Wednesday, July 10, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Sharing Knife: Vol 2: Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold




Legacy is the second book in Lois McMaster Bujold's "Sharing Knife" series, which is her fantasy romance series.  It's actually the second half of what was meant to be a single book - with the first half being its predecessor "Beguilement" (Review Here).  Bujold is a much loved writer of the genre (I myself have read 21 novels and at least 6 novellas per last check of hers) and the first Sharing Knife book made it clear - unsurprisingly - that Bujold turning her talents to Romance was not going to result in any sort of letdown.

Legacy picks up right from where its predecessor left off - both in terms of series chronology and in terms of general excellence.  Bujold's characters and dialogue are always fantastic, and in the romantic couple of Fawn and Dag, she's Managed perhaps her best couple yet.  As the second half of what was once a longer book, this book deals with the couple's other family: Dag's mother and brother, as well as his greater community of Lakewalkers, who don't look too kindly upon Fawn as an outsider bride.  And it provides a satisfying ending as usual, while providing hooks for the next book (again split into two volumes) to come.

Note:  Like its predecessor (and nearly every Bujold work), I read this as an audiobook.  The reader is excellent and I do recommend the book in this format.  However, as a result of how I read the book, it's very likely I may misspell some of the names and terms of this book below, so apologies in advance.

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Lakewalker patroller Dag and Farmer girl Fawn have managed to survive their meeting with Fawn's family and have managed to marry themselves in both the Farmer and Lakewalker fashions.  But Dag is well aware that that was the easy part of their journey: for his own people, the Ground (magic) wielding Lakewalker people, do not allow marriages with Farmers, and his own mother and brother especially are not going to be happy about the situation.....and may be willing to do anything to stop it.

But not only enemies await Dag and Fawn in the Lakewalker camp, as there are some members of the community, and more distant family, who recognize what Dag - and now Fawn - have done in the hunt for Malices.  And Dag will need those potential allies - not only to deal with potential exile over his marriage, but to try and help him understand his growing strange maker powers he has found over the course of his journey with Fawn.  But when another Malice, one far more powerful, shows up, Dag is forced to leave Fawn behind in order to lead a patrol to stop it.....and he knows that this defeating this Malice will cost many Lakewalker lives, perhaps even his own.

But even if Dag and Fawn can survive this newest Malice, they still have to deal with the judgment of their marriage by the Lakewalker community, and the potential ultimate punishment of banishment from the camp that made up Dag's family and community for his entire life....
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So yeah, the first book in this series, which was meant to be the first half of a single book, dealt with Dag and Fawn finding each other, growing in love, and dealing with Fawn's family and the possibility of marriage.  But Fawn's family were Farmers - essentially Muggles - whose dislike of the marriage stemmed mainly from fearful prejudices and misunderstandings of who Lakewalkers were.  By contrast, Dag's people, the Lakewalkers, have actual practical reasons why marriages to Farmers aren't done, and while Dag and Fawn managed to use an alternate method to actually perform the Lakewalker marriage ceremony in the first book, those reasons haven't actually gone away, and we can see those reasons first hand in this book.

And to be honest, on a personal level, I sympathize.  Taking a step back from this book for a moment, I'm Jewish, and the issue of intermarriage is a big one for my own community, one which I have decently strong feelings about.  Forgetting about the religious issues with intermarriage for a second, intermarriage more often than not causes a loss of ties to the community, a loss of tradition, and a loss of what makes us who we are - which is arguably even more important than ever in a world where anti-antisemitism is still a very real threat.  And then there are the religious components to think about.

Lakewalkers don't have a religious component to their prohibition against intermarriage, but they have the same community concerns....and they replace those religious concerns with practical ones, as Farmers do not have the groundsense (magical ability) that Lakewalkers rely upon for everything from growing their own food, to making everyday items, to healing, or of course to patrolling and making the world safe.  It's not clear how much groundsense capability mixed-children would have (it seems so rare here that the concerns raised in the book are more speculative than anything) but Fawn herself is of limited use compared to a Lakewalker woman in camp, and that's shown quite clearly here.  There may be substantial wrongheaded anti-Farmer prejudice at work in how many Lakewalkers think of Fawn and Dag's marriage, or Fawn in general, but there are real issues underlying the situation Fawn and Dag have created.

Bujold gets around this by continuing to make Fawn and Dag terrific characters who are just too damn easy to love.  Fawn's emotions as an 18 year old woman in a totally unfamiliar place are extremely relate-able and her curiosity and quick thinking make her a joy to read.  She's determined not to be naive and useless, and her determination makes her a lovely complement to Dag and some of the other characters.  Dag as the gruff veteran learning new things through Fawn also works incredibly well, to the point where I had little concerns about the huge age gap between himself and Fawn (although such age differences are not new to Bujold books).  And the rest of the camp - from the practical patroller leader Fairbolt to Dag's aunt Mari to Mari's husband or the polyamorous trio of Sari, Razi and Utau - all have their own distinct personalities and characters that liven up this world.  Add in a plot with just the right amount of fantastical elements and romantic elements, and you have a damn good book.

I do wish perhaps that the book dealt with the practical issues a little more neutrally - with Dag's mother and brother as the principal pushers of these issues clearly working in bad faith more than anything.  The book does a quick attempt to try and explain why Dag's mother is the way she is and to try and make her a little more well-rounded, but it's not very effective, and Dag's brother is just an all around ass (which is even more weird because Dag's sister-in-law is reasonable and lovely).  But overall it works, and the book manages to give Dag and Fawn a practical justification for their marriage and path forward as well as a romantic one, which makes the ending not only satisfying but one that will clearly lead into the rest of the series.

So yeah, I'm enjoying The Sharing Knife series so far, and will be continuing it shortly.  I look forward to more to come.
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