Passage

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book Overview

"A thoughtful and skillful author." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold has won numerous accolades and awards,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061375330
• ISBN13: 9780061375330
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Passsge. Volume three of the series The Sharing knife

This series is my first fantasy book and I love it. This author does her best to put you in a world like no other. Follow interesting characters and enjoy the romance of the hero.

Had some good moments but dragged a time or two

Passage is the third book in Bujold's Sharing Knife series. It is a continuation of the story begun in Beguilement and Legacy. In Legacy, Dag and Fawn come face-to-face with the bigotry of Dag's Lakewalker clan. Near driven out, Dag chooses to leave instead. But he does so with a mission in mind: to heal the rift between Lakewalker and farmer. On one level this mission of Dag's is a personal one: acceptance of each of the peoples amongst the other would grant his marriage a greater acceptance. On another level it is a matter of long term survival for all. Because there is little communication between Lakewalker and farmer, the scourge of their land, called malices, could potentially run rampant someday because farmers remain ignorant of the early warning signs. It is with the intention of educating farmers of the malice danger that Dag sets out from his home with his wife, Fawn. They hire themselves out to a flatboat boss, Berry, and Dag begins his journey of farmer healing and enlightenment. They are joined by two other Lakewalkers and a motley lot of farmers/riverboat-types who are drawn to Dag and Fawn's mission in their own individual ways. Much of the story focuses on this personal quest of Dag's and how, in the process, he also develops his 'ground' (magic) to a level not hereto seen in the world. That bears some explanation: in Lakewalker society an individual is chosen early on for a specific vocation based upon the promise of their ground. Such vocations include patroller, medicine-maker, ground-setter. The principal responsibility of the Lakewalkers is patrolling the lands in search of malice; most Lakewalkers are selected as patrollers. But some others who demonstrate a greater degree of 'groundsense' may become medicine-makers or, even further, ground-setters, able to manipulate almost any material. Dag has already spent most of his life as a patroller by the time we meet him in Beguilement. In Passage, he begins to experiment with his groundsense and, aided by Fawn's knack for seeing things from her own unique perspective, finds that he has the ability to bridge the gap between patroller, medicine-maker, and ground-setter. Passage is a good book. It's well-written, flows evenly, and possesses a myriad of interesting yet believable characters. But it also stumbles a bit in its singular purpose. Dag's quest is fun to follow, but it becomes too much of the story or, really, the entire story. Not until the end, when Dag must face a renegade Lakewalker and the mayhem he's caused, does the storyline break away into new territory. In short, I felt Passage would have benefited from a bit more going on. There is some mystery in the form of Boatboss Berry, whose family has disappeared somewhere downriver, but it's not enough. In summary, once again Bujold doesn't disappoint in delivering a folksy tale with plenty of interesting and intriguing characters and magic, though, in the end, this one could have used an injection of something mo

And the beat goes on

I really like that the author didn't stop after the hero wins the girl. I always like to know what happens after, do they accomplish anything else, what challenges do they face? This storyline delivers. Dag and Fawn start off alone but end up gathering a group of misfits and fellow adventures that become true friends. And yes, they encounter more prejudice and treachery (lakewalkers & farmers), but experience moments of hilarity and lightheartedness. Dag and Fawn grow into their union learning more about strengthening a budding relationship that goes beyond the marriage bed. They even learn new skills that will help them reach their ultimate goal, IF they decide to continue to the city of the old ones.

A leisurely read

Bujold is one of my favorite authors, but Passage is not one of her action-packed hilarity-filled page-turners. There are adventures on this river journey and the kind of writing that makes all her books worth reading, but it's a leisurely book that moves with the depth and lack of haste of the river. The Sharing Knife series is, in general, more romantic and less action-oriented than Bujold's Vorkosigan series, but this book has less action than the first two books in the Sharing Knife series. I love the characters and the questions raised by the book--I just hope the pace of the next Sharing Knife installment does a better job of keeping me awake.

So I wanted to write a review...

Lois Bujold writes fantasy with the same skill and intensity that she writes science fiction, and she's an award winner many times over. Passage is book 3 of 4 in The Sharing Knife series. You don't need to read the first two (but why would you not want to?) to enjoy Passage, there's enough background to make it independant. Dag is a Lakewalker who's broken with his kin to marry Fawn, a farmer girl. Lakewalkers are the weilders of such magical powers as exist for humans in this world. Farmers are... everyone else. To be fair, there are halfbreeds and farmers with natural abilities. The Lakewalker rule is, Lakewalkers are lakewalkers, farmers are farmers, and never the twain... and Dag has broken that rule in a major way. You see, he wants to become a healer to farmers, which no lakewalker has survived. (If you don't cure everything every time, the farmers think you've hexed them or done it deliberately, and things can get ugly.) And besides that, lakewalkers are secretive - and Dag is not. He wants farmers to understand both the abilities and the limits of those abilities. The other aspect is Malices (blight bogles in farmerese.) Out of the ground from whence they appear, they are more powerful mages than any lakewalker, and only lakewalkers have the ability to fight them and kill them. The rest is impossible to review without spoilers, save that Dag and Fawn and a growing cast of fellow adventurers are traveling down the great river to its mouth, from adventure to adventure.

deeper, scarier, better

"You are what you eat". And at the end of TSK:Legacy, Dag ate a malice (or at least a piece of one). What does that make him? First off, a warning. If you haven't read the first two books (really, one story) of The Sharing Knife, don't start here. Bujold wisely does not spend a lot of time rehashing old plot points and rebuilding old characters. While you could ignore most of what happened before and treat this book as a stand alone, it would be a mistake. You really need to read the first story (part 1 and 2) to get all the depth out of this one. Unlike that first story, this was written from the start to be a two-parter. So it feels a bit more complete than the end of TSK:Beguilement did. But there is clearly more to say with these characters. Plus, now having traveled to the ocean, they still have to come home. Travels change a person, but it takes coming home to really drive this in. Dag and Fawn undertake a honeymoon trip to the sea, which also turns into something of a voyage of discovery for Dag in particular. TSK:Beguilement and TSK:Legacy were more about Fawn's growth, which might be expected given the age and experience discrepency between Fawn and Dag. But in TSK:Passage their roles are reversed, and it is Fawn who serves as Dag's foundation while he undergoes a profound change in his ideas about everything he always believed about his world. Along the way, they touch the lives of various people (most of whom are spritually or physically wounded, some of whom they cure, and some of whom they kill). The reader is also treated to a small slice of life along the big river (based on memoirs of people who worked riverboats along the Mississippi in the time before steam power). And in the end, Fawn and especially Dag finally face up to the fact that their self-appointed task of healing the whole world is, at the same time, both too big for them and yet also something they have to try and do. Because if not them, then who? "It's too easy," several characters echo after having killed someone. It's much easier to kill than to heal. But Dag and Fawn never really thought their path was going to be easy. Now they are finding out just how hard it can be, and just what can go wrong if they fail.