Beguilement

I cry foul! I thought Bujold wrote sophisticated fantasies in interesting worlds (Hugo winner? Hello? ), but this one is strictly pedestrian, and I don't mean in an alternative transportation, heart-healthy way.

We follow a pregnant farm girl who has left home with the half-formed intention of seeking a new life in the city, when she's captured by a 'malice' (really??), a sinister force that is converting animals and people into frightening biddable mud-men (David Edding's snake powered mud-men, anyone?) for Evil Purposes. Thankfully, a member of the Native American Lakewalker tribe patrol is on the track of said mud-men and the malice. He saves her, they take refuge, she's stolen again when he leaves (!), they kill the malice together show more and then fall in love in a farmhouse interlude. (Believe me, I'm spoiling nothing, as this takes place in the first 60 pages and is utterly predictable).

The rest of the story is about discovering their love and commitment Against Outside Forces, to the Dismay of their Families. (Ah, the timelessness of [b:Romeo and Juliet|18135|Romeo and Juliet|William Shakespeare|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327872146s/18135.jpg|3349450]). The fantasy world setting and the Evil Forces are forgotten as we zero in on their burgeoning relationship. In fact, it's a vaguely creepy, as it takes place between a worldly, widowed 55 year-old man and a naive 18 year-old farm girl, and of course involves teaching her about The Joys of Sex, titillating any eleven-year olds reading. But don't worry about the age difference--his people are long-lived (calling Edward...). The one positive--he's differently abled, as he has only one hand. Oh, and he's tall and thin; she's short and round (forgive me, oh Librarian, but I heard "jack sprat" echo in the background once I heard their descriptions).

Normally, I wouldn't even rate a book like this, except it was so dismally envisioned and written that I can only surmise an evil Doppelganger has taken Bujold's place and is endeavoring to destroy her reputation. As a public service I'm sharing my thoughts, in hopes of steering you towards--oh, I don't know. Go pick something from your TBR pile.

If you are truly in the mood for some fantasy-world, naive-female romance, skip this and read a more original fantasy version, [b:Winds of Fate|13995|Winds of Fate (Valdemar Mage Winds, #1)|Mercedes Lackey|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348306174s/13995.jpg|1040567]. At least the characters are more sophisticated in their development, and the world-building deeper, and better integrated. show less

Cool worldbuilding, great plot, but there is no reason they have to be 18 and 55! If you are wondering where you want to be father father figure or her lover (question the male protag literally asks himself!), she's too young dude.

Summary: Fawn Bluefield grew up hearing tales of the Lakewalkers: They can do magic. They have no homes but forever roam the countryside. They are dangerous for farmers to be near. But as she is fleeing her tiny village - where she is unappreciated, unwanted, and now saddled with an unintended pregnancy - to find work in the big city, she chances to spy on a group of Lakewalkers that don't seem quite as bad as she's always been told. Shortly thereafter, Fawn is kidnapped from the road by bandits, and is rescued a one-handed Lakewalker, but not before they are inextricably linked by a chance accident. As Fawn learns from Dag, the Lakewalkers are not evil, but have dedicated their lives - and deaths - to fighting evil soulless creatures show more known as malices, thus keeping the land safe for ordinary, if unappreciative, farmer folk. They do have some abilities that many people would call magic, but their most potent power is their least understood: the sharing knifes that they all carry, knifes made of human bone and enchanted by a human death -- and it is with one of these knifes that Fawn and Dag's fates are now permanently bound.

Review: Lois McMaster Bujold can do no wrong, it seems. I started out reading her Chalion books, which are high fantasy, and then took a detour into her Vorkosigan Saga, which are space opera, and now thought I'd come back around to her fantasy novels. But I was less than halfway through this one before I realized that it's not exactly fantasy so much as romance, just dressed up in the trappings of light fantasy. It's a lot more light-hearted than anything else I've read by Bujold, for sure, although that's not to say that it doesn't have some very dark elements in places. What's more, it's a startlingly good romance: Fawn and Dag are both so likable and well-drawn, and their interactions so endearing, that I barely minded that the fantasy elements of the plot are on the back-burner for most of the novel.

(I may have minded more if I didn't have the other three novels in the series close to hand. There are a LOT of plot threads that are left loose at the end of this book, which is fine when I know they'll be picked back up in the next one, but would have annoyed the holy hell out of me if I'd have had to wait for the sequels to be published.)

The fantasy elements of the book are intriguing, and - true to form for Bujold - impressively original. Well, okay, the concept of the sharing knife, and the other mechanics of the worldbuilding are unique and fascinating; Dag himself is basically a one-armed clone of Aragorn. (Older than he looks, travels a lot, excellent fighter/woodsman, one of a dwindling race that was around before the common man, unappreciated guardian against the evils of the world, nobly flings himself into danger, carrying a number of scars both physical and mental, etc.) But the fact that neither Dag nor Fawn strays particularly far from their archetype never bothered me. They're both written with such vivacity and wit and spark that I enjoyed spending time in their story and in their world, and will certainly be diving into the sequels... not least because I'm dying to know what's going on with that knife! 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I thought it was great, and I think it's worth a try for anyone who is looking for a light read with a solid love story, and doesn't mind the fantasy trappings (or, alternately, anyone who's looking for an interesting fantasy world and doesn't mind a serious dose of romance). show less

This is Lois McMaster Bujold's take on epic fantasy but twisted in the Bujold way. Fawn Bluefield is a young Farmer girl who has run away from home and taking an unplanned pregnancy with her. She's looking for a new start in a place where she is valued and isn't made to feel stupid.

Dag Redwing Hickory is a Patroller, a Lakewalker, who spends his life looking for the Malices who randomly pop up and who, if left unchecked, can totally destroy the world.

Their first encounter has Fawn hiding up and tree and Dag resting beneath it. She thinks she's hidden but her spark of life makes her very visible to him. Their next encounter is when she is kidnapped on the road by a bandit and a Mud Man and Dag rescues her. He takes her to a nearby show more abandoned farmplace where she can stay until he deals with the Malice. But then she is captured by Mud Men sent by the Malice and Dag is barely in time to rescue her.

In the course of the rescue, the Malice steals the groundsense from her baby and kills it and Fawn is the one who manages to insert Dag's sharing knife into the Malice killing it. Fawn has accidentally primed Dag's second knife which is a baffling circumstance that needs Lakewalkers with more knowledge to explain.

Dealing with her miscarriage and his injuries brings them close together. In fact they fall in love which is an unlikely and unwanted thing for a number of reasons. He's older and battered and battle scarred. She's young and naive but bright and full of life. But Lakewalkers and Farmers don't fall in love and they certainly don't marry. Farmers are generally suspicious of the mysterious Lakewalkers and Lakewalkers generally look down on the Farmers.

In this episode, Dag has to first convince his patrol of his decision to be with Fawn and he his given lots of reasons why this relationship won't work. Second, on their way to get some clarity about his newly primed knife, they need to stop at Fawn's home and convince her parents and brothers that getting married is a good idea.

This book is filled with fascinating characters and set in an intriguing world. Fawn is loved by her family but neither valued or listened to. It is surprising that she is as sane and well-grounded as she is after their loving abuse. Her relationship with the father of her child broke her tender heart. His callous cruelty could easily have destroyed a weaker girl. Dag is also a wonderful character who has magic and who has managed to survive horrible things including the loss of his wife and most of his patrol. He's been surviving and doing his duty for his people but it isn't until he meets Fawn that he really begins living again.

Luckily, this is the first of four books about Dag and Fawn. There is so much more for them to do and for them to learn about each other. show less

This is Bujold’s new fantasy, or the first half it anyway, and it’s well worth the wait. Fawn Bluefield, a young woman from a prosperous but not wealthy farm family, is two months pregnant, and fleeing the disgrace, and even worse the embarrassment, of having her condition discovered while her lover marries the only daughter of a much wealthier neighboring farm family. Traveling on foot to Glassforge, a large town several days away, where she can be anonymous and find work, she has a near encounter with a group of the somewhat mysterious Lakewalkers, who patrol the settled farm areas and the wilderness around them. Not long afterward, she has a much more dangerous encounter, with “bandits” who turn out to be the agents of what show more farmers call a blight bogle and Lakewakers call a malice. The Lakewalker patrol Fawn saw earlier was malice-hunting, and one of them, a one-handed man called Dag, rescues her from them, deposits her safely (he thinks) at an abandoned nearby farm, and returns to the hunt. Unfortunately, because she’s pregnant, the malice really wants Fawn, and its servants come back for her and drag her off to the malice. Dag, because of his previous detour on her behalf and his tracking of the escaped malice-servants, reaches the same spot not long after. In the ensuing fight, temporarily fully occupied with the malice’s servants and tools, he tosses Fawn his two bone knives, and that’s when things start to go really strange for both of them.

One of those knives was properly primed to kill a malice. The other one wasn’t; it was waiting to be primed, with Dag’s death. A Lakewalker would have known which was which, while Fawn didn’t even know that there should be a difference. She used one knife, with little apparent effect, and then the other, successfully. Afterwards, Dag finds that the unprimed knife is now primed—with the death of Fawn’s unborn child. And Fawn is suffering a miscarriage.

Fawn and Dag are now tied together by the puzzle of that knife. Fawn isn’t willing to go back to her family, and Dag believes it’s vital to take that knife, and Fawn, to more knowledgable heads among the Lakewalkers, to figure out what’s happened and what to do about it. After a few days at the nearby farm (whose owners return, now that the malice is dead) while Fawn recovers enough to travel, they go on to Glassforge, where Dag’s patrol will be gathering to regroup.

Over the next several weeks, Dag and Fawn, each very vulnerable in their separate ways, grow closer and closer—much to the dismay of both Lakewalkers and townsfolk (“farmers” to the Lakewalkers, who apply the term to all settled people) who notice. They also have a great deal to learn about each other, and each other’s culture; there’s ignorance and arrogance on both sides, lying between Lakewalkers and farmers. The farmers and townsfolk who know the malices/blight bogles are real acknowledge some debt to the Lakewalkers who hunt and kill them, but only to a point, and many don’t believe in them and suspect the Lakewalkers of necromancy and even cannibalism; the Lakewalkers, dependent on the settled people not only for a good part of their provisions but also for tools and equipment that simply can’t be manufactured by nomadic tent-dwellers, nevertheless regard the “farmers” as stupid, unimaginative, and largely useless when they’re not being a burden. The easy communication between Dag and Fawn doesn’t make their relationship with each other or their return to Fawn’s family any less complicated. It’s not really possible to say much about the second half of the book for someone who hasn’t read it yet. It’s superficially quite straightforward, and actually fairly complex.

And yes, this is the first half. Read it anyway.

Highly recommended. show less

This was a lovely fantasy romance by one of my new favorite authors. I wonder why people complain so much if there is a romance in a sci fi or fantasy novel? Are all the people complaining single and uninterested in love or do they just insist that people in fiction be unrealistically asexual? Anyway this book sucked me right in. This author has such a fluid clear style that I just love her stories and her people. The world building was great and I love the way there are no info dumps but the world is revealed a bit at a time. The characterizations are wonderful and the romance was very natural and sweet.

This is a beautifully told, character-driven fantasy. Bujold gets the heavy action out of the way early, and then gives us a leisurely opportunity to get to know our two protagonists and their world better. In many ways TSK:B is a departure from previous Bujold. There is little or no political maneuvering, for a start. And there is no villain to be unmasked and defeated. The humor is definitely subtler and perhaps less pervasive. Some readers have complained that the book isn't what they expected--that this is a romance being deceptively marketed as a fantasy. I had a good idea what the story would be like and the author pretty much delivered exactly what I was looking for. The characters are original and well drawn, sympathetic despite show more the unlikely aspects of their romance. The sex is surprisingly direct, more so than in other books I have read from this source, but tastefully done. Those who are looking for action driven fantasy may be disappointed, although I suspect that there will be plenty of action in the second book.

Reading TSK:B is a bit like going to a concert hall and listening to an orchestra play the first two movements of a symphony (an opening allegro, and then an extended slow second movement), and then everyone being told to come back in nine months for the second half of the concert. The only real complaint I can come up with about this book is that it's really only half a book. Despite the perils faces by our protagonists early in the story, one has a sense that the worst is yet to come--that before long there will be very difficult choices to be made and inevitably a call for personal sacrifice. show less