Archive for the ‘Lois McMaster Bujold’ Category
Penric and the Shaman (Penric and Desdemona #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold
published: Feb 2017
where I got it: received review copy from the publisher (thanks Subterranean Press!)
.
.
.
.
Four years after the events of Penric’s Demon, Pen has settled into an insulated life in Martensbridge. He’s grown in his maturity, and his relationship with Desdemona has somewhat settled down. They’ve gotten used to each other, and settled into how their life together will function on a day to day basis. While Pen’s passion project is copying Learned Ruchia’s volumes on sorcery and magic so that it can be distributed to the other Temples, there is still plenty about magic and demons that he, and even Desdemona, don’t know. There’s the magic that is taught in the schools and temples, magic education and knowledge that can be controlled. And then there’s the hedge magic, magic learned by accident and never written down only passed around orally. There’s this neat undercurrent in these novellas about official scholars who want only the magic they teach (and control) to be seen as “good” magic, and anything outside these scholarly and proscribed is considered dangerous to the safety of all.
If while reading Penric’s Demon, you had hoped for more explanation about how the magic system worked, and what exactly demons are, you’ll be pleased to know that there is a fascinating conversation near the beginning of Penric and the Shaman where Pen takes the opportunity to explain the difference (now that he understands it himself!) between magic that descends from gods and demons and hedge shamanic magic, which is believed to be taken up from the earth and mortal animals. Penric’s Demon is the shortest and most focused of the novellas in this series, and I appreciate that Bujold waited until a little later in the series to explain how everything works, rather than bog down the opening novella with it.
The Princess-Archdivine tasks Pen with travelling with Locator Oswyl to assist him with investigating a Shamanic murder. A less skilled writer could easily have taken this story down the road of standard police procedural starring two unlikely partners. Luckily, it was written by Bujold, so while yes, there is an investigation of sorts, and yes, Pen an Oswyl are absolute opposites and aren’t sure what to make of each other, there is nothing standard about this story and it doesn’t feel like a procedural. It feels more a ghost story, and a story about knowing how and when to let go, actually.
Penric’s Demon, by Lois McMaster Bujold
published in May 2016
where I got it: received ARC from the publisher (Thanks Subterranean Press!)
.
.
.
.
Everyone has heard of Lois McMaster Bujold. Creator of the beloved and long running Vorkosigan space opera series, and creator of the World of the Five Gods fantasy series, among other series and stand alones. I imagine she has multiple mantles in her house to display the myriad awards she has won during her long career.
.
When Subterranean Press sent me advanced reading copies of her new novellas that take place in her World of the Five Gods series, my first thought was how many additional novels will I have to read for these to make sense? New novels and stories in the Vorkosigan series make me nervous because I am so under read in that series that I miss more than half the jokes. So as more Penric novellas showed up on my doorstep, I got more and more nervous. But? The first one was scarecly 200 pages, and if I read 20 pages and nothing made sense, I could always put it down, right?
.
So, the good news is that I had nothing to worry about, because Penric’s Demon is a pleasure to read, and requires zero knowledge whatsoever of the world.
.
The better news is that there are now four novellas in this group (not exactly a series?), so if you like what you read in Penric’s Demon, there’s plenty more for you to enjoy.
.
Ok, I lied. You need to know a smidgen about the World of the Five Gods for Penric’s Demon to make sense. You need to know it’s a medieval secondary fantasy world with a feudal government and sorcerers receive formal educations to best use their powers. Also, there are five gods. There. That’s all you need to know to go into these novellas and enjoy yourself.
.
Penric, the son of a country baron of dwindling fortune, is nineteen and naive. On his way to his formal betrothal ceremony, he stops by the side of the road to help an ailing old woman. She doesn’t make it, and this is the end of Penric’s boring provincial life. She wasn’t just any old woman. Learned Ruchia of Martensbridge was a physician, high sorceress, and she was carrying an old demon. When she died, the demon had to go somewhere. It went into Penric.
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold
published in 2012
where I got it: Hugo Voter’s Packet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The umpteeth entry in her famous Vorkosigan saga, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance takes place very late in the Vorkisigan chronology, in fact, we only briefly meet the famous Miles Vorkosigan, and he’s semi-retired and chasing toddlers. Never read a Vorkosigan novel, or only read the first one? Have no fear, you really jump in (or back in) at this one. Bujold does her world building in my favorite way – through interactions between characters. Relatives and friends show up from time to time to let everyone know how things are going back home, which also lets the reader know about “back home”, and how it fits into the chronology. There’s no infodumping, just characters have an easy going and often inadvertenly funny conversation.
Right off the bat we meet Ivan Vorpatril, and his buddy Byerly Vorrutyer. These young men are effectively rich wastrels – extra heirs in a hierarchical militaristic society. They have wealthy parents, a title, and maybe some inheritance, but no one expects much from them because they’re so far down the line from the throne. Ivan spends his free time chasing women and promising his mother he’ll settle down one day, and Byerly uses his reputation as an idiot cad to his advantage in his career. It’s easy to think at first that these two playboys are exactly what they seem.
Ivan does a favor for Byerly, and ends up tied to a chair in a beautiful woman’s apartment, while the real kidnappers are breaking through the window. The beautiful woman, Tej, happens to be the on-the-run daughter of a deposed Major House of Jackson’s Whole, a planet on the other side of the wormhole.
In a last ditch effort to protect her from the local authorities, Ivan offers her instant entry into High Vor society, via becoming his wife (in name only of course, with a promise of a divorce once he’s seen her safely to her destination). A few hastily spoken sentences later, and poof: Tej is now Lady Vorpatril. She’s only know Ivan a few hours, but he seems earnest in that he’s just interested in helping her. And besides, if he tries anything (which he swears he won’t), Tej’s blue skinned companion will beat the shit out of him.
Cordelia’s Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold
published in 1999
where I got it: borrowed from a friend
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I don’t usually go for these ultra long series, I’m lazy and can’t be bothered to track down every single book and read them in a specific order. Ahh, but if the books can be read in nearly any order (Vlad Taltos, Discworld, Culture, I’m staring at you!), and if a friend offers to lend me the first few books in the internal chronology, how could I say no? Thus, my start of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series is begun.
Cordelia’s Honor is comprised of the short novels Shards of Honor, and Barrayar, which are the chronological beginning of McMaster Bujold’s famous Vorkosigan series. I read them as one long novel, and what better way to get introduced to the series’ titular character, Miles Vorkosigan, than to meet his parents first?
Cordelia Naismith is captain of a Betan scientific mission. She mostly keeps her crew focused on what they are doing and out of trouble. Attacked on a planet, she becomes the prisoner of Aral Vorkosigan, heir to a noble family on the planet Barrayar. Recently out of it’s “time of Isolation”, Barrayar is the complete opposite of Beta Colony. Where the Betans are known as an egalitarian society, Barrayar is steeped in male dominance. The Betans live lives of ease, with access to the best medical technology and mental health services, whereas on Barrayar women still die in childbirth and mental illness or physical ailments are seen as incurable and exploitable defects.
Aral Vorkosigan is Cordelia’s social opposite, but they believe in the same things – respect, dignity, honor, doing the right thing at all times. I can’t say there wasn’t any Stockholm Syndrome going on here, but when Cordelia is eventually able to return to her homeworld, she learns she’s changed too much to be welcomed home. One thing leads to another, and the only safe place for her is the path that continues her relationship with Aral Vorkosigan.
Cordelia’s Honor is incredibly dense. McMaster Bujold crams about 1200 pages of plot and characterization into a few hundred pages, showing us, through Cordelia’s eyes, the corrupted royal house of Barrayar, it’s bloodthirsty noble families, and Cordelia and Aral’s attempts at a normal life. She’s a foreigner, he’s the guardian to the young Emperor. The one thing they can never have is a normal life. McMaster Bujold is most definitely following that time honored philosophy of coming up with the worst possible things an author can do to their characters, and then doing it, again and again, in ever more tragic and horrific ways, keeping the reader turning pages and biting nails.
the Little Red Reviewer 
Recent Comments