Customer Reviews

Horizon [With Earbuds] (Sharing Knife)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off, this is the second half of the second story in a two story, four book series. So no, don't start here. The book does not (and is not intended to) act as a standalone novel. So from now on I'll assume the reader of this review has read the other three books.

I loved this whole extended story. And I'm glad to say, the final book does not disappoint. It neither wraps up all the problems of the whole world nor leaves a bunch of messy unfinished business. It continues the story of characters we've come to know and love, and it introduces still more of them (not always loveable). It also completes the "there and back again" story of Fawn and Dag's trip to the sea.

The main message of the book seems to be that when you can't see a way to solve your problems from where you are standing, sometimes it helps to stand in a different place. That's true geographically, and also metaphorically. Dag, who has been patroller and maker, healer and killer, Lakewalker with a Farmer wife, as well as boatman and camp dweller, ends up finally having a diverse enough viewpoint to start seeing the answers. But he can't do it alone.

The marriage of Fawn and Dag had been a shocking breach of the wall between Lakewalker and Farmer societies, up north. But in the south, where malices are few and Farmers are many, it seems the interactions between Farmer and Lakewalker are much more common. Dag rightly realizes that he is seeing the future of the north in the current south, and they haven't solved any of the problems he had spotted brewing back home. But at least the problems were more visible to other people, and that leads to a bit more support from them. The key break comes when he and Fawn are accepted (provisionally) into a Lakewalker camp so that he can apprentice with an expert maker.

But that doesn't continue forever, and eventually Dag ends up shepherding a mixed bag of Farmer and Lakewalker pilgrims up the "Tripoint Trace", the road/trail that runs from the south back to the north. Just as the rivers are thinly disguised versions of the Mississippi and Ohio, the trail is a version of the famous Natchez Trace.

Along the way they must solve problems both domestic and magical, as Dag continues on his quest to find some way to protect Farmers from malices. At the same time he continues to try and figure out how Lakewalkers can live with Farmers without either becoming their gods or their demons.

And then, as you knew would happen from the time Dag made the sharing knife in the last book, they encounter a malice. But the malice is running from something else. What could force a malice to flee?

In a conclusion featuring bravery and treachery, wisdom and ignorance, plus well-honed skill and lots of luck, they find out. And then we see that the end of the story does not mean the end of all stories, just the beginning of others.

(That's not to imply there is any sort of cliffhanger ending. I would doubt there will be any direct sequels to these novels. My suspicion is that Bujold has now told the tale she wanted to tell.)

The story of Farmer girl Fawn and Lakewalker Dag has been building through three books to this fourth, as the two of them continue their efforts to find a place in the world where they can live and have the family they want while also finding a way to deal with the crisis they see coming between their peoples and the ancient menace that threatens the whole world. This is not a stand-alone book; for those new to the series the preceding book Passage is a prerequisite at the minimum.

Warning - possible spoilers ahead.

The first two books, Beguilement and Legacy are much more focused on the relationship between Dag and Fawn. How they met, how they fell in love, and just what the two very different worlds they come from are like. Farmers and Lakewalkers do NOT ever marry each other - or so their two respective societies would have it.

Lakewalkers are set apart by their groundsense, an inherited ability to perceive the world in a different way that allows them to work what seems magic to Farmer eyes and fight an ancient foe. The enemy is Malices which emerge at random from the land and threaten to use their vastly more powerful groundsense to drain ground from the world until it all crumbles. Only Lakewalkers can resist the mind-enslaving, ground-ripping power of Malices. Farmers are little more than fodder for Malices - yet they fear and distrust the powers of their only protection, the Lakewalkers who ceaselessly patrol looking for the threat. Only Lakewalkers can kill Malices with their sharing knives, made from the bones of their own dead and primed by the death of a Lakewalker as his or her final gift in the centuries long war against their deadly foes.

Dag Redwing is a nearly burned out Lakewalker patroller more than ready to die, seeking only to take down as many Malices as he can with the years he has left. Having lost his first Lakewalker wife and his left hand to a truly terrible Malice years ago, he is totally unprepared for what happens when he meets the young Farmer girl Fawn Bluefield fleeing her own personal disaster. Caught up in a Malice outbreak, the two them together take down the Malice - he supplies the Sharing Knife, hers is the hand that uses it to teach the Malice how to die. As the two of them seek to survive the aftermath, they fall in love.

From there the story continues as Dag and Fawn first deal with her family, and then with his in the first two books. Both begin to grow and change as neither could have imagined before meeting each other, shaped both by the love they have for each other and the events they face. Fawn is becoming much more than the naive Farmer girl as her hungry mind is opened to a much wider world. Dag becomes reborn as her enthusiasm reopens his eyes to a world he had become numb to. The two of them begin to see that the old ways of Farmer and Lakewalker are no longer adequate to cope with a changing world. By the end of the second book, Dag is ready to move on from being a patroller as his groundsense begins to change and develop; Fawn has become much more confident in herself and more experienced - but is still hungry to see more of the world. Together the two of them embark on an epic journey down the great rivers of the land to the sea.

This journey is the third book, Passage. Dag and Fawn embark on a flatboat for a weeks long trip to the sea. Along the way they begin to accumulate their own 'tribe' - Fawn's younger brother who has someone inserted himself in their trip, a couple of young Lakewalker patrollers fleeing their own personal mess, the young boatboss Berry Clearcreek and her crew seeking a missing father and fiance. Working as crew on the flatboat, Fawn and Dag begin to try to find a new way between Farmers and Lakwalkers; educating both sides about each other, breaking through the misunderstandings. Dag's groundsense powers are growing and changing as he fumbles his way to becoming a medicine maker to Farmers. Fawn finds her common sense and bright mind are needed to keep Dag centered as he goes far beyond the bounds of anything he had ever imagined. By journey's end they have reached the sea and survived another great threat.

Dag and Fawn have made some progress with their plans to find a way to close the gap between Farmers and Lakewalkers, but they are a long way from having the answers they need and they keep finding more questions. Horizon begins with Dag not knowing what to do next, and becoming more and more unsettled as he tries to get a handle on his new abilities. It takes Fawn's insight to set him on a way forward. They seek out a master groundsetter among the southern Lakewalkers to teach him what he needs to know.

Southern Lakewalkers are almost a breed apart from their northern kin. Malices are almost unknown; Farmers cover the land, and the southern Lakewalkers are finding it harder and harder to maintain their traditional identity. Although Dag's new mentor is both fascinated and horrified by his experiences, he's also intrigued by Dag's discoveries and their ideas - but Fawn finds little welcome. Dag nonetheless begins to make real progress - and unsettle things when his past as a legendary northern patrol captain surfaces. Things come to a head when Dag is compelled by his new ideals to treat a young Farmer boy who would die otherwise, and is threatened with expulsion for deliberately crossing the line between Farmers and Lakewalkers.

Refusing again to compromise, Dag and Fawn begin a journey back to the north overland along the Tripoint Trace - trailing his mentor along with them! Again Dag and Fawn find themselves as leaders in a growing party of mixed Farmers, riverfolk and Lakewalkers as they seek to find a way forward. The story builds to a sustained climax as Dag and Fawn find their ideas and their hopes tested by a threat they had never imagined. Both will be challenged in ways they had never faced and others will be drawn in, in ways that had never before been seen.

Bujold does a masterful job of bringing the tale told over four books to an end. Along the way there is much humor, plenty of romance, wonderful characters, and enough excitement and drama to satisfy all. What began as an intimate romance between two people has expanded in the course of just over a year (book time) to a thrilling saga with a wider cast. While that expanded focus may not please those who just want the Dag and Fawn story, they still remain the core around which the story turns. The difference is that their relationship has now become so solid, they have much more power to affect those around them. Having been through so many changes in their own selves, they have now become catalysts for change in others and the story expands to watching those changes unfold.

It's a darned good read. Will there be more to come in the future? There's no way of knowing but Bujold has managed to bring all to satisfactory stopping point while leaving plenty of room for future possibilities. In the Vorkosigan saga Bujold created memorable characters in Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan with good stories around them - yet really hit her stride with tales of their son Miles. Will something comparable happen here? That question will have to wait for another day. Meanwhile there's quite enough here for now.

Highly Recommended.

Horizon does a good job in wrapping up the "Sharing Knife" series. Readers should definitely not start with this volume - at minimum, you should read "Passage" first.

I found the Passage/Horizon pair a much more compelling read than Beguilement/Legacy. The first two books of the series are mainly focused on Dag and Fawn's relationship with each other, while the second pair is more how they interact with the world (and try to change it).

By necessity there are a few places where "Horizon" drags with exposition while the characters fill in the backstory of the other books, but there is also a great action sequence I hadn't anticipated - I thought that LMB had already explored all the possible types of encounters with the "malices" but I was wrong.

All the plot ends from Passages are wrapped up, in a way that is believable. While I prefer LMB's Vorkosigan and Chalion series, I still enjoyed Dag and Fawn's adventures and will still happily ready anything LMB's wants to write.

I'm not sure what it is I like most about Lois McMaster Bujold's writing: her characterization skills, her prose, the fascinating world-building and plotting? Maybe it's all of the above. One skill she definitely has, though, is adaptability. In all four books of the "Sharing Knife" series, she has used a different style, even as she keeps everything consistent between the books. The fourth book, Horizon, fully illustrates that as Bujold adds a bit of action to the mix, with some wonderful magic, menacing forces, and the gradual softening of attitudes among the two very distinct societies that she has created. It's a wonderful culmination to a series that has captivated me from beginning to end, despite a couple of rough patches in the first book.

The first year of Dag and Fawn's marriage has been tumultuous, a honeymoon journey to show the Farmer girl a world that she's never seen. She's also learned a lot about how Dag's people, the Lakewalkers, aren't truly as scary as most farmers believe. Dag is learning more and more about becoming a "Maker," someone who specializes in working with the "Ground" that inhabits all human beings, and he harbors dreams of becoming a liaison between Lakewalker and Farmer, a bridge of understanding between the two peoples that will end the distrust that keeps them apart. As the newlyweds make their journey from the mouth of the river they have explored back home, with companions both Lakewalker and Farmer alike, the threat of a new kind of Malice (evil remnants of ancient magic) erupts in front of them. Old and tested ways may not be enough, and the true joining of Farmer and Lakewalker may be put to its ultimate test.

Bujold continues her masterful exploration of the Lakewalker world in Horizon, with Dag becoming apprenticed to a crotchety Lakewalker maker in a camp far to the south of Dag's home. In the process, we see even more about how "ground" works and the possibilities that Dag has created with his exploration of it. Fawn makes the perfect bridge between the two peoples, as Farmers instinctively distrust any Lakewalker and she is able to counterbalance that. These two characters are the core of this series, and Bujold does a wonderful job characterizing them.

That's not to say any of the other characters are neglected. As they journey north, the couple continually accept companions who want to come along for the ride, and the band becomes an eclectic mix of Lakewalker and Farmer, along with a couple of half-breeds who give Dag pause for thought regarding what he and Fawn will produce when the time comes. All of these characters are distinct and bring their own personality, prejudices, and talents to the group. They are all three-dimensional characters, never acting differently than they should and always contributing to the progress of the story.

For those readers who feel there hasn't been enough action in the series so far, there's definitely some in the final chapter. These new forms of Malices force Dag and his brethren to come up with new ways to stop them, and the finale of all this is truly fitting to the spirit of the series. All parties working together, the Lakewalkers needing the Farmers' help, and almost everybody has had their eyes opened to a new way of thinking about the world.

In almost every Bujold book I read, I marvel at the world-building skill she demonstrates, and that continues here. Yes, we've seen this world for the last three books, but she always brings something new to the whole proceeding. She's written each book in a different style, though this one is more like the second than it is the other novels. Book one was a romance, book three was a road (river) journey, and Horizon harkens back to the second book with its concentration on the exploration of this fantasy world. Of course, all the books have had that, but that hasn't always been the main thrust.

Bujold even excels in something as cliché as the "where did everybody end up?" epilogue, giving it all through dialogue between two characters who haven't seen each other in a while. We see what all of the survivors of the journey north are doing, the changes in the world and perceptions of it. Of course, this kind of conversation has been done before, but Bujold has the conversation heading toward the wrapping up of one loose end that the reader may not even be aware of, making this character update actually important to the story.

Finally, I have to comment once again on Bujold's prose, as Horizon is a beautiful book to read. She captures the speech mannerisms of both Farmer and Lakewalker perfectly, with hardly a word out of place. Her descriptions give the reader a vivid picture of what's going on and the world around the characters, establishing a setting that you can almost see yourself in.

Obviously, there are no perfect books, but any faults in Horizon are few and far between, at least to this reader's eye. The "Sharing Knife" series may have started out on a slightly questionable note, but it ends on a truly stellar one. I would also hazard a guess that this series could easily be an introduction to fantasy for those who think they don't like that sort of thing, as this is a perfect blending of genres.

Originally published on Curled Up With a Good Book © David Roy, 2009

This is really five stars for Bujold's book, which is a satisfying close to this series, and zero stars to the disgraceful production values of the mass-market paperback: I read the book when it first came out in hardback, waiting to buy a paperback copy for my collection (I have the other three in paperback). Now that it has finally come out in paperback, I haven't bought it, and I won't until the publisher takes a little bit of care in its production. I visited two different bookstores, and all the copies they had were very badly produced: warped paper, book not square, and, if put on a flat surface, with pages fanning open on their own.

I don't expect perfection and sewn binding from a mass-marked paperback. For my money I do expect a book that is a least as good as other paperbacks.

Bujold writes two types of novels, fine examples of their genre and masterpieces of their genre. This is an example of the former rather than the latter, but that shouldn't dissuade her fans, and fans of the series who have read the first three books, Beguilement (The Sharing Knife, Book 1), Legacy (The Sharing Knife, Book 2) and The Sharing Knife (Passage, Book 3).

In this novel we move closer to a joining of the gulf between Farmer and Lakewalker culture, as Dag and Fawn try to find a place for both of them.

The characters in the book "The Sharing Knife, Volume 4" are extremely likeable and easy to like. Bujold spends a lot of time fleshing out her fantasy world, and it pays off completely, leaving the reader feeling as though they are reading about a completely different world. As the final book in the series, she does an excellent job tying up the ends and giving you a look at the character's continuing lives, without resorting to trite contrivances. Fawn is a vibrant character, full of determination and good humor, and easy to relate to, while Dag is a little more thoughtful and introspective, giving the reader many insights into his inner angst. This would be a great book to read and discuss with friends, and I highly recommend reading it.

This is volume four in a series that starts with BEGUILEMENT. Don't start the series here as it will ruin your fun of reading the whole series in order!

HORIZON serves as the capstone to the grand edifice Bujold has been building in her THE SHARING KNIFE series. Looking for comparisons, the only series that comes to mind is LeGuin's WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. That series is a trilogy with a couple of books tacked on after to cover the what happened after the grand quest was over. The SHARING KNIFE is a unified whole, centering on the adventures of Fawn, a young farmer girl and her exotic lover/husband Dag the Lakewalker patroller.

I admit that at the beginning I thought Bujold had made her fantasy world too simple, but as the story progressed so did the level of complexity. Fawn and Dag's world now seems as solid and real to me as the Mississippi River prior to the American Civil War. That this world is threatened by the remnants of a great mage war of antiquity, the malices, which Dag's people are destined to fight, now seems a master stroke on the part of Bujold.

Horizon picks up as Dag and Fawn begin their return home after the riverboat journey of PASSAGE. Dag is desperate to find a teacher for the strange mage skills that have been growing during their prior adventures. Fawn convinces him to apply to a widely respected Lakewalker healer. Dag is old to be taken on as an apprentice, but he and Fawn manage to partially overcome the prejudices generated by their mixed marriage. Then a young farmer boy is stricken with lockjaw; Dag attempts a healing that gets him expelled from this new Lakewalker camp. He and Fawn are on the road again in company with a mixture of farmers heading north to settle new lands and young Lakewalker patrollers looking to gain experience on the northern malice battlefields.

Despite the dangers of the journey, this book is a joyous exploration of a marvelous fantasy world combined with a strong message of how diverse peoples can discover and inhabit their common ground! THE SHARING KNIFE series cannot be too highly recommended!

Well, here we are at book #4 of the Sharing Knife saga. I can rightly say that I enjoyed the series. It is well written. The world building is excellent --peoples and places and things well described. And if the character development is rather stagnant, at least the characters are interesting and multifaceted.

As a series, and as an individual book, it's not a totally satisfying read. In Bujold's earlier works there was more a sense of urgency, of teetering on the brink of disaster. One gets episodes of such tension in these books, but the plot is never driven forward at that relentless pace she displayed in the Miles books.

My main disappointment though with "Horizon" stems from the fact that the great mysteries that underlie the series remain hidden. We don't get to find out the what, where, and why of the boggles-- blight it. And we learn no more about why farmers are different from Lakewalkers. [I'm rather of the opinion that if an author strikes down the path of world building that she/he owes the reader such an explanation. (Perhaps one is intended in the future. I'd hate to think there wasn't one.)]

My advice then is for you to read the book if you enjoyed the others. Personally, I'm pretty sure that over the summer I will read the entire series again. It was/will be enjoyable.

Pam T~

As the fourth and final book in "The Sharing Knife" series, it definitely doesn't stand alone, and indeed it took me considerable time to recall who the secondary characters were, especially the ones who were 'off-stage' in this book. But gradually the details of the story so far came out, and the theme of the book, and the series, began to develop. Dag's world is at the beginning of a time of transition, when the old, and completely separate societies of the Farmers (this includes traders and artisans) and the Lakewalkers, who defend the land from ancient evil beings, is beginning to destablize. The culture seems to be perhaps late 17th or early 18th century, getting close to mass production and technology, and clearly increasing Farmer population, that will soon start to overwhelm the limited magic the Lakewalkers use to protect the land. Dag wants to find ways to undo the fear Farmers have of Lakewalkers, and the scorn that Lakewalkers feel for Farmers, and bring unity and understanding. It seems like more than one not-very-charismatic man can manage, but Dag is determined to gain the skills he needs to try. How a group of travelers come together for Dag to develop and demonstrate some of the possible ways of easing the differences creates an intriguing story.