Legacy

[stoutfellow]

A few days ago, my copy of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife: Legacy arrived, and naturally enough I devoured it quickly. My initial reaction is one of provisional disappointment. I liked the story well enough, but it did not enthrall me as many of her previous books have; I felt no urge to immediately reread the book as I did with Mirror Dance, with Memory, with A Civil Campaign and The Curse of Chalion. My disappointment is only provisional, however. The book is, after all, the second of a projected four, and though it is intended to form a whole with the previous volume, still, there is enough up in the air that my opinion may be changed retroactively. More, including spoilers, under the jump.

The story is relatively slow-paced. There is one knot of action associated with the appearance of another, very dangerous, Malice, but the core of the story has to do with the reaction of the Lakewalkers to the marriage of Dag and Fawn, and there matters develop in a leisurely fashion. This pacing doesn't really bother me, but it's unusual in Bujold. Even where action per se is limited, in her earlier works, there is usually considerable psychological development. This is, by and large, lacking here. I'd really like to understand better what's going on in Dag's mind, but we don't see much of that. For example, I think I see why Dag responded so sharply to his mother's initial rebuff of Fawn, but other readers have interpreted it very differently, and I can only attribute that to vagueness - or, more charitably, ambiguity - in the text. (For the record, I saw his immediate withdrawal as a move of counterbluff. If his mother was bluffing, it was time to make that clear; and if she wasn't, well, it was long past time to make that clear. The breach had been a long time coming, but until Dag met Fawn he had no particular reason to force the issue.)

It looks as though one of the major problems to be explored in the remaining books will be the dangers posed by the alienation between the Farmers and the Lakewalkers, and I look forward to that. (I am unsatisfied by Dag's explanation of Fawn's knife, and I expect to learn more about that in this connection.) There are also fissures within Lakewalker society itself, which may not be explored until Fawn and Dag return from their current odyssey (as I expect they will, perhaps in the fourth book). And, of course, there's the question of the accuracy of Dag's understanding of history; there may be more to be learned about the catastrophe the mages brought about.

The description of scenery is one of the strengths of the book. As a Midwesterner-by-choice, I recognize much of what Bujold describes. (In fact, in some ways it is too familiar; I have to resist the temptation, viewing the map, to match it to current geography. Let's see, that could be the Ohio River, and that the Mississippi; the lake is too big and in the wrong place to be Lake Michigan, but the explosion Dag described could have reshaped the basin...) Dag and Fawn's trip south should be fertile territory for more of this.

Overall... well, it's not a bad book, but it doesn't seem to me that Bujold is breaking new ground, as she did, I think, in each of the Five Gods volumes to date. I'll reserve judgment for now, but I want more from the remaining volumes of this series.

Comments

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Surely Lake Ontario, not Michigan? It runs east-west, according to the map, & think Ohio, not Illinois?

I too am a bit disappointed with the pacing. Just seems a bit flat.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Dag's withdrawal as a counterbluff as a strategic choice - I saw it as a been there, done that, not going to put Fawn in that situation recognition of his mother's state. By Lakewalker rules, Fawn gets to run her tent; Dag set about implementing that.

Wouldn't the lakes be some of the smaller ones, of which I understand there are lots in the mid west?

Yes, I agree it was disappointing. But I have reread parts several times and most of it at least once. (Of course, I read the first 2.5 chapters a few times when that was all I had . . .)

[ejmam.livejournal.com]

I did see it as a call-your-bluff move, but I objected to his not briefing Fawn on the plan. Since he was half-expecting this, it would have been nice to let his wife know that he was expecting to make the break here, and what their other options were.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

My impression as well, although I've only read it the once, and I was even less engaged with TSK:II, to be frank. I would like to read a book set in my familiar environment, though. That must be nice.

[oilhistorian.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed this book more than the first. Guess that's the historian in me. I found the descriptions of Lakewalker society fascinating. But then that's what's always been the appeal of SF/F for me: alternate societies.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I wasn't impressed, either. She seems to be setting artificial limits for herself, to see if she can pull challenges off (at least that's the impression I get from the way she's been talking about these books). I wonder why.

At any rate, I don't think she's succeeding.

[filkferengi]

I liked them. Some people may be having so much trouble with them, because they were expecting a Miles-type book, with lots of stuff going boom, whereas these are more Ekaterin-type books, with detailed but seemingly slow development.

Remember the intersections in Trivial Pursuit, when all the questions are the same color? Reading Lois is kind of like that, good book [Italian], good book [Mexican], or good book [Chinese]. But then, I'm a thoroughgoing omnivore, whose credo is "Trust the writer"--especially when it's Lois.