Review: Horizon - Lois McMaster Bujold

In a world where malices--remnants of ancient magic--can erupt with life-destroying power, only soldier-sorcerer Lakewalkers have mastered the ability to kill them. But Lakewalkers keep their uncanny secrets--and themselves--from the farmers they protect, so when patroller Dag Redwing Hickory rescued farmer girl Fawn Bluefield, neither expected to fall in love, join their lives in marriage, or defy both their kin to seek new solutions to the perilous split between their peoples. As Dag's maker abilities have grown, so has his concern about who--or what--he is becoming. At the end of a great river journey, Dag is offered an apprenticeship to a master groundsetter in a southern Lakewalker camp. But as his understanding of his powers deepens, so does his frustration with the camp's rigid mores with respect to farmers. At last, he and Fawn decide to travel a very different road--and find that along it, their disparate but hopeful company increases.

Fawn and Dag see that their world is changing, and the traditional Lakewalker practices cannot hold every malice at bay forever. Yet for all the customs that the couple has challenged thus far, they will soon be confronted by a crisis exceeding their worst imaginings, one that threatens their Lakewalker and farmer followers alike. Now the pair must answer in earnest the question they've grappled with since they killed their first malice together: When the old traditions fail disastrously, can their untried new ways stand against their world's deadliest foe?

Series: The Sharing Knife #4, Genre: Romantic fantasy, Pages: 416, Published: 2009, Publisher: EOS, Source: Library

My thoughts:

Oh no she didn't! Oh yes I did.

I know I know, I have been bored for 2 books now and still I read this one. I just wanted to know how it ended. But after having thought about this, it ended as boringly as it went on. Nothing happened at the end either. 

Right this book then. Dag and Fawn talk --> they talk to other people --> they think about things ----> they are going north with a bunch of other people ---> more talking and thinking. 

*falls asleep* Yes I actually fell asleep while reading. 

Nothing happens, and when something finally does happen I am just too bored to notice. Still the book is not bad, it's well written and interesting. But it's just so darn boring! 

Conclusion:

Would I recommend it? No, I can't say I would. Do i feel foolish for reading them? Yes I do, darn these books, they were boring but still they compelled me to continue. At least they are a fast read.

Cover:
Good I guess

Review: Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold

Young Fawn Bluefield and soldier-sorcerer Dag Redwing Hickory have survived magical dangers and found, in each other, love and loyalty. But even their strength and passion cannot overcome the bigotry of their own kin, and so, leaving behind all they have known, the couple sets off to find fresh solutions to the perilous split between their peoples.

But they will not journey alone. Along the way they acquire comrades, starting with Fawn's irrepressible brother Whit, whose future on the Bluefield family farm seems as hopeless as Fawn's once did. Planning to seek passage on a riverboat heading to the sea, Dag and Fawn find themselves allied with a young flatboat captain searching for her father and fiance, who mysteriously vanished on the river nearly a year earlier. They travel downstream, hoping to find word of the missing men, and inadvertently pick up more followers: a pair of novice Lakewalker patrollers running away from an honest mistake with catastrophic consequences; a shrewd backwoods hunter stranded in a wreck of boats and hopes; and a farmer boy Dag unintentionally beguiles, leaving Dag with more questions than answers about his growing magery.

As the ill-assorted crew is tested and tempered on its journey to where great rivers join, Fawn and Dag will discover surprising new abilities both Lakewalker and farmer, a growing understanding of the bonds between themselves and their kinfolk, and a new world of hazards both human and uncanny.

Series: The Sharing knife #3, Genre. Romantic Fantasy, Pages: 422, Published: 2008 by EOS, Source: Library

My thoughts:

Why oh why am I such a sucker for punishment? This series must have enchanted me. Because book 1 was good, a tad boring in place, book 2 was good too, still more boring, but this one. Yes here I finally was truly bored. Now I will not rush to read book 4 at once.

The other books have been slow but here the slow pace took another form as Fawn and Dag and a bunch of others makes it down the river..slowly. Nothing happens, well something at the end, but by then I was bored and even skimmed a page or two. But then again what does any of this matter, I already scared away all of you with my previous two reviews.

And Dag is turning 56 in this way, congrats, Fawn is turning 19 later..yeah.

So...yup, nothing happened. Dag wondered about Magic, Fawn was not really around much. The other characters were ok I guess. And farmers are still bloody stupid, but so are lakewalkers. Work together people!

Conclusion:

Not exactly a series I would recommend, still it beguiled me.

Cover:

Ok

Review: Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold

Series. The Sharing Knife #2

Genre: Romantic Fantasy

Pages: 356

Published: 2007

Publisher: EOS

Source. Library

Fawn Bluefield, the clever young farmer girl, and Dag Redwing Hickory, the seasoned Lakewalker soldier-sorcerer, have been married all of two hours when they depart her family's farm for Dag's home at Hickory Lake Camp. Having gained a hesitant acceptance from Fawn's family for their unlikely marriage, the couple hopes to find a similar reception among Dag's Lakewalker kin. But their arrival is met with prejudice and suspicion, setting many in the camp against them, including Dag's own mother and brother. A faction of Hickory Lake Camp, denying the literal bond between Dag and Fawn, woven in blood in the Lakewalker magical way, even goes so far as to threaten permanent exile for Dag.


Before their fate as a couple is decided, however, Dag is called away by an unexpected--and viciously magical--malice attack on a neighboring hinterland threatening Lakewalkers and farmers both. What his patrol discovers there will not only change Dag and his new bride, but will call into question the uneasy relationship between their peoples--and may even offer a glimmer of hope for a less divided future.

My thoughts:

This time I knew it was romantic fantasy, but honestly, how can so little happen? 

They came to the camp, peeps hated his farmer wife, tension -> tension -> and more tension. He went to fight. -> silence. More tension and then the end. 

Sure I still enjoyed it, but I think it is the world that saves it for me. It is a splendid world. I am so angry at the farmers for their stupidity. I think the lakewalkers should let those idiots get eaten. They save the farmers and do not even get a thank you. I am happy to get more explanations of times long gone. So yes the world is good. 

Ok, let's get back to the reason why it was icky in book 1. Spoiler warning but that you gotta take if you are reading a review of book 2. Dag is in his 50s, Fawn is 18 and is short as a kid. He mistook her for one the first time they met. Sure lakers live longer and therefore he looks to be in his 40s. Coughs, not much better now is it.... 

Conclusion:

But I will read more, because I want to know how this story unfolds. A lot may not happen, but she still got me reading.

Cover:

Suits the book (nothing happens in it ;)

Review: Beguilement - Lois McMaster Bujold

Series: The Sharing Knife #1

Genre: Romantic Fantasy

Pages: 376

Published: 2007

Publisher: EOS

Source: Library

Troubled young Fawn Bluefield seeks a life beyond her family's farm. But on the way to the city, she encounters a patrol of Lakewalkers, nomadic soldier-sorcerers from the northern woodlands. Feared necromancers armed with mysterious knives made of human bone, they wage a secret on-going war against the scourge of the "malices," immortal entities that draw the life out of their victims, enslaving human and animal alike. It is Dag--a Lakewalker patroller weighed down by past sorrows and present responsibilities--who must come to Fawn's aid when she is taken captive by a malice. They prevail at a devastating cost--unexpectedly binding their fates together as they embark upon a remarkable journey into danger and delight, prejudice and partnership . . . and perhaps even love.

My thoughts:

I guess I expected epic fantasy, not fantasy romance. Not that I don't like that, it's just, there was a lot of talking and wondering and fluffiness. Now I sound horrid, I still enjoyed it all. 

There were a few things that bothered me though, Fawn is so short that she is mistaken for a child, Dag sees her boobs and gets that she is a woman. He thinks of her as a childwoman and honestly that was a bit creepy, not mentioning that we do not know his age..which was, yeah. 

But ok let's not think about that. Let's just think about a woman meeting a man. Man saves her and cares for her, and slowly they fall in love. All while she learns about his people. 

The first part is more filled since there they fight bad things, but then they get to this hotel and things slow down. 

Conclusion:

But the world is interesting, and I wonder how things will work out for these two. I enjoyed it and read it really quickly and then I cursed someone who had borrowed part 2 ;)

Cover:

Eh