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- Verified Buyer
Lois McMaster Bujold is deservedly one of the most award-winning authors in the field of sci-fi and fantasy. I've read almost everything she has written, and there's *nothing* that I didn't enjoy; most of it I LOVED! She has equally great ability to build a character, a world, an ethos, and a *sentence*, all while conveying rich emotion, humor, and a plot that flows and never strains your suspension of disbelief.To speak more specifically about The Sharing Knife, I can't tell how many times I've picked up one of the volumes *intending* just a BRIEF "visit" with my old friends Dag and Fawn (and brother Whit et al in books 3 & 4), but wound up first reading more than a chapter, then saying, "This is a silly place to start," and reading the whole foursome straight through from the beginning!As Bujold intended, they're more focused on human interaction and the seemingly mismatched central love story than on action; the series in some ways belongs to the mainly sci-fi "cultural contact" sub-genre. Bujold has described their overarching progression as the formation of a couple, then a family (blood-tied and not), then a community. Deadly peril isn't absent, though, in the form of an evil more like a natural disaster than the typical scheming villain. The magical paradigm is uncommon, too, and its implications and permutations -- for those both with and without the ability to sense and manipulate the "ground" in everything -- are well explored.The first 2 volumes are basically one book split in half for publication reasons. Beguilement (The Sharing Knife, Book 1) covers their meeting, confronting a monstrous "malice", falling unexpectedly in love, and facing Fawn's farmer family. This entry, Legacy (The Sharing Knife, Book 2), deals with newly wedded Dag bringing Fawn back to his clan, and encountering both determined Lakewalker hostility and another malice -- which leads to the surprising ultimate fate of the magic-burdened knife which initially bound them together. The Sharing Knife (Passage, Book 3) is their belated honeymoon journey down the river, meeting new friends and foes, as Dag explores his troubling newfound skills. Finally, in Horizon (The Sharing Knife, Book 4), Dag's unconventional apprenticeship in a southern Lakewalker camp, then unexpected dangers confronted by the mixed group he leads up the northbound trail, turn Lakewalker assumptions upside down and birth hope for a future where Lakewalkers and "farmers" (their term for everyone else!) may be able to co-exist with understanding, respect, and cooperation.Re. this Kindle edition -- One thing I like about both Book 1 and Book 2 is the Table of Contents: each entry-link shows the first line of text below the chapter number, so you can see which chapter you want. I do wish the cover images were larger, though: they're practically thumbnail-sized.This volume does have a conclusion to the action plot, and ends with the main characters setting forth for the next step in their lives together. It's not the kind of ending that leaves you grinding your teeth until you can get the next volume. I'm betting *anyone* who doesn't hate anything even resembling a love story will find something to enjoy, and want to read them all.
