Customer Reviews

Passage (The Sharing Knife, Book 3)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you liked the first two books in the series, then you will like this one. However, for those new to the series, don't start here! Although there is enough backstory to make this book stand alone, it reads much better if you have the full history of Fawn and Dag. (And there are many spoilers for the first two books in this one).

This book is essentially Dag's story - his search for his new identity, atonement for his past, his ambivalence in dealing with his new abilities. The romance/relationship issues that drove the first two novels are not central to this book. Fawn's viewpoint is here, but mainly acts as another lens for Dag's story. The secondary characters and subplots are well-rounded and interesting, and the setting is rich.

This series is very different from LMB's Vorkosigan or Chalion series, and personally I prefer her other books as more fast-paced and (at least on the surface) more complex. However, I am glad that the author continues to stretch herself, and try new things, because I wouldn't want her to start writing the same book over and over again (a trap too many authors fall in).

I gave this book four stars instead of five both because of that personal preference, and because of a minor flaw - Dag's motivation for starting some very strange experiments and pushing the limits with his new abilities didn't seem clear to me, although it is important to the plot. This book is an improvement over the first two, though, because it stands alone much better.

All in all, highly recommended for LMB fans, but not the starting place for those new to her work.

Dag and Fawn begin a long journey to the sea, which even well-travelled Dag has seen only once. Dag struggles to explain Lakewalker secrets to Farmers, though even his farmer bride doesn't reassure some stubborn, superstitious Farmers. Along their journey, Dag and Fawn collect company -- Fawn's pesky brother Whit, a dimwitted farmer boy, a couple of young Lakewalker patrollers, and a flatboat captain searching for her missing father. As Dag slowly heals from malice-inflicted injuries, he begins experimenting with new forms of groundwork, even though the Farmers fear his "magic" and the Lakewalkers disapprove of his revealing their secrets to Farmers. Dag and Fawn also hear rumors of disappearances along the river, leading their party into a dangerous adventure. Dag and Fawn make several passages -- a passage to the sea, a passage between cultures, a passage from patroller to maker -- as they try to open communication between Lakewalkers and Farmers.

As usual in a Bujold book, even the minor charactes are well-drawn. The scene where Fawn explains sharing knives to White is not to be missed; I loved Whit's comparison of sharing knives to a Farmer practice. The story was satisfying, but it also left me eager to see what's on the horizon for Dag, Fawn, and their travelling companions.

Passage (2008) is the third fantasy novel of The Sharing Knife series, following Legacy. In the previous volume, Dag and Fawn were called before the camp council on charges pressed by his brother Dar. The council split on the decision, but Dag and Fawn left Hickory Lake Camp anyway. After the Malice incident in Greenspring, Dag wanted to find another way for the Lakewalkers to relate with the Farmers. Besides, their marriage has caused enough trouble with both Lakewalkers and Farmers.

In this novel, Dag and Fawn go first to her family farm. The twins have moved off to stake their own claims and Whit has -- mostly -- quit his teasing of Fawn, so the visit goes well. At least until shortly before they leave, when Whit decides to go with them.

They leave Fawn's pregnant mare at the farm and take two draft horses that Whit has trained. Naturally, Dag continues to ride Copperhead to protect the Farmers; no telling what that horse will do! The three ride off toward the Grace River.

On the way, Dag and Fawn acquaint Whit with previously unshared knowledge about the Lakewalkers and Malices. Since Fawn knows Whit much better than Dag, she does more of the talking. Yet his confirmations make the discussion more real to Whit.

Reaching Glassforge, Whit learns that his sister and brother-in-law are very well known in the town. They stay at the inn where the wounded had been treated and everybody knows Fawn. They even know that she has killed a Malice. Whit is quite amazed at his sister's fame.

When it comes time to leave Glassforge, Whit changes his mind again. Instead to returning home, he decides to travel further with them. He does sell the horses, but gets a job with the firm that bought them. Now Whit and Fawn are riding the wagons to the river and Dag is still riding Copperhead.

In this story, Dag and Fawn meet many people on the trail and boating down the river. Dag also meets a few Lakewalkers in the river camps. He and Fawn, with some help from Whit, disseminate more information about the Lakewalkers and gain more knowledge of the people themselves. Dag gets to perform a few more medical makings on the Farmer folks and starts to gain a reputation among them as a good healer.

The Lakewalker authorities -- even the Patroller chiefs -- are very much against his activities. They order him to stop treating the wounded and sick Farmers and to cease his information campaign. But events on down the river turn out to require his healing and information.

This tale shows that the Farmers can accept the Lakewalker activities as beneficial and understand the dangers of the Malices. Yet the efforts of Dag and Fawn are only a drop in the bucket. They also need to change the Lakewalkers themselves to gain full acceptance from the Farmers.

The story is far from finished. Dag and Fawn will be back in Horizon, the fourth volume in this series. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Bujold fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of exotic societies, unusual magics, and marital romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

As other reviewers have said- this is not the place to start the series. Which I feel is unfortunate, because I was largely uninterested in the drippy romance that was the focal point of the first two volumes. However, Bujold did an excellent job of worldbuilding, and the underlying mystery of the world's history and magic kept me reading in the hope of finding out more.

And in this book, we start to explore the capabilities of Dag's magic, the complex social problems that helped enliven the prior books are attacked (and prove to be *complex*, and not trivial), and we get to see more of Dag and Fawn's world. The 'main' plot's resolution is more or less obvious at the point it is introduced, but the problems of the lively set of secondary characters were more than sufficient to keep me entertained for the journey.

If you were underwhelmed by the first two books, don't stop now. It just got better.

I didn't write a review of the first two books in Bujold's The Sharing Knife series. I'm not sure why, but I don't review every book I read. I liked the first two books in this series but didn't love them. Passage, however, takes the series to a new level. I wouldn't recommend reading Passage without reading the first two, however. I don't think this volume would have the same impact and would be a bit difficult to follow without the background of the first two.

Passage finds Fawn Bluefield and Dag Redwood Hickory returning to the Bluefield farm after Dag confronts his Lakewalker clan over his marriage to a farmer girl. Upon arrival they plan a trip to the sea. They take along Whit, Fawn's younger and at times troublesome brother and set off on the long journey. Along the way they pick up a collection of characters who are misfits, in some ways, making for quite an interesting trip along the river to the sea. Dag has a self-imposed mission to bring Lakewalkers and farmers into closer harmony by revealing the secrets of Lakewalker powers and discovers new and growing powers of his own. Dag wrestles with his new found abilities and tries to find ways to use them for the best. At the same time he takes Whit and two young Lakewalker patrollers under his wing.

It is rare for a third book in a series scheduled to be four to be much more than filler. That certainly isn't the case here as Bujold takes the series to a new level with her exquisite ability to bring characters to life, her wonderful prose, and brilliant storytelling. I eagerly await Volume 4.

This is not your normal fantasy adventure. All three books in Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife series remind me of Ursula LeGuin's later Earthsea books in that the stories are about normal people experiencing normal (although trying) times, and getting through them with love and companionship.

The great river of the Wide Green World universe is the backdrop and pace setter of this novel. As we make our unhurried way downstream, we pick up cargo, unfold stories and go where the current takes us. There is a bad guy -- but this is more a story of building community, and deciding how one can start over. The humor is warm and sly. The relationships between characters are real and engaging. Fantasy lovers will be very happy to see a more explicit explanation of the malices (the recurrent evil of this world) and how they work. And groundwork gets a pretty good explanation, as well as demonstration.

I felt there was a lot of backstory included, and I suspect this book will stand alone for first-time readers. But Book One (Beguilement)Beguilement (The Sharing Knife, Book 1) and Book Two (Legacy)Legacy (The Sharing Knife, Book 2) are well worth picking up, also. Enjoy!

"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.

The way the second book in the series ended I thought that the story was complete. Dag and Fawn's romance, that drove much of the story, seemed to reach a point of resolution. Fortunately, I was wrong. Bujold has sent the story curve into another direction entirely. It's more introspective and fills in some of the backstory that makes the Sharing Knife series so compelling; but the plot is still crafted by a master and moves along nicely.

With the new plot direction with its resulting conflicts and characters I look forward to enjoying more installments as much as I did this one.

Middle books in a series are often the hardest for an author to pull off. You need to move the story along, but you can't resolve too much or there's no reason to continue to volume 3. Yet it has to be good enough that readers *want* to keep reading. Even with an author as fine as Bujold, the second book in the Sharing Knife series suffered from this problem. Certainly, several reviewers were disappointed by Legacy. If you aren't sure if it's worth it to keep going and read Passage -- don't worry. Because she fulfills her promises. This is simply great.

Dag and Fawn, now four months into their marriage, head down the river to the sea, as that was one of Dag's promises to her. But the journey is an emotional one as well as geographic, as the couple tries to accomplish the goals they set for themselves: sharing understanding between "Lakewalkers" and "Farmers." They interact with lots of people from different levels of the society (I don't want to give away too much), and around every bend in the river they -- and we readers -- learn something new.

The writing has the same sweet caring and good humor you've come to expect from the characters in this series. Darnit, Bujold just creates such _likable_ people!

It's a VERY enjoyable read, I assure you. It's also good dense storytelling. Yes, it's totally different from Vor and Chalion. I like that; Bujold isn't becoming predictable.

The Sharing Knife: Beguilement (#1) was Fawn's story. The Sharing Knife: Legacy (#2) is Dag's story.

This novel is Fawn and Dag's story. Dag promised her a wedding trip, but they all are on a voyage of discovery. What is it to be a Lakewalker without a Camp? Can one be a farmer and not farm? Is there magic to be made in putting together a group of people who trust you and you trust them? That's the strength in this book, just as it was/ is Miles' and Aral's particular strengths as well: creating/ making/ leading a group who may not wish to be led, or led in the same ways. When I was nearing the end of this book, I was dreading it-- I didn't want it to be over. But I could see that it could have *many* sequels -- except Bujold doesn't tend to write about children and that I predict will be in Fawn's and Dag's next adventure.

If you are new to this series, please read them in order. If you aren't new to this series why haven't you bought it yet!?!!! It's new Bujold!!! What could you possibly be waiting for?