Review: The Sharing Knife - Beguilement

[jeriendhal]

It's Bujold, just go out and buy the damned thing, okay?
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Oh, all right.

After the wildly uneven Diplomatic Immunity and the murkily plotted and unappealing characters of Hallowed Hunt it's nice to see Lois get back on track for this novel, which is part one of a planned duology (actually the book was split in half for length reasons.)



Bluntly, TSK is a romance novel. On the female end of things we've got Fawn, a young woman on the run from an indifferent family, a not-boyfriend who managed to knock her up, and her own feelings of inadequacy, honed by years of ego-smashing courtesy of said family. Of all of Bujold's heroines, she perhaps closest to a naif we've ever seen, neither hyper-competant nor really special in any way, lacking Cordelia or Ista's experience, Quinn's cleverness, or even Fiametta's minor magical abilities.

On the male end we've got Dag, a Ranger Lakewalker, part of a semi-nomadic extended family that is sworn to hunt down Malices, a rather nasty form of beastie that sucks the life out of everything to the point of turning rocks into sand. He's yet another version of Bujold's interpetation of RAH's "competant man", as we've seen before in Aral Vorkosigan and Lupe dy Cazaril, experienced, clever and wounded (in spirit and body, having lost his wife and his left hand in an attack by a Malice's wolf army some years before.)

When the two bump into each other during a Lakewalker hunt of a suspected Malice, they end of saving each other's life a couple of times, and Fawn in particular is drawn into Lakewalker customs when she accidentally primes Dag's "Sharing Knife", the only weapon that can kill a Malice, with the life of her unborn child, which she loses to a miscarraige courtesy of the creature. Recovering from the mutual injuries, they're attracted to each other, with Fawn breaking throuh Dag's carefully maintained distance to companionship while she blossoms under the Lakewalkers' praise for helping defeat the Malice. After falling hopelessly in love with each other (like I said, it's a romance novel), then they have to face the real challenge of dealing with Fawn's family. Lakewalkers hold "Farmers" (anyone not a Lakewalker) in mild contempt, while the farmers view their protecters with suspicion, seeing them as necromancers (untrue, but the method of making a Sharing Knife is nasty enough to make the mistake). For a Lakewalker and a Farmer woman to marry will mean reconciling with Fawn's family, unpleasant as that may turn out to be.

While the plot of this first book is simple, lacking the political complexity of the Vorkosigan books or the deeply thought out religion of Chalion, Lois uses her well-honed world-building ability to create an appealing universe for the characters to inhabit. The Lakewalkers, with a vaguely psionic "Groundsense" ability (sort of a hyped-up empathy), mostly resemble Mercedes Lackey's Heralds, minus the damned white horses (and about 90% of the angst and idiocy). They're not perfect however, and even somewhat limited in their lifestyle compared to the farmers they protect. Fawn's family, once encountered again, proves to be appealing (well most of them) while simultaneously exasperating. If this was a Lackey book they would have probably been shown to irredeemably evil. As it is, they're complicated, neither perfect saints or devils, but mostly just flawed and human, and perhaps too set in their ways to handle a girl who dreams of a life beyond farming.

As for what is beyond farming and being married to a Lakewalker man... Well, we'll have to wait eight months for the next book to find that out. :)

Comments

[sraun]

I still don't believe it was her unborn child's life that charged the knife. I think there's an equal chance that it was the Malice's death itself that did it. I realize, I'm in a minority on this.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Oh thank heaven. I will be adding it to the pile.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

"After the wildly uneven Diplomatic Immunity and the murkily plotted and unappealing characters of Hallowed Hunt"

Okay, I'm peeking through my mostly closed eyelashes, so as not to read any spoilers. I have it on my kitchen table and can hardly wait.

I did have to comment on the above. Loved Diplomatic Immunity, but I was beginning to think that I was the only one who felt that way about HH! Glad to know I'm not totally alone in thinking so.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I'll have to re-read that part. Was the uncharged Sharing Knife still in the Malice when Fawn finally hit with the charged weapon? Remember, Mara declared the spirit in the new knife was "pure", which would seem to be practically the exact opposite of a Malice's nature.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Heh. Enjoy!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I probably should re-read HH just to give it another chance, but yes, for one of Lois' works, it wasn't really that good. DI had more of a chance, given we're already emotionally invested in Miles and his companions, but it really needed to be written from alternating Miles and Ekaterine viewpoints, especially for the last section of the book where Miles is mostly sick and unconcious throughout the action.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

"specially for the last section of the book where Miles is mostly sick and unconcious throughout the action."

Agreed. It would have been lovely to see Ekaterin dealing with the Cetagandans. Perhaps Lois has something up her sleeve...

Minority, but not the only one....

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

I am still undecided on what went into that knife. Dag is pretty sure it couldn't be the malice, and his knowledge should be the most extensive. But.. I'm not sure.

If the baby's ground went into the sharing knife, for me it would be like the Little Red Riding Hood coming up alive from the wolf's belly. The ground was consumed by the malice, I don't know if it could be separated from the malice so easily.

And the malice's ground could too be pure - malices, from what I gather, don't have personality, per se. No individuality, like shards of a broken glass. They just exist and do what their instincts lead them to. But then, it may be the lack of mercy that Fawn perceives that leads me to 'lack of emotions / personality'. Although, true, pure in an entirely different way from the way a baby's ground would be pure.

Yes, I think the knife was still in the malice when Fawn got the other one in.

[sraun]

Just got around to re-reading that part (for the third time).

Yes, the uncharged knife was still in the malice when the charged knife was stuck in.

We tend to view "pure" as synonymous with "innocent". If you view "innocent" as 'without knowledge of sin', that could describe a malice. Alternatively, if you view "pure" as 'of a whole, unalloyed', that could describe a malice too. (This is another argument I've already had.)

Just because everything a creature does is evil from our viewpoint does not mean that the creature is evil - it could be ignorant. It could be doing the right and proper thing by its own morals and ethics.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Or the creature could be nonintelligent enough to not have intent/mental capacity. Without the mental capacity for intent, there is no evil. Although there certainly are ill consequences that need to be addressed, such as the classic case of a rabid dog.

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

probably should re-read HH just to give it another chance

I did this earlier this year, and my grade for it went from C+ to a solid B. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me more over time. It's mostly in comparison to the A+ (all-time classic) of The Curse of Chalion and the A/A- of Paladin of Souls that it disappointed.

I still have some nontrivial plot objections to HH, in addition to my complaint that the main characters are the least interesting, but this isn't really the place for that discussion.

[bright-lilim.livejournal.com]

An interesting viewpoint that I haven't thought of. Thanks!

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

This is weird. What's up with LJ? This just appeared on my Fpage as if it were a new entry. It was okay, though, because I hadn't read TSK when I read your review. It was really well written, and I do agree with all you had to say about it. The Ranger idea occurred to me, as well, although the closest kin I saw were the Night's Watch of George R.R. Martin's series.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

But in that case, surely the Lakewalkers would have discovered this fact, and would be charging all their knives in such a manner? Or perhaps not - your theory is possible, but it strikes me as less likely, since the Lakewalkers had being doing their procedure for centuries.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

All totally seconded. Although PoS is a definite A for me too. :-)

[sraun]

Why would the Lakewalkers have discovered it? As Dag said, none of them would have made the mistake of using the uncharged knife - so, if you have to have both knives in the malice for this to happen, when would they have discovered it?