The Sharing Knife: Beguilement by Lois Mcmaster Bujold

Feeling cheated...


With Lois McMaster Bujold's stories, when you first begin, you never know exactly what the world you're entering is going to be or who the cast of characters truly are; however, there's always the certainty that that world and the characters will be well drawn, beautifully written, and warmly entertaining. I read The Sharing Knife: Beguilement in one sitting. However...

This book should not have been split where it was.

I can see why the publishers may have done so, to divide the books as a way to separate the farmer and Lakewalker worlds (I'm trying not to be cynical and think it's a way to get more money, instead), but it left me hanging, and not in a good way. I think Beguilement and Legacy (although I've not yet read the latter), would have done better as 1 book, perhaps delineated as Part I and Part II, or somesuch because, after the initial excitement and adventures, what is left in Beguilement is essentially the mundane world that our heroine Fawn left behind in the first place. We do learn more of Dag and Fawn, and it is true that no matter what horrible things are happening on a grand scale, life does go on (look at the world today). I imagine this is what the author wanted to show.

Unfortunately, while I might have been able to accept this within the context of the larger story, the larger story wasn't there. It vanished just when I was ready to leap to the next level, which would have been more of the grounding, blight bogles/malices, mud-men, etc. The pacing of the book slows dramatically, without something to pick up the intensity or the raison d’etre (the sharing legacy) that began the tale.

** MILD SPOILERS BELOW **

Fawn's family was disappointing (and from what I’ve read of reviews for Legacy, it looks like so will Dag’s family be). There was no clear understanding of why the Bluefields so undervalue Fawn, with the exception of the aunt, and why the brothers are such boors to their sister. Not every family is loving, naturally, but the extent to which the brothers, particularly the twins, react, it's almost deliberate and malicious, rather than unthinking. As for Stupid Sunny, ugh. I don't think he was properly punished; what would prevent him from seducing some other unsuspecting girl and then vilifying her? Indeed, why shouldn’t the family know that Stupid Sunny is telling people she’s a slut? At least four of his cronies already knows that he calls her such, and I find it difficult to believe that they wouldn’t share this information. Fawn and Dag are clearly bound together; what does it matter what Sunny says or thinks?

No doubt at some point down the road, the entire series II've read there are another 2 books after Legacy) will be bound into an anthology/omnibus, thus creating the whole of the story rather than a snippet of the tale that trails off unsatisfactorily.

** MILD SPOILERS ABOVE **

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