The Sharing Knife Series
by Lois McMaster Bujold

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted August 14, 2024
Edits and Addendum on October 5

Beguilement / Legacy / Passage / Horizon / Knife Children

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A fantasy series from Bujold that is not connected to any of her other work. Four novels published one a year from 2006 to 2009, then a decade later a self-published short story collection. It is possible the publishers of the novels were not aware how many books there would be, since a blurb on the back of my paperback of Beguilement describes it as: "The first volume in an epic two-part fantasy…" There is an excerpt from the second book at the end (which I did not read), so I assume the paperback came out about the same time as the second appeared in hardcover. The first two were also issued in a book club omnibus, but as far as I can tell that did not happen with the others. It might mean that books three and four move on to different characters, but I won't know that till I get to them. As is my usual pattern, I have not sought out information, wanting to discover the story as Bujold intended, one step at a time.

I would describe Bujold as a very subtle writer, not prone to info-dumps, rather dropping in small bits of information sparingly, at her own pace. It might not be the pace the reader would prefer, but patience will be rewarded. I want to be sparing in what I reveal too. Some plot points need to be experienced as the story progresses, not ahead of time. So, I won't tell you what caused Fawn Bluefield to run away from home, other than to say she knew she made a mistake, and her family history convinced her she would get no sympathy from them, or anyone else in the community. She is on foot, traveling the road between her farm near West Blue, headed south toward the larger town of Glassforge. She stops at a well yard near Lumpton Market, to rest, obtain some food, and partake of the free water. A group of riders approach. The woman she had been speaking with implies she should hide, so Fawn goes to a nearby tree and climbs until she is sure she is hidden among the leaves. There are men and women in the group, and Fawn knows they are Lakewalkers, also called patrollers. One of the men comes over to lean against the tree and have a smoke, but Fawn is sure he is not aware of her. She is wrong, but how could she know of a Lakewalker's groundsense?

This world is comprised of the patrollers and the farmers, although the towns have other tradespeople. As I said above, details are sparing, but Dag, the patroller Fawn becomes entangled with, later tells her of his life, and some of the history of the land, at least as he had learned it. Previously, the world had been more advanced, with much larger cities, and technologies that were lost, which may have been created through sorcery. Then the blight came, but not much is known of it, mostly rumor. It may have been an alien entity, it may be demons from below. What farmers call blight bogles the patrollers know as malices. Their patrols are designed to hunt and kill malices. A patroller's groundsense might be something that evolved over time, in order to track a malice, since what a malice did was drain all life from the ground around it. All life; animal, vegetable, and mineral. Even rocks and soil lost their cohesion, dwindling to dust. If a land was cleared of malices, and kept clear, life could be restored. Dag could generally tell how long an area had been recuperating by observing plant and animal life. What connects Fawn and Dag is an encounter with a malice, but even before that, with a creature created by the malice, and of humans who were doing the malice's bidding.

Dag called Fawn "Little Spark," and later just Spark, due to how he first perceived her spirit, using his groundsense, while she hid in the tree near the well yard. Everything else he observed about her after that reinforced his positive opinion. She showed bravery in dealing with a malice, when even some patrollers might have frozen in fright. He sees her inquisitive mind, her insatiable need to understand, including the extra information she needed to understand if she was to make a life among the patrollers. That will not be easy, from either side of the equation. Both farmers and patrollers are human, but their cultures had developed separately, over a long period of time, to the point some might consider them different races, if not different species. Intermingling was not unknown, but it was generally discouraged. What patrollers could do some farmers considered magic, and there were other, less complimentary opinions of supposed patroller customs. I won't say I understand everything yet, but I am anxious to continue the journey. The details of groundsense, and most definitely the particulars of sharing knives, is still a bit vague. I won't even begin to unravel that yet, but there is sure to be more illuminating information in the second book.

Even when Bujold withholds information about things, whether that be the sharing knives, or other customs among Lakewalkers, she makes up for it in character development. Dag is one of the most sympathetic male characters I've read in a long time; brave, honest, loyal, respectful, while he could also be ruthless when the situation warranted. Maybe even more so than Aral or Miles Vorkosigan, or Penric kin Jurald. He is much older than Fawn, even older than he first thought, since she told him she was twenty, when she was only eighteen. So three times as old, even though he didn't look it. Unless killed by a malice, or dying in an accident in pursuit of malices, or felled by disease, Lakewalkers had a longer lifespan than farmers. But the differences in their ages, and the differences between their cultures, do not seem to be a barrier for them. This book ends with them married, and heading north to his home camp at Hickory Lake. He knows he will encounter just as much animosity toward the union from his people as Fawn had to endure from hers. I think they will overcome all the obstacles, but that does not mean the journey will always be pleasant.

Something else I want to say about Bujold's subtlety. She never shies away from the sexuality of her characters, of their thoughts and desires, but never in a graphic manner. Fawn was a naive and inexperienced girl. Not a virgin, but just barely. There is a scene about halfway in, the first time Fawn and Dag are intimate. It is not salacious or prurient, yet it is described in a way you know exactly what is happening. I have read several erotic stories over the years, but I don't think I have read anything as sexy as Fawn and Dag exploring each other's bodies. Their desire is palpable, and while at that point it was mostly hormones in action, by the end of the book we can sense their deep love, devotion, and respect for each other. Their relationship somewhat parallels that of Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan, two people from different worlds forced to cooperate to survive, and in so doing learning the depths of the other's soul. Dag's life doesn't parallel that of Miles Vorkosigan, except for the disabilities he has to endure and overcome. Those handicaps may have been what kept him from pursuing any other relationship after he became a widower some twenty years before. He lost his left forearm during a battle with a malice, the same fight that took the life of his first wife. Later, his right arm is broken during a fight with a thief. It might be hard to understand how Fawn broke down those barriers, even though it is easier to see the relationship from her perspective. Next month I will read Legacy, following Fawn and Dag on their journey to Hickory Lake. I am very much looking forward to it..

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Posted October 5, 2024
Legacy picks up almost immediately after the conclusion of Beguilement. I read somewhere that Bujold considers the series to be one novel. The story grew so long that she and the publisher decided to divide the first section into two parts, but she continued writing, the result again divided into two books. The way each ends and the next begins, and least for the two I've read so far, and the beginning of the third, it is clear the intent was for them to be one continuous narrative. Perhaps all were completed in draft form before the first was published, in a similar manner as Gene Wolfe did with Book of the New Sun, but that is just my speculation. As is Bujold's usual pattern, this is written in third-person, but the characters and their actions are described in such a way that each is distinctive, with internal dialogue informing us of their differences. The landscapes they travel through are equally easy to visualize.

It had been just two hours after their wedding that the couple stops to camp on their journey north. Dag tries to prepare Fawn for how their union will be received at Hickory Lake, which is just one encampment of his patroller group. They winter at another called Bearsford, plus there are patrollers in other regions. Farmers had heard tall tales about patrollers, and made up others, partly connected to the sharing knife traditions. I'm still not too clear on some aspects, but I do know the knives were fashioned from bones. Human bones. Their unusual properties came from being primed from the groundsense of the person from which the bone was taken, and reinforced by a 'maker,' a skilled artisan who fashioned the bone into a knife, and infused it with even more groundsense. I'm probably wrong, but the way I interpreted 'ground' is as the essence of a person, their spirit, as well as their blood, since the marrow of a bone is where the blood is produced. Think of it like the 'force' in Star Wars. Again, probably wrong, but that is my perception now. Farmers who did not know the full story, especially how a dying patroller gladly donated their bone to make a knife for someone else, thought patrollers were gruesome corpse eaters. Something else I won't mention reinforced that perception, even though it was wrong too.

This is a post-apocalyptic tale, which may or may not be set on a far future Earth. Lakewalkers got their name due to living on the shores of large lakes, which may be the Great Lakes in our world. I don't know if it was intentional, but Lakewalker culture is depicted similar to that of Native Americans, or other indigenous people. Family names are typically related to animals. Dag's family name is Redwing, so he is Dag Redwing Hickory, the latter identifying his patroller group. Their Hickory Lake camp did have a few permanent structures, such as patroller headquarters, and Stores, but every family lived in groups of tents, even if they called them cabins. The actions of patrollers on the hunt, and in fights against a malice, could be compared to those of Tolkien's Rangers. Dag suspects something his ancestors did led to the creation of malices, and to the downfall of their previous heights of civilization. In the past, his people would have been the lords, the farmers the peasants. Patrollers rebelled against the idea of being lords again, which led to the segregation of patrollers and farmers. Yet Dag also thinks that should be reversed, that both groups owed it to the future to cooperate. It was a farmer 'maker' who fashioned his prosthetic arm, and he had seen many other marvelous creations at Glassforge and other towns in the south. The main problem of getting other patrollers to agree to that is how farmers kept coming further north, clearing more land, which may have something to do with the more powerful malices they had seen recently.

"Absent gods!" is a frequently used exclamation, with others from the word 'blight.' "Blighted" or "blight it!" The former is a curse against ancient gods (if they ever existed), who seemingly abandoned the world to chaos. Blight is what happens to the land, people, plants, and animals when a malice appears, if it is not killed quickly. We see the results in this book, even though the malice is eventually killed, but it could have been quicker if farmers had more information, how to recognize early warning signs, whereas most farmers had thought such things mere fairy tales. Dag wants to correct that misperception, but he may not get the chance, since he is brought before a patroller council to answer for his defiance of customs in marrying a farmer girl. He knew there would be opposition to his marriage, and as he suspected, the charges brought against him came from his mother and brother. Dag loves Fawn. She is completely devoted to him, wishing to be accepted into his family. Neither will back down. Dag may get his wish of trying to teach farmers, and also learn from them, but instead of being banished from the group, he voluntarily walks away. Or rides, since he and Fawn are granted their horses and other personal property. He had walked the lakes before, gaining as much patroller knowledge as any man, but now he wants to walk the world, to see how much more he can learn.

One other thing about names. Dag may have walked away from his family and culture, but he abides by one tradition. A man took the name of his wife, so he is now Dag Bluefield. I'm not sure if Fawn thought that was such a good thing, due to the conflicts she had had with her parents and brothers. But as I said, she is devoted to Dag, and will accept what he thinks is proper. Fawn was naive in the beginning, ignorant of the world beyond her farm and the small village of West Blue. But she was intelligent and inquisitive. Her killing of the malice in the first book, saving Dag's life, was just the beginning of her maturation. When she later fell in love with him, she was determined to undersand Lakewalkers, to prove to them, Dag, and most of all to herself, that she was worthy of his love and devotion. Only a very few accepted her, mainly because of their respect for Dag. Not fully understanding 'groundsense' or sharing knives, her inate intuition still enabled her to save his life once again. If that wasn't enough to gain the council's trust, then blight those bastards. She knew her worth, and so did Dag, and that is enough for her. Their continued journey will probably face more obstacles and hardships, but I am sure of their worth too, and will gladly follow them on that trail. Volume Three is Passage, which I will get to soon.

 

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