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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I'm a big Bujold McMaster fan like the first reviewer, but have had the opposite reaction about this series. I liked the first two novels, but found this one heavy going.
Essentially this book of the series has a riverboat theme, with in my opinion a slightly derivative flavor (cf. Huckleberry Finn etc.) - the plot vehicle is the boat moving downstream, and on the way the protagonists meet lots of varied characters of the kind you'd expect to meet in a book about rural America in riverboat days - good folks, suspicious folks, bandits, and so on. There are various relatively minor problems and then a major confrontation. Fen and Dag attract a number of followers as they pursue the difficult job of carving out a middle ground between wary farmers and itinerant patrollers who protect the world from the dangerous malices.
The big strength of the series is that it has a very well-developed concept: all matter has "ground" (essence) and malices are dangerous because they consume the ground of the living and make them into mindless slaves. Patrollers are expert in killing malices and have their own abilities in the manipulation of ground, and the hero Dag is worried that his strength in this area brings him dangerously close to what malices do.
This isn't just a plot artifice: the author is clearly interested in the theme, and the action halts from time to time as the characters debate the issues and speculate about exactly how 'groundwork' can and should be done. I'd assume that volume 4 (which is out, though currently more expensdive than the others) will bring the theme to a conclusion.
So the novel has a lot of the Bujold strengths - sympathetic characters with depth and variety, careful plot, and shades of ambiguity between good and evil. But it's fairly downbeat and slow. I'd read volume 1 first - if you get drawn into the theme, you'll enjoy the others too.
Essentially this book of the series has a riverboat theme, with in my opinion a slightly derivative flavor (cf. Huckleberry Finn etc.) - the plot vehicle is the boat moving downstream, and on the way the protagonists meet lots of varied characters of the kind you'd expect to meet in a book about rural America in riverboat days - good folks, suspicious folks, bandits, and so on. There are various relatively minor problems and then a major confrontation. Fen and Dag attract a number of followers as they pursue the difficult job of carving out a middle ground between wary farmers and itinerant patrollers who protect the world from the dangerous malices.
The big strength of the series is that it has a very well-developed concept: all matter has "ground" (essence) and malices are dangerous because they consume the ground of the living and make them into mindless slaves. Patrollers are expert in killing malices and have their own abilities in the manipulation of ground, and the hero Dag is worried that his strength in this area brings him dangerously close to what malices do.
This isn't just a plot artifice: the author is clearly interested in the theme, and the action halts from time to time as the characters debate the issues and speculate about exactly how 'groundwork' can and should be done. I'd assume that volume 4 (which is out, though currently more expensdive than the others) will bring the theme to a conclusion.
So the novel has a lot of the Bujold strengths - sympathetic characters with depth and variety, careful plot, and shades of ambiguity between good and evil. But it's fairly downbeat and slow. I'd read volume 1 first - if you get drawn into the theme, you'll enjoy the others too.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm a great fan of Bujold. Her writing is superb, her characters are interesting, rounded and beievable. A Bujold book usually has a plot that is sharp, witty, full of unexpected twists all driven by a rigid internal logic. Normally I can't put one of her books down. I keep them all as they all merit rereading. Not this one though.
I don't know what has got into her with this series. Still excellently written with engaging interesting characters. And a convincing world, and everything following its own internal logic. But this series is soooo long and drawn out. Having read the first three books I'm thinking that all of this would have fitted into the first half of one of her earlier Miles vokosigan and Chalion works. The plot crawls backwards and forwards at snails pace. Bujold has never been afraid of writing about romance but it usually results from the plot, rather than driving it. This time the romantic story seems to be driving the plot, and so far nothing much has happened in the first books that I couldnt have guessed from the first few chapters of volume 1.
I half suspect that her publisher suggested she drag a single book out into a series - after all, now the consumer has to pay for 4 books to find out what happens to these engaging and intersting characters.
Having said all of that, if this book had been written by anyone else I'd be very impressed by the standard of writing, the great characters and the totally belivable dialogue.
I don't know what has got into her with this series. Still excellently written with engaging interesting characters. And a convincing world, and everything following its own internal logic. But this series is soooo long and drawn out. Having read the first three books I'm thinking that all of this would have fitted into the first half of one of her earlier Miles vokosigan and Chalion works. The plot crawls backwards and forwards at snails pace. Bujold has never been afraid of writing about romance but it usually results from the plot, rather than driving it. This time the romantic story seems to be driving the plot, and so far nothing much has happened in the first books that I couldnt have guessed from the first few chapters of volume 1.
I half suspect that her publisher suggested she drag a single book out into a series - after all, now the consumer has to pay for 4 books to find out what happens to these engaging and intersting characters.
Having said all of that, if this book had been written by anyone else I'd be very impressed by the standard of writing, the great characters and the totally belivable dialogue.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I came to Bujold by way of Miles Vorkosigan, the science fiction series; well, science fiction with a hefty dose of space opera, humor, emotion and plain good storytelling. After finishing that series I went on with everything by Bujold that I could lay my hands on, and so far I have not been disappointed; well, only when I bought Miles novels that had been re-named, and I had read them already. That *was* a disappointment. But the Chalion stuff was great, even if totally different from Barrayar; and the Hallow Hunt was great, too. All five star stuff.
But. The first volume of the sharing knife series (Beguilement) was enjoyable; but I kind of lost interest, for a while. Maybe I overdosed. But I never bought the second one.
And then I read the third one (this one being reviewed, Passage) and it is great; five stars, again, so I will be buying part two, and at the moment I am re-reading part one.
Passage sees our heroes, Dag and Fawn, take a long river trip, as if floating down the Mississippi. Dag is developing his thoughts about his future, and his abilities at the same time. There are plenty of interesting people (Lakewalkers, farmers, boatmen/women) they meet on the way, and some serious evil, too. It is difficult to tell you more without giving the story away! But this is a master storyteller at her peak again, and apart from the twee cover it is a seriously enjoyable book. Recommended for Bujold fans. If you are new to Bujold, you might start somewhere else; say, the Curse of Chalion, or Shards of Honour. I'm sure you'll get to this one, too - not many people read Bujold and are not swept along!
But. The first volume of the sharing knife series (Beguilement) was enjoyable; but I kind of lost interest, for a while. Maybe I overdosed. But I never bought the second one.
And then I read the third one (this one being reviewed, Passage) and it is great; five stars, again, so I will be buying part two, and at the moment I am re-reading part one.
Passage sees our heroes, Dag and Fawn, take a long river trip, as if floating down the Mississippi. Dag is developing his thoughts about his future, and his abilities at the same time. There are plenty of interesting people (Lakewalkers, farmers, boatmen/women) they meet on the way, and some serious evil, too. It is difficult to tell you more without giving the story away! But this is a master storyteller at her peak again, and apart from the twee cover it is a seriously enjoyable book. Recommended for Bujold fans. If you are new to Bujold, you might start somewhere else; say, the Curse of Chalion, or Shards of Honour. I'm sure you'll get to this one, too - not many people read Bujold and are not swept along!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A marvellous four-decker novel
I'd endorse what reviewer Paul Durrant says in reviewing *Beguilement* on this site -- if you like *Beguilement* you'll certainly want to read the other three parts -- but while... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Dr J. C. Lennard
Light and forgettable but a pleasant read.
This avoids the awful soap opera of the previous book leaving us with a trip down a river.
There isn't a lot of plot, Dag is trying to teach people he meets about magic... Read more
There isn't a lot of plot, Dag is trying to teach people he meets about magic... Read more
Published 13 months ago by plot hound
Excellent 3rd book in the series
Plenty of twists and turns in the plot and lots more to come. As a third book in a series this is where the characters are getting even more fleshed out and three dimensional.
Published on 29 Jan 2009 by Beth Lewis
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