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A little romance with your fantasy (or vice versa)

January 27th, 2010 Jane J. - Central Library

Lois McMaster Bujold has always included an element of romance in her science fiction and fantasy novels (many romance readers adore A Civil Campaign: A Comedy of Biology and Manners) but with her Sharing Knife quartet Bujold tipped the balance from fantasy with romantic elements into romantic fantasy.  The result is a series of books set in a fantasy realm with danger and action aplenty but with a deeply developed exploration of one relationship and the social structures underpinning it.

Lakewalker Dag Redwing Hickory met farmer Fawn Bluefield in Beguilement.  Lakewalker patrollers like Dag have one mission.  To hunt down and do away with Malices.  A malice is a vicious, energy driven construct which can take control of people and turn them into zombie-like creatures called mudmen.  While on the track of one such creature Dag rescues Fawn who has been taken by the malice.  And while they are both recovering from their injuries they fall in love.  Sounds simple enough.  But what Bujold does with the rest of the story is what makes this series so worth it.  The problem for Dag and Fawn is that Lakewalkers and farmers don’t mix.  Though the two peoples have co-existed fairly peacefully, each has it’s own way of life and seldom do the twain meet.  A fact that Dag becomes determined to change, not just for his own well-being but for what he considers to be the well-being of both societies.

Though the romance is ever present, Bujold uses the relationship Fawn and Dag have formed, and the ones they develop with others over the course of the series, to explore societal norms and how they become ingrained within us all.  In essence this is an examination similar to what you might find in a science fiction novel that delves into alien contact - though told in much gentler fashion.  How do you get two very different peoples to see that they can not only co-exist with each other but thrive through cooperation.

All the key Bujold elements are here: beautiful world-building, nicely paced storytelling and characters who are heroic in both large and small ways.  I think romance and fantasy readers will all find something to love here.

Entry Filed under: Fantasy, Romance