In which I get to use the word “vitalist” and call another reviewer an ass!
This was my first book by renowned sci fi/fantasy author Bujold. Beguilement, published in 2006, is the first of the four volumes of the Sharing Knife series. I listened to this one on audio, and I highly recommend that format for anyone so inclined. I think romantic fantasy works really well on audio, and the female narrator was very good.
Fawn Bluefield is a young farm girl in the magical world Bujold has created, fantasy North American lake country, whose technology and economy are preindustrial. Fawn is unwed, and pregnant, heading to the city of Glassforge to escape the condemnation of her family and create a new life with her child. Fawn is so tiny she is mistaken for a child, and she’s very young — barely 18, with a naivete appropriate to her youth and rural farm existence. Fawn is captured on the road by mud-men, truly horrifying amalgams of men and beasts, and rescued by Dag, a middle aged Lakewalker with one hand. Lakewalkers are magical people (in this vitalist tale, Lakewalkers influence and sense the “ground” of living things — kind of like the Force for Star Wars fan) who patrol the area for Malices, creatures who hatch and feed on the grounds of living things, getting stronger with each kill. Malices create Mud Men out of animals, which they control as through one mind. Lakewalkers are able to kill Malices using Sharing Knives, knives made of the bones of Lakewalkers and primed with a mortal blow by a Lakewalker death (containing a Lakewalker death, they force Malices to remember how to die). There are hints that this world is post-apocalyptic, but it was never clear to me what life was like before magic got out of control.
SPOILER FOLLOWS
SPOILER AHEAD
*
*
Fawn and Dag manage to kill the Malice, but Fawn’s unborn child is sacrificed in the process. When its ground goes into one of Dag’s knives, something Dag has never seen before, he decides they need to travel to Glassforge together to see his clan leader and get advice. Later, he takes her back to her farm.
*
*
END SPOILER
IT;s SAFE NOW, REALLY!!
All of the fantasy adventure is replaced about 1/3 of the way in with worldbuilding around a love story. Dag and Fawn are years apart in age and experience, not to mention height (shades of Lisa Kleypas, for sure), and, what’s more, as a farmer and a Lakewalker, their relationship has a built in barrier. Farmers tend to be suspicious of Lakewalker magic, unaware of the extent to which it protects them (they refer to malices as “blight bogles”, but think of them more as imaginary creatures than the real threats they are) while Lakewalkers, who are a tent-dwelling cross between hunter-gatherers and pastoral people, tend to be dismissive of the craft and skill farmers possess.
I would call this a domestic fantasy, as the elements of the world Bujold has created are revealed more in conversation and in doing every day tasks than in heroic battles. Although Fawn and Dag do a lot of explaining to each other, it never feels like an info dump, perhaps because the rituals, beliefs, histories and practices of farmers and Lakewalkers are so interesting, or because the characters are so likable. (If I have a quibble, it’s how hard it was to understand how ignorant these two groups could be of one another while basically living on top of each other.)
Dag is world weary, referring frequently to himself as an “old patroller”, who has lost not only his hand, but his family, in the ongoing battles with the Malices. For readers looking for a middle aged hero who is complex and deeply romantic, Dag is your man. He’s often physically underestimated by his foes (thanks in part to his disability), and very intelligent in a Columbo kind of way. He’s even tempered to a fault — and Fawn, being his perfect match, realizes quickly that there are a lot of strong emotions roiling beneath that calm exterior.
For her part, Fawn is spirited, emotional, and has a strong sense of right without being righteous. As a farmer, it’s very important to her to be productive, and she has to find unique ways to do that on the road with Dag. She’s more idealistic and hopeful than Dag, but she grows in the course of the book, too, becoming more thoughtful and more aware of the large forces that have shaped her life. She has been put down for most of her life by the people around her, and she needs Dag’s admiration and respect to see her own strengths and potential.
The romance between Dag and Fawn is absolutely beautiful, and if I were redoing my list of Top 9 Most Romantic Love scenes in Romance, I might just have to add the first sexual encounter between them. I was frankly stunned when the true extent of their age difference was revealed in the second half of the book, but it totally worked for me.
It’s very interesting to me, in reading reviews of Beguilement on fantasy and sci fi websites, how dismissive they are of the fantasy elements in this book. You know how in philosophy, when women write about emotions and mothering and love, it’s not considered “hard core philosophy”? And in history, if you’re not talking about political, economic or military history, it’s not (or wasn’t until 25 years ago) considered “real history”? Well, I now know that in fantasy, if the magic and worldbuilding is not built around weapons and warfare and political intrigue, some fantasy readers do not call it “real fantasy”.
It is true that this is not a stand alone book for anyone interested in the mystery of Fawn’s use of the sharing knife, or certainly not for anyone interested in the ultimate battle between the Lakewalkers and Malices. But the romance itself, while ending in a definite HEA, still has a lot of ground to cover, and leaves many obstacles in their path, similar in that sense to the end of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, and dissimilar to Sharon Shinn’s Mystic and Rider, in which the central romance arc ends.
I wanted to highlight a review that shows just how hard it is to review across genres (or perhaps how easy it is to be an ass):
“The next sentence will probably cause about half of you to groan in dismay and click to another review fast enough to cause a quantum fluctuation in your computer’s processor. Beguilement is a straight-up romance novel. … Though Bujold gives this new world a history with excellent dramatic potential for a suspenseful story at least as rewarding as her Hugo-Nebula coup Paladin of Souls, the only conflict in Beguilement is “Will they or won’t they?” Since it’s obvious they will, what’s the hook here? … is there any other genre on earth whose formula can be best described as a dull postponement of the inevitable? Are they gonna end up together at the end? Do bears…? You know….” (SFReviews.net)
As you well know, dear reader, it’s not “will they or won’t they?” but “how will they?” that provides very satisfying dramatic conflict for romance readers. It’s one thing for an SF reviewer to say he prefers other kinds of conflicts, but to pronounce romantic conflict dull tout court just because he finds it so? Please.
Maybe Dag using his mind to repair a beloved shattered bowl in a farm house, or controlling the ground of fireflies to create a magical nighttime ambience for his lover, doesn’t count for some people as fantasy.
It sure does for me. I’m already halfway through book 2!
That sex scene is absolutely in my top 10 regardless of genre. I’ve not continued with the series, although I’ve read almost everything else she’s written. I love Ms. Bujold’s work, & no sneering sff reviewers deter me. LOL
~Amanda
Excellent review! I really came close to buying this one a couple of days ago when I had some Borders bucks burning a hole in my pocket and after reading this review I really wish I had. Even if I did tell myself I need to finish Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series before starting any of her other series…
Can’t wait to hear what you think of the second book!
I am an unapologetic Bujold fan, and I adored the Sharing Knife series. Am always thrilled to find other readers who appreciate her work.
On the “real fantasy” note, I wonder if the fantasy world Bujold uses here is too “alien” for some traditional fantasy readers. I’ve not read that widely in the genre, but what I have emphasizes what I would call “high” fantasy with a European or LotR-like world construct.
You may already have read this online, but Bujold has said that the first two books as published were written originally as a single book. And she sees books 1 & 2, then 3 & 4, as smaller story arcs within the framework of the four book series.
Aww, I’m so glad you liked this one. I adore it, and especially that love scene.
I’ve heard quite a bit about this series but have always been put off by the fantasy aspect – I really want to read romance these days – although I did spend a good deal of time reading various fantasy books some time ago – the Magician series by Raymond E. Feist, the Belgariad by David Eddings and even LoTR.
This sounds like the romance isn’t sacrificed at all in the fantasy which means, for me, it won’t be all that different from reading say, a paranormal romance – there is a different world and the worldbuilding has to be done so the story makes sense, but at its heart, it is a story of two people and the journey they have to get their HEA.
I’ve been listening to Outlander on audio and I think I’ll put this one on my audio list for the future.
thanks for the recommendation Jessica!
PS – as for the sci-fi review you quoted – well, that’s just ridiculous. In a thriller, you know the bad guy is going to get caught, in a fantasy, you know the good guys are going to save the world (whatever world it is) and in a romance you know the h/h will end up together – as you said, it’s the how – I would add in ALL cases, it’s the HOW. I mean, srsly, would a fantasy reader devote hours and hours of time to a multi book series only for the world to blow up and the evil doers win in the end? I’d think they’d feel pretty betrayed – how blind to think that sci-fi/fantasy doesn’t have its own tropes. …you know the quote makes just as much sense (ie, none) if you insert tropes from other genres…
I actually liked books 3 & 4 best. It was almost as if the world opened up, instead of the tight focus on Dag and Fawn and their relationship. I think Bujold does casts of characters really well.
I enjoyed Books 1 & 2, but I’d have traded them for a new Vorkosigan book in a heartbeat. And I did feel Book 1 read like half a book. Hate that.
But by the end of the series, I wanted to read more about the world, and I wouldn’t have been disappointed if Bujold had announced she was writing Books 5 & 6 rather than more Miles (though CyroBurn – hooray!).
@ Kristen:
My sense is that is it very different from the V. series, which I haven’t read. But if you like romance, you will like it.
jmc wrote:
Yes, this is sort of what I was trying to say in my review. The fantasy elements are often very gentle, very personal, and very domestic. In LoTR, for example, they are violent, widescale, and public/political. I would guess the latter is more common.
jmc wrote:
This makes a lot of sense. Book 2 really feels more like the second half of a book. I can see why readers may have been annoyed at the separation, but it felt ok to me.
Kaetrin wrote:
Yes, I really do think romance is at the heart of this book, although it is written in a different way than I think paranormal romance authors often write it. That is, these two fall in lust and love, but there are other things going on . It is not page after page of lust think, and lots of drama and big misunderstadnings, which too often proliferate in paranormal romance. Also, if you compare it to, say JR Ward, the worldbuilding is much much richer.
Kaetrin wrote:
so that comment was even dumber than I originally thought. You are so right!
Marianne McA wrote:
I wonder if anyone who read the Vorkosigan first actually preferred the Sharing Knife? I am not a big fantasy reader (I think the Pullman and Harry Potter books are pretty much the only fantasy I have read as an adult) but I may just have to try this series.
I definitely think they’re worth a try – though of course not everyone likes them. It’s the only series I own in duplicate – one set of dead tree books, and the other on the Sony. (In the recent conversation about tall/short heroes on DA, someone called Miles: ‘The sexiest man who ought to be alive.’ He’s a fabulous protagonist.)
I don’t know about the Kindle (it doesn’t exist in the UK yet) but if you can order ebooks directly from Baen.com they cost about $5 for the omnibus collections – you usually get two books & a short story in each. (I’d start with Young Miles and read Cordelia’s Honor later, but purists would probably suggest you read them in order.) There are also really long excerpts – nine, ten chapters of each book, so you can see if the writing appeals before you buy.
I’d perhaps think of the two series as the town mouse and the country mouse – Miles has the more immediate appeal, but given time The Sharing Knife series has it’s own charms.
Also, you might enjoy her Chalion books.
This sounds gorgeous – I used to have a hatred of May/December books (in all their forms) but I’m finding myself strangely drawn to them lately. Also am a sucker for armless/ eyeless / other-less heroes.
I loved the Sharing Knife series, although I liked Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls better. One of the things that struck me about the series was how skillfully Bujold created a world that has layers upon layers of backstory, while the overall feeling of the books is simple, more like a folktale than a fairytale or high fantasy. Things are only simple on the surface. I hope Bujold does as she has indicated she might, and writes the story of (I’m trying to avoid spoilers) how the malices and the sharing-knives came to be. There’s enough hinted about that in the last three books to really intrigue me.
I do not think that reviewer has ever read a romance novel. The jerk.
I actually stopped reading this novel a little before I reached the halfway point, but strangely I still I want to read it. I was missing the romance elements, but obviously I stopped too soon.