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    The Sharing Knife Volume One: Volume 1
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    The Sharing Knife Volume One: Volume 1
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    The Sharing Knife Volume One: Volume 1
    Ebook394 pages6 hours

    The Sharing Knife Volume One: Volume 1

    By Lois McMaster Bujold

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Bujold builds a better fantasy romance with compelling characters and the fascinating clash between their cultures, she a farmer’s daughter, he an adventurer on the trail of a deadly demon.”—Locus

    One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold has won numerous accolades and awards, including the Nebula and Locus Awards as well as the fantasy and science fiction genre’s most prestigious honor, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, four times (most recently for Paladin of Souls). With The Sharing Knife series, Bujold creates a brand new world fraught with peril, and spins an extraordinary romance between a young farm girl and the brave sorcerer-soldier entrusted with the defense of the land against a plague of vicious malevolent beings. Meet Fawn Bluefield and Dag Redwing Hickory in Beguilement, the first book in Bujold’s unforgettable four-volume fantasy saga, and witness the birth of their dangerous romance—a love threatened by prejudice and perilous magic, and by Dag’s sworn duty as Lakewalker patroller and necromancer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061796753
    Unavailable
    The Sharing Knife Volume One: Volume 1
    Author

    Lois McMaster Bujold

    One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold burst onto the scene in 1986 with Shards of Honor, the first of her tremendously popular Vorkosigan Saga novels. She has received numerous accolades and prizes, including two Nebula Awards for best novel (Falling Free and Paladin of Souls), four Hugo Awards for Best Novel (Paladin of Souls, The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance), as well as the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella The Mountains of Mourning. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. The mother of two, Bujold lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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    Reviews for The Sharing Knife Volume One

    3.5/5

    850 ratings55 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is Bujold’s new fantasy, or the first half it anyway, and it’s well worth the wait. Fawn Bluefield, a young woman from a prosperous but not wealthy farm family, is two months pregnant, and fleeing the disgrace, and even worse the embarrassment, of having her condition discovered while her lover marries the only daughter of a much wealthier neighboring farm family. Traveling on foot to Glassforge, a large town several days away, where she can be anonymous and find work, she has a near encounter with a group of the somewhat mysterious Lakewalkers, who patrol the settled farm areas and the wilderness around them. Not long afterward, she has a much more dangerous encounter, with “bandits” who turn out to be the agents of what farmers call a blight bogle and Lakewakers call a malice. The Lakewalker patrol Fawn saw earlier was malice-hunting, and one of them, a one-handed man called Dag, rescues her from them, deposits her safely (he thinks) at an abandoned nearby farm, and returns to the hunt. Unfortunately, because she’s pregnant, the malice really wants Fawn, and its servants come back for her and drag her off to the malice. Dag, because of his previous detour on her behalf and his tracking of the escaped malice-servants, reaches the same spot not long after. In the ensuing fight, temporarily fully occupied with the malice’s servants and tools, he tosses Fawn his two bone knives, and that’s when things start to go really strange for both of them.

      One of those knives was properly primed to kill a malice. The other one wasn’t; it was waiting to be primed, with Dag’s death. A Lakewalker would have known which was which, while Fawn didn’t even know that there should be a difference. She used one knife, with little apparent effect, and then the other, successfully. Afterwards, Dag finds that the unprimed knife is now primed—with the death of Fawn’s unborn child. And Fawn is suffering a miscarriage.

      Fawn and Dag are now tied together by the puzzle of that knife. Fawn isn’t willing to go back to her family, and Dag believes it’s vital to take that knife, and Fawn, to more knowledgable heads among the Lakewalkers, to figure out what’s happened and what to do about it. After a few days at the nearby farm (whose owners return, now that the malice is dead) while Fawn recovers enough to travel, they go on to Glassforge, where Dag’s patrol will be gathering to regroup.

      Over the next several weeks, Dag and Fawn, each very vulnerable in their separate ways, grow closer and closer—much to the dismay of both Lakewalkers and townsfolk (“farmers” to the Lakewalkers, who apply the term to all settled people) who notice. They also have a great deal to learn about each other, and each other’s culture; there’s ignorance and arrogance on both sides, lying between Lakewalkers and farmers. The farmers and townsfolk who know the malices/blight bogles are real acknowledge some debt to the Lakewalkers who hunt and kill them, but only to a point, and many don’t believe in them and suspect the Lakewalkers of necromancy and even cannibalism; the Lakewalkers, dependent on the settled people not only for a good part of their provisions but also for tools and equipment that simply can’t be manufactured by nomadic tent-dwellers, nevertheless regard the “farmers” as stupid, unimaginative, and largely useless when they’re not being a burden. The easy communication between Dag and Fawn doesn’t make their relationship with each other or their return to Fawn’s family any less complicated. It’s not really possible to say much about the second half of the book for someone who hasn’t read it yet. It’s superficially quite straightforward, and actually fairly complex.

      And yes, this is the first half. Read it anyway.

      Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      I don't really read romance novels. I think it is a good novel, but just not as much suited for me as the Vorkosigan novels or world of the five gods stuff. The age difference kind of bothers me too. But well written certainly, I may finish the series, I'm not sure.
    • 3/5
      series review:These books are just so, !I'm utterly divided. It is my favorite world building ever (post magical apocalypse isolated settlements and magic users trying to regroup) even though it never really digs hard into those themes, and you certainly never learn what happened 'back then'.Super unique setting. The final book is set on river boats! But it is unapologeticaly a romance, which makes it hard to recommend to most people who would appreciate the first parts. (and honestly, isn't usually my thing either, but I think it's well done enough)However, if you think you can stand some chocolate in your peanut butter, these are very underrated
    • 5/5
      This is Lois McMaster Bujold's take on epic fantasy but twisted in the Bujold way. Fawn Bluefield is a young Farmer girl who has run away from home and taking an unplanned pregnancy with her. She's looking for a new start in a place where she is valued and isn't made to feel stupid.Dag Redwing Hickory is a Patroller, a Lakewalker, who spends his life looking for the Malices who randomly pop up and who, if left unchecked, can totally destroy the world. Their first encounter has Fawn hiding up and tree and Dag resting beneath it. She thinks she's hidden but her spark of life makes her very visible to him. Their next encounter is when she is kidnapped on the road by a bandit and a Mud Man and Dag rescues her. He takes her to a nearby abandoned farmplace where she can stay until he deals with the Malice. But then she is captured by Mud Men sent by the Malice and Dag is barely in time to rescue her.In the course of the rescue, the Malice steals the groundsense from her baby and kills it and Fawn is the one who manages to insert Dag's sharing knife into the Malice killing it. Fawn has accidentally primed Dag's second knife which is a baffling circumstance that needs Lakewalkers with more knowledge to explain.Dealing with her miscarriage and his injuries brings them close together. In fact they fall in love which is an unlikely and unwanted thing for a number of reasons. He's older and battered and battle scarred. She's young and naive but bright and full of life. But Lakewalkers and Farmers don't fall in love and they certainly don't marry. Farmers are generally suspicious of the mysterious Lakewalkers and Lakewalkers generally look down on the Farmers. In this episode, Dag has to first convince his patrol of his decision to be with Fawn and he his given lots of reasons why this relationship won't work. Second, on their way to get some clarity about his newly primed knife, they need to stop at Fawn's home and convince her parents and brothers that getting married is a good idea.This book is filled with fascinating characters and set in an intriguing world. Fawn is loved by her family but neither valued or listened to. It is surprising that she is as sane and well-grounded as she is after their loving abuse. Her relationship with the father of her child broke her tender heart. His callous cruelty could easily have destroyed a weaker girl. Dag is also a wonderful character who has magic and who has managed to survive horrible things including the loss of his wife and most of his patrol. He's been surviving and doing his duty for his people but it isn't until he meets Fawn that he really begins living again. Luckily, this is the first of four books about Dag and Fawn. There is so much more for them to do and for them to learn about each other.
    • 3/5
      While it was no hardship to listen to Bernadette Dunne's narration of this first book in The Sharing Knife trilogy, ultimately I found myself disappointed. This fantasy novel by one of my favorite sci fi/fantasy authors, Lois McMaster Bujold, was much more focused on the Romeo & Juliet style romance between Fawn and Dag (including some graphic sex scenes). There is some adventure and a little world building but much less than I had expected. And perhaps it is my own advancing age, but I have to say that the age difference between Fawn (17 or 18) and Dag (58) made me cringe. I am unsure whether I will continue in this trilogy...
    • 3/5
      Ms. Bujold writes very well, the prose is exceptional and the characters are well developed. This book transitions from an epic fantasy adventure into a steamy romance about half way through, though, which had me skimming large sections.
    • 4/5
      Main review at the end, on Horizon. This is the one where they meet, and Dag is introduced to Fern's family
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this so much that as soon as I finished, I began the next in the series. They have just enough "other" to let me know we aren't in Kansas anymore, but not so much my brain has to trip over new words for plants and animals. As with Bujold's other books, the characters, ideas and dialog are enchanting.These would be a nice way to introduce teens to sex, a bit more realistic than most urban fantasy I've read, and much more explicit than I usually like, yet it doesn't put me off. It seems right, although there was an instance of almost a rape in this book which was not pleasant at all to read. The rape was not completed, and I think the author may have glossed over the results on the victim a bit, but not entirely.Quite a bit of focus on family and the dynamics of family as well.
    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I listened to this as an audiobook a couple of years ago, but while I remembered enjoying the story, I couldn't remember too many particulars. I'm now excited to be caught up, so that I can enjoy the next audiobook in the series.

      I love how internal Fawn and Dag's journey together really is; there are so many outside obstacles for them to overcome, but the biggest changes that they each experience have to do with how they mature, deal with pain, and make room in their lives for the unexpected love that they encounter.

      While I love how quickly I can read this in (digital) print, I love the way Bernadette Dunne, the woman who narrates the audiobooks, reads the stories. No matter how you take it in, this series is a treat for the eyes and the ears.
    • 4/5
      I picked up a copy of this at the used book store-- it sounded good enough that I actually grabbed the sequel, too, and now, after shutting the book after the final page, I'm exceedingly glad I did. It's nice to find an author who creates an interesting world and magic system, with some really likable characters and a good plot line, and know that there are more books of the author's out there. Happy reading ahead! (Of course, on the second day of reading, I accidentally left the book behind when I was having some tests done, and only realized it when I was halfway home. I'd been at the hospital a long time, was late for my next activity, was walking, and it was raining. I didn't go back, but when I got home, requested a copy from the library and picked it up the next day to resume reading. Win, again!)
    • 5/5
      Bujold and romance, what better way to refresh a tired heart!
    • 3/5
      A fantasy romance story about two people from different cultures come together. It is a very well written story about a farmer girl and patroller find unconventional love. There isn't much of an actual story, outside of their romance and finding acceptance. The fantasy world is basic, but is easy to understand and helps set up the tension of the romance. The writing and the characters are what make this book enjoyable. I don't usually enjoy books that focus on the romance, but I do plan on reading more of the Sharing Knife series.
    • 3/5
      Although fantasy is not usually my cup of tea, I have always liked Bujold's science fiction so I thought I would give it a try. This is the first book in a series and I liked it well enough to want to find out what happens in subsequent books.Fawn is a young woman who became pregnant after her first sexual encounter. When she told the father he called her a slut and threatened to have his friends say she had also slept with them. Rather than tell her family she was pregnant she left home hoping to get to a remote settlement where she could work and have her child. On the road she was abducted by henchmen of a supernatural being that kills everything it touches. She was saved by Dag who is a lake walker, a tribe of people with special skills who try to save the world from these supernatural beings. Dag leaves Fawn at an abandoned farmhouse and continues on his search for the being. Fawn is taken in the night by more of the henchmen and she and Dag end up at the lair of the being at the same time. Fawn manages to kill the being with Dag's knife and they are thus bound together. Dag wants to take Fawn to his tribe's home to have one of the wise men hear the story and examine his knife. Although Fawn is a farmer and Dag is a lake walker and twenty years older than Fawn the two fall in love. Their story will continue.
    • 4/5
      This is really just a windup for the rest of the series, so I wouldn't listen too much to what others say about it just being a fluffy romance. Plot and character gains a lot more depth in the rest of the series.
    • 5/5
      This book is amazing! I recommend it to everyone as it has a little bit of everything. Suspense, drama, action, romance! Just the best!
    • 4/5
      I picked this book up through my library's electronic loan system. As I read, I had the nagging feeling that I'd read it before, but I didn't remember it in enough detail to carry on with the series.

      Anyway, it's a good story, and I think this time I'll move on to Book 2.
    • 4/5
      In this series opener, Fawn and Dag first meet and fall in love in spite of the differences between their Farmer and Lakewalker cultures. Along the way they kill a Malice and some bandits, and Dag outsmarts the naysayers in Fawn's family. The predictable wedding at the end is obviously just the beginning of their saga.
    • 3/5
      Fawn Bluefield spent the night in a barn and she’s a bit road weary for it. She had to leave her family’s farm and now she’s on her way to Glassforge, one of the larger cities, to find work. However, she’s soon swept up in an adventure she didn’t anticipate, one that takes much from her but holds the possibility of giving her much in return.I really enjoyed the beginning of this book. Fawn is in her late teens or early twenties and she has made this tough choice to head out on her own. We learn really early on that she’s pregnant and she doesn’t want to burden her family with the consequences, but she also doesn’t want to face their ridicule. As we learn about Fawn and her troubles, we also learn about this magical world around her. Plus, Fawn is short for her age and folks tend to underestimate her, or talk over her head and she has to correct them on that.The Lakewalkers are little known to Fawn, other than she thinks it’s best to leave them alone. They patrol the area, often hunting malices and their mudmen. As a malice grows in size, it starts kidnapping more and more humans to do it’s bidding. The Lakewalkers do their best to put down these malices but with the constant suspicion from the settled folks, it can be a bit tough. Dag is an older Lakewalker with plenty of scars and losses to bear. Yet when Fawn needs his help, he doesn’t hesitate. The Lakewalker patrols are made up of both men and women and seem a but more open about several things, things that Fawn asks about later on, much to my amusement as it makes Dag blush!I was definitely fascinated by the sharing knives and the groundsense the Lakewalkers have. This mystical element really drew me in and I found myself pondering all the ways one could make use of groundsense. I’m sure the Lakewalkers have some intricate social niceties when it comes to groundsense, just trying to be polite and not intrude on one another’s private thoughts and feelings. The sharing knives were intriguing but I found the rules for their making and use to be confusing. Perhaps that is better explained further along in the series.The malices made me think of alien spores that were left here to terraform the planet to the aliens’s liking but were then abandoned because we have Lakewalkers who have sharing knives. Anyway, the malice in this story isn’t a straight up evil. It’s not something that Fawn can easily relate to or understand. But thankfully Dag has the experience and knows what to do! I think these malices are an interesting and worthy foe for the story.Then we get to the second half of the book, which is just all romance. Now, I was already invested in Fawn and Dag, so I finished the book out. But I am not a romance genre person so I found the second half of the book slow and uneventful. There were some little nuggets here and there, such as meeting Fawn’s grandmother and learning about the bindings Lakewalkers use in their relationships, but the bulk of it was a snooze for me.I really liked that the author put in common things that many women have to deal with that we typically don’t see in other fantasy fiction. There’s accidental pregnancy, miscarriage, talk of menstruation, and rape. Just an FYI – the rape is left incomplete because the bad guy is no longer able to continue on. I think authors shouldn’t be afraid to include such things in fiction because many of these things happen to many women and women make up a sizable part of the reading community. Kudos to the author for doing so!I’m intrigued enough to want to continue the series but I probably won’t be dashing off to do so. Half a book of romance will last me quite some time.The Narration: Bernadette Dunne was great for this book. She had a practical, if sometimes young, Fawn down to a tee. I also liked her gruff voice for Dag. She had a great older female voice for the practical Mari, Dag’s patrol captain.
    • 2/5
      Bujold is a talented storyteller, but this book didn’t really grab me. It’s an exciting love story with lots of fight scenes, but I didn’t really like the main characters and the plot itself felt worn. A quick, enjoyable read, but nothing I’ll remember.
    • 2/5
      I am very disappointed in this book. The main character has all the hallmarks of a Mary Sue and most of the plot is that of a poor romance story.
    • 1/5
      I hoped for more fantasy, instead got young-romance. Perhaps Twilight fans might enjoy it.
    • 3/5
      It's an interesting idea, sharing knives and all. Not much is explained. Most of the book is devoted to Fawn and Dag's marriage. Get's down right sugar-coated near the end.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those books that I've owned for forever, but for one reason or another never picked up. So glad I finally got to it! It's a fantasy world filled with its own share of dangers, but the tone of the book is decidedly romantic. While I wouldn't directly compare this series to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, I do think that readers of one would probably enjoy the other. The next book on my TBR is sitting at the library on the hold shelf, so in the meantime I plan on reading book two of this series. That way I can donate the pair of them to some lucky reader when I'm finished.
    • 3/5
      This book was really fluffy, but I liked the evocation of nineteenth-century America in the guise of a fantasy/romance novel. Note: this book, at least, is definitely more romance than fantasy, but it's amazingly well-written romance, so you will have no complaints from me. I will probably even read the rest of the series....
    • 2/5
      I love Bujold's work, I really do, and I was extremely disappointed in this book. I think the worst part of it is an unrealistic, but more importantly - uninteresting, romance between the two bad main characters. The female main character is uninteresting and boring, I want to find the male main character interesting but he falls terribly flat as well.

      In this novel, Bujold establishes an interesting world with a lot of background potential, and it's a shame that the story she chose to tell in this interesting world is just plain bad.
    • 3/5
      This was not the book I was looking for. (I saw it and grabbed it at the library thinking these were what I now realize to be the Chalion books. These? NOT THE SAME.)

      This looks like a fantasy, starts like a fantasy, has lots of fantasy elements, but it's a romance novel. I can't comment on whether it's a good romance novel, because I don't read those, and this left me cold in exactly the ways I'd expect a romance novel to. (The tropes of male-female courtship have utterly no interest for me, and so the buildup to sex is just boring, and the sex itself is only of mild interest if done particularly well.)

      I really liked the fantasy worldbuilding, and kept expecting to see more of it. But, since it's a romance novel, the entire second half of the books was "bring the new man home to meet the folks," which, while done well, was not what I wanted. Bujold does fantastic family dynamics, granted, but I wanted more knife-fights.

      I think in any other hands I would have just put the book down when I realized what I'd gotten into. It's a testament to Bujold's skill with character that I kept on going. But really, this will work better for people who are looking for romance novels.
    • 5/5
      Seems like these days I'm on a roll with fantasy-romances. Or would it be more accurate to call this a romance-fantasy? Unlike other romance novels I've read that feature a heavy dose of fantasy, Beguilement is more like the other way around -- romance in my fantasy rather than fantasy in my romance, so to speak.I think that in itself might alienate a lot of readers. The book begins with Fawn Bluefield running away from home only to be kidnapped by a "malice", an inhuman magical creature that eats people and causes a blight on anything that lives. Dag is a Lakewalker, a soldier-sorcerer who makes it his life's work to hunt these malices and keep the land safe. The first half of the book involves a lot of world building, lore, and action. Our two protagonists end up coming together, and their fates become entwined.But those looking for a traditional romance story will not find it here because it just doesn't read like one. Not that the romance here isn't fiery and passionate, because it is...but at the same time it's also more comfortable and domestic, if you know what I mean. Likewise, fantasy readers might be drawn in by the first half of the novel and then be disappointed when the second half switches tack to focus more on the love between Dag and Fawn. After the two of them get together, the action pretty much takes a break. Instead of delving more into the war against the malices, the author develops our main characters' relationship and blossoming romance.Still, I just loved this book. It's definitely not recommended for folks looking for a fast-paced, action-filled read, but nevertheless I found this book engaging and I couldn't stop once I started. Lois McMaster Bujold has a way of making a world come alive and she writes fantastic characters that I am drawn to right away (by the way, her book Curse of Chalion still remains one of my all time favorite fantasy novels).What I loved most about this book is Dag. I liked his character and how the author made him a sweet, caring and protective male lead without turning him into an overbearing, possessive and loutish asshole. His light humor, easygoing nature, and the gentle way he treats Fawn especially in the early chapters really endeared him to me. It fits his character perfectly, and while it probably has a lot to do with him being much older than her, his personality still sets him apart from a lot of the heroes you find in romance novels these days, and gets major points from me.What also gets major points from me is how their romance unfolds. Both Fawn and Dag are straightforward with their feelings, and there's none of that cliched he-says-she-says BS and those convenient misunderstandings that oftentimes make romance novels so infuriating and tedious for me to read. Here are two characters that know what they want, and I can't tell you how refreshing that is.All in all, I thought Beguilement was a light, sweet read, which really surprised me since reading the synopsis initially gave me the impression that it was going to be a little dark and heavy. I also want to mention that I half read the ebook and half listened to this in audio format, and I thought the latter's narrator did a really good job and that her voice was perfect for the story.
    • 3/5
      Things I liked:
      - The writing was mostly good.
      - The world was good and interesting.

      Things I didn't like:
      - The main character seems pretty stupid, compared to her Love Interest, however fast she may be at picking new things up. But I think what annoyed me was more that her youth/childishness was emphasized so much in her mannerisms and dialogue; she's 18, but she seemed younger to me. And the book mentions multiple times how short she is. And her name is even Fawn (i.e. "a young deer in its first year").

      - Her Love Interest is very tall and has a deep voice and is 55 years old. Which, I guess, is okay, but I just think that a lot of people would think it was more unusual if a 18 year old boy was in a relationship with a 55 year old woman (and actually, that would be pretty awesome just because it's so different from anything I've seen in fantasy or romance or basically any genre). Why are romance novels (and I suppose fantasy novels) always so stereotypical?

      - At a little more than 100 pages from the end of the book, the main character and her Love Interest basically set out to find information on a magic knife at a certain town, planning to stop to see the main character's family on the way. It seemed reasonable to assume that they would reach the town and find the information. Nope! The next 100 pages take place completely at her family's house, and the mystery of the knife is left for the next book in the series. I can't help thinking this could have been planned better.
    • 3/5
      The first book of a brand new series by the Hugo Award winning Lois McMaster Bujold, Beguilement is somewhat hard to rate. While the world building and the characters excel, many might feel put out from what basically feels like the first half of a story. As such, it's hard to recommend this book without having first read the sequel. But considering Ms. Bujold's reputation, it wouldn't be a bad bet to give this book a try.
    • 4/5
      Reading the reviews, the detractors seem to fall into certain categories. Those who were expecting something like her Vorkosigan series and are disappointed it's fantasy. (Hello, it's pretty explicitly marked as fantasy from the description to the cover.) Those who were expecting something like her Chalion series and are disappointed the emphasis on this first book is on romance. (Yes, it is. I think it's tons better than the usual book on the romance aisle, but if you sneer at books built around a love story, by all means you'll want to pass this by.) Finally, several seemed disturbed that this is a May/December romance about a teenager and a man over fifty. (And one that unlike Angel or Edward *gasp* doesn't look young, apparently the only thing that matters.) The age difference doesn't bother me. That Fawn is so young might have, but it does help this is a frontier society. They grow up fast and marry early there--and given Fawn is already pregnant when Dag meets her, it's not as if I feel he "corrupts" an innocent waif.For me, that this isn't anything like Chalion or Vorkosigan is a good thing. I like versatile authors who don't write the same book a gazillion times. This is a very different world than either of her other series. Not faux European high fantasy nor futuristic Space Opera. Instead this has the feel of the American frontier--perhaps a transformed world from our own far future. I found the entire world Bujold created with the malices intriguing. And as with her other books, I love her characters. I liked spending time with them. And as this is only the first part of a four volume series that can be seen as one novel, that's important.