for over two hundred years in other disciples.

Flash forward a bit and Penric is fine in his own skin. He has a great working relationship with his demons (collectively called Desdemona) and dare I say it, a good friendship. Penric is also insanely powerful, but he generally keeps that to himself. He's rather a quirky and nerdy delight. His idiotic fumbling with women can only get better when the demon starts talking to her. :) I loved it.

No spoilers, but I had a great time! :) It doesn't necessarily need to be read with all the other Penric novellas, but I like a sense of progression. :)

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC! show less

Ah, lovely. More of Penric and Desdemona's relationship - it's been years (I think they say eleven years) they've been together, and their partnership is solid. Which is good, because this story throws them into some very new situations, and they're working at the thin edge of their combined abilities for a large part of it. Lots of uphill magic, for one - healing at a high level. The usual excellent description, dialog, and characterization - well, it is Bujold. Two new and interesting characters - I really want to see what happens with Nikys. Hopefully the next novella will be set much closer in time to this one than this is to Penric and the Shaman. There's a large episode in Penric's life that hasn't been written up, but is show more described here in, I think, sufficient detail - I don't need to know exactly his losses, the impact is clear without that. The events of this story may have helped, though. I do love the Penric stories. show less

Penric’s Mission by Lois McMaster Bujold is the third Penric novella that I’ve read, after Penric's Demon and Penric and the Shaman. I haven’t read any of the novels set in the same world. I mistakenly thought Penric’s Mission was chronologically third in the Penric series and then was very confused when it was set about ten years after the previous Penric novella I’d read. Turns out it was the third to be published, not the third chronologically. Whoops! Bujold’s non-chronological writing strikes again!

Aside from my confusion as to what number book I was reading, I mostly enjoyed Penric’s Mission. I didn’t love it, though, and it’s probably my least favourite Penric book so far. It felt like it was bridging two parts show more of Penric’s life, but without much knowledge of the earlier part, I suspect some of the significance was lost on me. Last time I encountered Penric, he was still new. Now, ten years later, not only does he better know what he’s doing, but he’s coming from a bunch of history unfamiliar to me. We get some reminiscences which do explain how Penric got to where he was at the start of the story, but they come later in the story. I felt like more context at the start would have been helpful (and maybe would have existed if I read a chronologically earlier book first).

Penric’s Mission follows Penric while he’s been instructed to recruit a general who had been corresponding with the duke Penric is currently working for. But as soon as Penric arrives in the city, he’s arrested and, it turns out, the general has been arrested too. The questions of who betrayed Penric and why are less pressing than his immediate survival. By the time we find out the answers, they don’t seem that relevant anymore. I didn’t feel there was a very satisfying answer to “why is any of this happening?” especially since we learned Penric’s motivations so late in the story.

None of which is to say I didn’t enjoy the book, just that it could have been more enjoyable. I still fully intend to keep reading Penric stories and I especially hope we can fill in some more of the ten years that got skipped between this novella and the last.

I actually don’t think this novella is a terrible place to start reading Penric, for all that I said above. A new reader coming to it wouldn’t have much less information than I did and is likely to be less frustrated by time jumps they know nothing about. The story does not rely on any prior knowledge to work as a stand-alone. The only reason I’d particularly suggest starting with the earlier books is because I liked them more, but otherwise I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Penric’s Mission to fans of fantasy who are looking for a shorter read.

4 / 5 stars

You can read more reviews on my blog. show less

This was written by Lois McMaster Bujold. To a great extent, this is all you need to know.

Penric and Desdemona are back - Penric is thirty now, and has been dispatched on a secret mission by the Duke of Adria. If everything went right, it wouldn't be much of a story - and things go wrong almost immediately. But how? And why?

In this story, we get more information about how demon magic works, the advantages, the perils and the pitfalls, and a few tantalising hints about what Penric and Desdemona have been doing in the years since [b:Penric and the Shaman|30365013|Penric and the Shaman (World of the Five Gods, #1.6)|Lois McMaster Bujold|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466762873s/30365013.jpg|50875790]. But really, as with all of show more Bujold's work, the characters make the story - they leap off the page (not literally: even Amazon hasn't managed that yet) and present themselves, three-dimensional and real.

The feeling I get from the Penric books is always a rather gentle amusement - I think this is greatly due to the relationship between Penric and Desdemona: somewhere between best friends, older sister/younger brother, and conjoined twins. The strong bond between them is the foundation for all of the novellas, and one has the feeling that if that endures - and it will - then they will get through anything. Together. Until finally, Desdemona has to go on alone - but only when she must.

These novellas don't put you through the emotional wringer, but they do provide an escape into an ever-more-detailed world with fascinating, complex characters.

The ending is rather sudden - however, I rather liked it. But I hope we will have another novella; although I'm perfectly capable of making up my own after I would prefer to read Bujold's.

And, reading this one, I realised that Desdemona sounds a lot like Lois McMaster Bujold herself. :-) show less

Penric and his resident demon Desdemona are on a mission to a neighboring country to make contact with a disaffected general and to convince him to come to Atria. Penric was chosen largely because he spoke Cedonian. He arrives in the country, is arrested and imprisoned almost before he regains his land legs, and manages to use magic to save himself when he is left to die. Meanwhile the general has been arrested, accused and treason, and blinded. His sister has been allowed to take him to her home where Penric appears. Penric again uses magic to save the general's vision and attempts to persuade him to come to Atria. Since the general never sent the letter asking for a place in Atria, he can't be convinced. There is some larger plot show more afoot.

Penric comes to admire the general's sister Nikys who is a sensible woman and close to her brother. The three agree to flee together with Penric still hoping to convince them to come to Atria. They are pursued by a man Penric knows as Velka who is an employee of one of the general's enemies. Velka also has soldiers and a sorcerer of the Bastard's Order.

I enjoyed Penric's current relationship with his demon. It was nice to see him some years after we first met him and now grown into a scholar and wise man. Bujold's prose is crisp, descriptive and filled with quotable lines. My only complaint is that the story ended on a cliffhanger which will leave me waiting for further adventures. show less