The Spirit Ring

This tale could be cast in the mold of "plucky girl hero saves the world" but with our young heroine's rage and willingness to bend the rules to get what she needs, it's a strangely strong story that quietly breaks many of the rules we quietly have about stories told about young heroes and women. Here is a heroine who doesn't feel guilt or uncertainty about her power and intelligence and rages against having to hide it, who gets angry, who doesn't follow the rules and this doesn't lead to downfall and repentance but rather to success. This is a quietly subversive story wrapped in a traditional fantasy mold. Sure, it's maybe not the epics and maybe isn't as full-package clever as her later works, but it's a surprising gem for its genre.

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors, and I’ve been hoarding her remaining books because I don’t really want to get to a point where I have no more new Bujold books to read. I succumbed to THE SPIRIT RING this week, though.

THE SPIRIT RING is a pretty straightfoward fantasy story set in Renaissance Italy. Fiametta’s life shatters when she and her mage/artisan father are caught up in the squabbles between two dukedoms, and now she has to find a way to free her town from the invading duke before he is able to use black magic (using her father) to cement his hold on it.

As always with Bujold, the characters have complex emotions and pretty much leap off the page. Fiametta is sad and very scared, but she’s also somewhat show more relieved by having to fend for herself, having constantly been judged as less capable because of her gender. She’s determined and stubborn, but realistic – she knows exactly how powerless she is as a multiracial woman without a protector. I liked that her story was told in a way that seemed historically accurate to the options that she would have in that time, but it did so without making Fiametta seem any less capable.

Fiametta’s father is another great character; he’s a true Renaissance man – master craftsman and amateur scientist (but with magic), flamboyant and selfish, definitely not the best father, but still very proud of his daughter. Every character in this book is just a person (another thing I love about all of Bujold’s work!), even the occupying “evil” duke and his black-magic using assistant are just people with their own hopes and dreams (albeit ones that are not good for the rest of society), and like most people, they’re usually pretty amiable when their life isn’t being affected directly.

Bujold is great at subtle romances – usually her characters just recognize a similar kind of competence in each other, and at some point realize that they should just join forces. THE SPIRIT RING does this, but with a healthy addition of Fiametta and Thur’s teenage hormones. Thur is fantastic, and his down to earth practicality matches Fiametta’s temperament very well. I’d love to read a book set a couple of decades later to see how they’ve grown together. show less

(Upon at least my third re-read) A very lesser-known Bujold, outside of all her series, but I just happen to really like it. I don't know why exactly, maybe it's a combination of a classic plot-shape with original McGuffins, maybe it's sweet characters and nasty villains doing things with horrid implications, maybe it's the geeking out over the metalwork - whatever it is, it's just a complete comfort read for me.

Yet another re-read of this work for me; I’ve owned the paperback edition for many years.

An alt-hist historical fantasy set in a version of Renaissance Italy where magic is real and licenced by the church. Very charming, and a pleasure to read, it’s a pity it remains a stand-alone although I see the European elements reappearing in the World of the Five Gods. In some ways it riffs off the Lord Darcy series, and in turn is riffed off by the Heirs of Alexandria series.

It is an early work so isn’t as polished as Bujold’s later forays into fantasy but it has a freshness that overcomes the rough edges. It helped that at the time Bujold was principally known for the Vorkosigan books so this was a new venture.

The new thing I picked up show more on was the description of the salt cellar - of course, it’s the Cellini Saliera, and the book’s Perseus is the Cellini Perseus. This is not surprising - the heroine’s father is loosely based on Cellini, albeit without the bisexuality.

Recommended. show less

Fun, Fast Read!: Fiametta Beneforte wants nothing more than to be a great mage like her father. Well, she would also like to be more beautiful and have the handsome Captain of the Guard Uri Ochs fall in love with her, but she really wants to be a master goldsmith/mage. Unfortunately, girls simply don't practice trades like men do and her father has never made her an official apprentice, though she does know quite a bit of metalworking. Her father just completed a beautiful engagement gift for the Duke of Montefoglia and Fiametta is thrilled to learn that she will be able to accompany her father to the feast where it will be presented. However, when Fiametta sees the Duke murdered by his soon to be son-in-law, Ferrante, her life suddenly show more changes. Prospero Beneforte, Fiametta's father, is able to get her out of the castillo and escape, but they are followed by some of Ferrante's soldiers and Prospero dies. Fiametta keeps heading to the border with her father's body, but she has no idea what she will do. Then she meets Thur Ochs, Uri's younger brother, and they contrive to return to Montefoglia and ask for Abbot Monreale's help. For, Ferrante is no ordinary soldier, he wears a spirit ring fashioned by the dark magic of Vitelli, where the spirit of his dead daughter resides and gives him power. Ferrante pursues Fiametta and steals Prospero's body to make a new, more powerful spirit ring. Fiametta is frantic to recover her father's body and have him buried in holy ground, but her face is well known in Montefoglia. So Thur goes in to the castillo as a spy to try and find out all the information that he can. There he finds much evil for, not only does the dark sorcerer Vitelli plan on making a spirit ring for Ferrante, but he plans on using Uri's spirit to make a ring for himself...The Spirit Ring is based in a quasi-medieval Italy with an interesting tangle of political and religious maneuvering among the duchies. I didn't like Fiametta at first because she is a spoiled brat, but she grew on me. I really enjoyed most of the secondary characters and Bujold's descriptions are, as always, superb. Bujold has a nice, smooth writing style and the plot was evenly paced, if a little predictable. This is a great book to give to young adults or first time readers of fantasy because there is little magic contained therein. A light, frothy, fun read! show less

Fantasy set in Renaissance Italy. When Fiametta attends a banquet with her father, a master mage and goldsmith, she witnesses a violent coup. She flees -- and meets Thur, a guardsmen’s younger brother, who is coming to Montefolgia for an apprenticeship.

This was published in 1992, when Bujold had already published half a dozen Vorkosigan books and won a few Hugos -- and I love her first, unarguably less-polished, novel -- so I wasn’t expecting this to feel so, well, rough by comparison. That said, bits of it still shine! The plot makes every detail count, the final confrontation is memorable and I liked the characters. And it was interesting to consider this as a precursor to Bujold’s World of the Five Gods.

(A thought: Bujold’s show more strength lies in writing women who have experience, rather than fiery-but-sheltered teenage girls.) show less

Lovely. I haven't read it in years (apparently, not since well before I was on LT - more than 10 years, at least), but it was quite familiar to me. Not details, but the general plot. Interesting setting - pre-unified Italy, broken up between dozens of competing and warring city-states - plus magic. Fiametta, the goldsmith/master mage's daughter, hasn't gotten a great deal of magic training but more than some people are comfortable with. When war comes and disrupts...well, everything...she and assorted allies come up with some creative fixes to deal with the invader and the mage who serves and drives him. As Fiametta points out near the end, it really takes the whole team to deal with all aspects of the problem, magical and physical. The show more romance is unusually sensible - it's a consideration, but unlike many such stories the action doesn't stop so the participants can wallow in the romance. A very rich, and clearly very memorable, story.
Very rich, as always - this is a many times reread. Joy and despair and solutions almost - almost - worse than the problems they solve. But both Uri and Beneforte get to choose, and all's well in the end. I'm not sure if I'm sorry this is an aquel (that is, a book without sequel or prequel) or not - I'd love to see more of these people, but any other story would detract from the magnificence of this one. Love it, will read this again I'm sure. show less