Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted November 12, 2023
Edits and addenda on December 12, 2023 & May 2, 2026

The Assassins of Thasalon / Knot of Shadows

When I originally reviewed these two stories they were only available as e-books, or in out of print Subterranean Press hardcovers, for which even used copies, if you can find them, are much higher when first published. A recent search for Assassins only came up with used copies from Amazon in France, with a price of several thousands of dollars. As happened with the first nine novellas, which were collected in omnibus volumes of three each from Baen Books, they have collected both of these in a new hardcover titled Penric's Intrigues, which will be released Tuesday, May 5, 2026. It can be ordered from either Bookshop or Amazon. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission.

Also, Assassins was the only one I reviewed on this page before, but I have moved Knot of Shadows here from Part 5 to conform to the new edition. There have been five other novellas published since, including one a little more than a week ago, so all of those have been reshuffled for Parts 5 and 6. Other than the rearrangement, my comments below have not been edited, but they may be in the future if I ever re-read them..

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Buy Assassins for Kindle from Amazon, or the new hardcover from Bookshop or Amazon through the links above. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission. Bookshop has started selling e-books again, for a different app than the first time, but have not yet added any of the Penric stories. That may change in the future.

Posted November 12, 2023
The only novel length story in this series (so far), The Assassins of Thasalon sees Penric traveling to Cedonia for the third time. The first was when he was working for a duke in Adria, tasked with recruiting General Adelis Arisaydia to defect and align with Adria. That didn't happen. Instead, Penric was able to help the general and his sister, Nikys, escape Cedonia and go to its neighber to the south, Orbas. Penric also stayed in Orbas, working through the Bastard's Temple in Vilnoc, and occasionally for Adelis's new superior, Duke Jurgo. The second time Pen traveled to Cedonia was to rescue Nikys' mother, held prisoner on the isle of Limnos. After that adventure, Pen and Nikys married, and they now have a daughter, with another child on the way.

Cedonia is still in political and military turmoil, with certain factions fearful of Adelis returning for revenge against those who had branded him a traitor. Others are anxious to get him to return to his old position, to right the wrongs corrupt officials had enabled. An assassin is sent south to kill Adelis, but luckily Pen is with him at the time and is able to fend off that attack, the assassin being the rider of an immature demon, hardly a match for Pen and Desdemona. That assassin was able to escape, but Pen suspected they would try again. They did, and Pen was able to capture her for interrogation. I won't go into what he learns from her, nor what she learns from him. Pen is able to maintain the fiction that Adelis is at his house recovering from the assassination attempt, then disguised as a book merchant Pen travels overland to Cedonia, while Adelis goes by boat, both headed for Thasalon. Pen had not yet been to Cedonia's capital city, although he came close twice, but it is necessary now to go into the belly of the beast and search for those who had directed the assassin.

Pen has another ally, a saint from another temple, whose task it will be to extract the demon from a rogue sorcerer, the one who had directed the assassin, and who had previously been involved in the deaths of at least three other rivals to the throne. Other allies are Tanar, the woman Adelis had courted before his departure from Cedonia, and her bodyguard Bosha, who had aided Pen and Nikys in the rescue of her mother. Tanar's mother, the Lady Xarre, is the head of a vast shipping empire, so her wealth and connections are also central to the endeavor. Even though a novel, this isn't that long, about twice the length of the average for the novellas. Bujold wastes no words here, no filler, everything propels the plot, revealing all the details Pen faces that must be overcome. He again impresses most of those he encounters, or in some cases baffles his adversaries. The rogue sorcerer's demon is also no match for Desdemona, nor a match for the saint who extracts the demon. No way to know yet if things will be better in Cedonia, but Adelis gets his old position back, a new coalition forms of the surviving regents, and Tanar gets her long awaited wish, marriage to Adelis. Not looking ahead to the next story yet, I only know this one ends with Pen returning to Vilnoc, where Nikys awaits, and their second child awaits its birth. With the aid of Desdemona's special Sight, Pen knows it is a boy, and that it is healthy..

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Buy Knot for Kindle from Amazon, or the new compilation through links above. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission.

Posted December 12, 2023
It has been over two years since the publication of Knot of Shadows. This is as good a tale as all the rest, but I hope it is not the last. [EDIT: It's not; see below.] There have been several characters who have recurred after their first appearance. This time it is Alixtra, who was featured in Assassins of Thasalon, but I did not mention her by name. She was the Cedonian assassin who attempted to kill Adelis, twice, but both times was thwarted by Penric. When the saint attempted to extract her demon, the White God, the Bastard, instead said she was to keep the demon and channel its powers for good. Penric took her under his wing, teaching her how to control the demon, how to use its Sight. She is an acolyte now, serving in the Bastard's temple in Vilnoc, occasionally helping Penric, as she does for his latest case.

In the beginning I thought this would be too similar to an earlier story, Masquerade in Lodi, which saw Penric dealing with a man fished out of the sea, possessed by a demon which had previously been in a dolphin. Word comes from the Mother's temple of a strange case; a man, apparently drowned, pronounced dead, who later comes back to life, or at least his body is reanimated in some way. This time it is not a demon, but a ghost, which Penric suspects was the result of demonic magic. That is when a mortal person calls upon a demon to kill someone else, offering up their soul to the gods in exchange for the sundered soul of the person they want dead. It is not a very common practice since the mechanics of the spell are not well known, just stories handed down through the generations. Certain objects need to be used, certain incantations spoken, but most times the process is not successful. It is so uncommon that Penric recalls receiving just minimal instruction on it while in seminary, never to be thought of again. Until now.

I was a little confused about the process myself. The person casting the spell gives up their soul, but in this case another soul comes into their body, from a person who had died at approximately the same time, and in close proximity. I'm not positive, but I assume the drowned man received the soul of someone else who died near him, or else the soul in his body was from the one who cast the spell. Once Pen realized what had happened, he needed to find the body of the soul that had entered the spell-caster, in order to assure that soul was not sundered, meaning not received into the care of one of the gods. Alixtra doesn't have a prominent role, but it is clear she is a quick learner, very eager to atone for her previous wrong-doings. She had been forced into her role of assassin because her superiors were holding her son for ransom. Once those responsible were dealt with and her son returned to her, she once again became the loving mother she had previously been. But still in possession of a demon.

This series was a spin-off from the three World of the Five Gods novels. Even if Bujold continues to write about Penric, which should show us how good a father he can be, she could also start another spin-off series focused on Alixtra, or maybe flashbacks to Desdemona and the ten women she had inhabited in the past. I would also welcome a Nikys-centric story. Only time will tell, but whatever Bujold chooses to write I will want to read it.

Related Links:
Go back to the start of the series with Penric & Desdemona, Part 1, the first three novellas
Continue with Part 2, novellas 4-6
Then Part 3, novellas 7-9
Part 5, three more novellas
Part 6, two novellas so far
A list of all my Bujold reviews

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