Fantasy Novella Review: Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold

 


Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold

Masquerade in Lodi is the 8th novella in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & Desdemona series of fantasy novellas (which take place in her larger World of the Five Gods).  Like she once did with her Vorkosigan Saga, Bujold has not written the Pen & Des novellas in chronological order, with the novellas jumping back and forth between seemingly two time periods - early Penric experiences on one hand, and then Penric's experiences with Nikys and afterwards on the other.  This is one of the former, so it technically is the 4th novella in chronological order and is thus a "midquel", rather than a straight sequel or prequel.  

And Masquerade in Lodi is a perfectly enjoyable midquel, with the story following Pen & Des as they are forced to search the city of Lodi for an ascendant crazy demon, with the help of a young woman who happens to be a Saint.  Like a lot of other recent Pen & Des novellas it isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's entertaining and different enough to justify its own existence (as opposed to 6th such novella) and is very solid "comfort food."  

Note: As usual, I read this as an audiobook, so if I get some names wrong that's why.  But it's still a highly enjoyable listen in this format so I recommend it.  

Trigger Warning: Minor Discussion of Suicide.

Quick Plot Summary:  After his disastrous attempt to work as a healer and the death of the Princess-Archdivine, Penric finds himself and Des in Lodi, working for the Archdivine there as Court Sorcerer while Pen attempts to translate learned Rucia's medical treatises into other languages in his free time.  But Pen's free time is interrupted when he is called to examine a madman who was fished out of the water to check for the supernatural....and the man turns out to be possessed by a crazed demon.  

And when that demon gets loose, Pen is forced to team up with Des' worst nightmare - a living Saint, in this case a young woman - in order to find the man and demon before he causes too much trouble......

Thoughts:  The problem with Penric Midquels, and even some sequels, is that Penric's character development is already known to the reader, so there isn't anything new there - as exemplified here by him still suffering from what happened after he broke himself trying to heal everyone in Martensbridge - we've already dealt with Pen recovering from this in Penric's Mission, so it feels a little superfluous and done already here.  So these midquels really only stand on the circumstances and other characters around Pen being interesting.  

Fortunately, this one does exactly that, treating us not just to a little mystery and something we haven't seen before - a crazed ascendant demon of the type that has previously only been referred to - but also the life of a young saint of the Bastard, a young woman, who was chosen young enough not to have any other life (as opposed to in the earlier World of the Five Gods books).  The saint, who is both a bubbly teenage girl and a weary young woman who has seen too much at the same time, is a fascinating character with many complications from her job and position, and her interactions with Pen and the situation keep this story quite interesting.  Add in the plot being just unpredictable enough to stay enjoyable, and well you have a solid novella here, even if like other Pen & Des novellas, there isn't anything super interesting or unique to make it appealing to anyone who doesn't already like this series.