An epic fantasy of devotion, destiny, and perilous magic, from one of the most honored writers in the field-- multiple Hugo Award-winning autho... read full description
reviews
Dec 16, 2009
thefourthvine
rated it: 
Note: I believe I am the only person on the face of the earth who hated this book. If you liked it, this review will annoy you. Also, be advised that there will be spoilers for what we might loosely term the plot in what follows.
This book suffers from three main problems:
1. A fascinating world that gets built in the first few pages and then utterly abandoned in favor of
2. An amazingly unengaging, unbelievable romance between a typical Bujold guy and
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This book suffers from three main problems:
1. A fascinating world that gets built in the first few pages and then utterly abandoned in favor of
2. An amazingly unengaging, unbelievable romance between a typical Bujold guy and
More...
11 comments
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(30 people liked it)
Jul 28, 2008
Kathryn
rated it: 
The Sharing Knife is about Fawn Bluefield, a young woman, pregnant but unwed, and scorned by the father of her baby. Fearing the shame and outrage that will fall on her when news of her pregnancy gets around, she decides to run away from home and make a new life for herself in the city of Glassforge, where she will pretend to be a widow. On her way, she encounters a group of Lakewalkers, a mysterious race of people who patrol the land, searching for and destroying malices, also known as blight
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2 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Dec 25, 2008
Tatiana
rated it: 
Like most Bujold, this was a fast interesting read. She grabbed my attention with the viewpoint character, Fawn, who was likable and quickly made me care what happened to her. The world/society/setting seems underdeveloped, but that probably comes clearer in the rest of the series. Also, when it comes to fantasy, I really like Tolkien, and everyone else seems to fall short in the world development area, naturally. In other words, she didn't invent 14 languages yet for this universe.
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(3 people liked it)
Apr 05, 2009
Lisa
rated it: 
I really enjoy Bujold's imagination. Her fantasy ideas are never like anything I've ever seen before and her worlds are so rich and complex and utterly believable. And she is so good at letting them unfold slowly and naturally and at making characters that I totally fall in love with.
This is actually the second time I read this book, I don't usually read books twice, but I bought it for a quarter at my mom's library last week because I didn't have anything to read and I was despe More...
This is actually the second time I read this book, I don't usually read books twice, but I bought it for a quarter at my mom's library last week because I didn't have anything to read and I was despe More...
Dec 08, 2011
Mike (the Paladin)
rated it:
Okay...first let us make no mistake. This is a romance, a love story. The synopsis may make it sound like an adventure, it may talk about the Lake Walkers, the Patrolers in mysterious terms...but it amounts to a love story. The inexperienced young farm girl meets the mysterious, older and more knowledgeable Lake Walker, shows herself more competent and able than expected. Then their love must overcome various and sundry obstacles (I'd mention a couple but that might be considered giving spoilers
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11 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Jun 13, 2011
Hirondelle
rated it:
What has happened to Lois Bujold? I was reading this and kept mentally comparing it to Shards of Honor, published 1986, also a sort of romance and also the start of a series. Maybe the fact that Bujold is now starting a fantasy series says something for the state of sf as compared to fantasy. Maybe I am biased pro-sf but this book was just so flimsy compared to SoH.
I better put some spoiler warnings, just in case,
<spoiler>
Along the Vorkosigan series, proverbially More...
I better put some spoiler warnings, just in case,
<spoiler>
Along the Vorkosigan series, proverbially More...
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(2 people liked it)
Dec 28, 2008
Lightreads
rated it:
This is the first book of a duology, a fantasy/romance with the emphasis on the romance. Our couple consists of Fawn Bluefield – farmer girl, eighteen, pregnant, running away from home – and Dag Redwing – one-handed, widower, fiftyish, from the militaristic Lakewalker culture. Dag and his patrol are tracking a malice, an immortal life-leeching menace which can only be dispatched with a sharing knife (a nice little conceit that is not worth ruining). The malice captures Fawn for nefarious purpose
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(4 people liked it)
May 27, 2008
Shannon
rated it:
This was the first Bujold novel I've read, recommended to me by the staff at Bakka Pheonix, and I have to say it's very sweet. It's got a similar tone to Kate Forsyth's work, if that gives you a clearer idea, and I really liked it.
Fawn gets more than she wanted after experimenting in the wheatfield with "Stupid" Sunny Sawman, and runs away from her parents' farm, heading to the town of Glassforge to find work.
She encounters a Lakewalker patrol, there to hunt d More...
Fawn gets more than she wanted after experimenting in the wheatfield with "Stupid" Sunny Sawman, and runs away from her parents' farm, heading to the town of Glassforge to find work.
She encounters a Lakewalker patrol, there to hunt d More...
Dec 17, 2009
Slither
rated it:
Okay, I am a Bujold fan, honest I am. However, I am afraid this review will cause be to be exiled from the International Order of Bujold-lovers. This fantasy book reminds me of a cross between Anne Rice and Mercedes Lackey.
Brief plot description: A grizzled soldier meets a young girl. The soldier is fifty-five years old, and has a broken heart. The girl is eighteen and has run away from home after her one and only experience of sex turned out badly.
During the next th More...
Brief plot description: A grizzled soldier meets a young girl. The soldier is fifty-five years old, and has a broken heart. The girl is eighteen and has run away from home after her one and only experience of sex turned out badly.
During the next th More...
Jul 27, 2008
Emmaco
rated it:
Another book where I can't seperate my expectations (in this case based firmly on my high opinion of the author) from the book itself. This was my second time reading Beguilement and I think I didn't get much more out of it this time around. It's a very slow paced romance book set in a fantasy world. Despite some lovely moments the romance itself, and the main female lead, irritated me more than I remember. The world building in this series is excellent; I suspect I would be more impressed if it
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3 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 06, 2009
Beth
rated it:
This is my least favorite Bujold book to date. Really, it's nothing more than a romance -- and it gets rather sappy. Also, there are more detailed sex scenes in this novel than I've encountered in Bujold's work in the past, and I didn't like that at all.
I really did enjoy the first part of the novel...it was very interesting at first. I really liked the male protagonist, Dag. I thought he was a great character. The lakewalkers, the malices, the sharing knife...that was all fascinati More...
I really did enjoy the first part of the novel...it was very interesting at first. I really liked the male protagonist, Dag. I thought he was a great character. The lakewalkers, the malices, the sharing knife...that was all fascinati More...
Jan 29, 2012
Lissa
rated it:
I enjoyed the first volume of this series so much I plunged ahead and read the next three volumes. I have marked it fantasy, but it has a very high level of romance, not that I would admit to reading romances! I cannot include the quote that made me love this first book because it really runs on for pages and it may not make sense if you don't get the build up. The scene is dinner at the Bluefields, where Fawn has returned with her much older lover, Dag. Dag belongs to the Lakewalker society a s
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Jan 17, 2012
Heather
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
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Sep 08, 2011
Meredith
rated it:
Boy, do I like this book. I think I've read it about four times now. Bujold is so good at making world building very simple. There are lots of fantasy books (and urban fantasy too) where the world building is just so freaking complicated and overdone, that while it might be cool, it's just too hard to follow.
Bujold isn't like that, and so sometimes I think her books seem a little less like true fantasy and more like fantasy-lite. But I like the idea that the world is not SO different More...
Bujold isn't like that, and so sometimes I think her books seem a little less like true fantasy and more like fantasy-lite. But I like the idea that the world is not SO different More...
May 12, 2011
Christine
rated it:
When Fawn Redfield discovers she's pregnant, she runs away from home and hopes to find work in Glassforge. But a malice, a creature that eats the life from other creatures, finds her first. A Lakewalker named Dag finds her while hunting the malice, and the two of them bond as they recover from their ordeal. Despite their differences, they grow to value each other and fall in love -- but their cultures do not approve of the match.
Bujold has won a lot of accolades for science fiction an More...
Bujold has won a lot of accolades for science fiction an More...
Mar 26, 2011
Books-treasureortrash
rated it:
Book Review: 3 Treasure Boxes
What kind of world would it be if it could be assaulted by Malices? Malices are evil immortal creatures that turn living creatures into zombie-like beings and they leach all life from the world around them. Lakewalkers have magical abilities to sense and kill Malices. Farmers are smaller humans with no magical abilities that the Lakewalkers protect. This is the love story of a Lakewalker and Farm girl who have difficulties because it is taboo for the two More...
What kind of world would it be if it could be assaulted by Malices? Malices are evil immortal creatures that turn living creatures into zombie-like beings and they leach all life from the world around them. Lakewalkers have magical abilities to sense and kill Malices. Farmers are smaller humans with no magical abilities that the Lakewalkers protect. This is the love story of a Lakewalker and Farm girl who have difficulties because it is taboo for the two More...
Mar 21, 2011
Anke
rated it:
What you need to know if you're considering buying this:
1) It's the first half of a story. This book and the second in the series, Legacy, were originally one story, but it got too long.
2) This is not a story about monster hunting with a side of romance; it's a romance that starts with a bit of monster hunting.
I had read reviews indicating this previously, and went in expecting to not like it much, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. I really liked Dag's humor, for example More...
1) It's the first half of a story. This book and the second in the series, Legacy, were originally one story, but it got too long.
2) This is not a story about monster hunting with a side of romance; it's a romance that starts with a bit of monster hunting.
I had read reviews indicating this previously, and went in expecting to not like it much, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. I really liked Dag's humor, for example More...
Mar 14, 2011
Marlee
rated it: 
There are four books in the Sharing Knife series, and I've read 3 of them. I will read the 4th as soon as I can get my hands and eyes on it.
The main themes of this series have to do with a planet that is home to two different types of humans. There are people who are called "Lakewalkers" who have an ability to sense the emotional fields of all living things. There are people who are called "farmers" who don't have this ability. There is some history in which the L More...
The main themes of this series have to do with a planet that is home to two different types of humans. There are people who are called "Lakewalkers" who have an ability to sense the emotional fields of all living things. There are people who are called "farmers" who don't have this ability. There is some history in which the L More...
Jan 12, 2011
Lis
rated it:
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 encoun
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Jan 10, 2011
Scott
rated it:
Like many novels, Bujold's Beguilement is multi-layered. On one level, it is a fantasy novel where Lakewalkers patrollers protect the lands from malice. On another, it's a romance novel where the veteran patroller, Dag, and a runaway farm girl, Fawn Bluefield, meet under life-threatening circumstances and, as one might suspect, develop a mutual relationship which becomes romantic.
There are other things going in Beguilement, such as the dichotomy between Lakewalkers and farmers, but, fo More...
There are other things going in Beguilement, such as the dichotomy between Lakewalkers and farmers, but, fo More...
Dec 30, 2010
Mark
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Dec 22, 2010
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 inter More...
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 inter More...
Oct 19, 2010
Lea's Audiobooks
rated it:
Unabridged audiobook version discussed in Speaking of Audiobooks 5/04/10 column - this is actually the first portion of the column:
My original six challenge choices evolved somewhat throughout the column’s discussion as I learned from our listeners that not all of my chosen audiobooks fit within their stated category. After supplementing and moving my selections around, I chose my first challenge category, Fantasy Romance, and took the advice of listeners yet again and decided on Th More...
My original six challenge choices evolved somewhat throughout the column’s discussion as I learned from our listeners that not all of my chosen audiobooks fit within their stated category. After supplementing and moving my selections around, I chose my first challenge category, Fantasy Romance, and took the advice of listeners yet again and decided on Th More...
Oct 12, 2010
Jane
rated it:
Pleasant romance with humans (some with magic abilities) fighting magic creatures. I wasn’t wowed, but it was ok.
STORY BRIEF:
There are two kinds of humans, regular humans who farm, raise animals and have trades, and lakewalkers who patrol the land looking for and destroying malices. Lakewalkers have magic abilities. Malices erupt from the earth and make slaves out of nearby animals. It reshapes them into human form where they resemble zombie-like men called mud men. The ma More...
STORY BRIEF:
There are two kinds of humans, regular humans who farm, raise animals and have trades, and lakewalkers who patrol the land looking for and destroying malices. Lakewalkers have magic abilities. Malices erupt from the earth and make slaves out of nearby animals. It reshapes them into human form where they resemble zombie-like men called mud men. The ma More...
Aug 16, 2010
Christine
rated it:
This is the first book in a series, which always makes me feel a little uncomfortable when it comes time to review it. At this point, I think the best I can say is that I enjoyed it and intend to read the second book.
Structurally, the plot surprised me. The romance between Fawn and Dag framed this book. Normally, when I read romance in a series, each book handles a different couple or the romance isn't fully resolved until the last book. In this case, the romance was resolved (althoug More...
Structurally, the plot surprised me. The romance between Fawn and Dag framed this book. Normally, when I read romance in a series, each book handles a different couple or the romance isn't fully resolved until the last book. In this case, the romance was resolved (althoug More...
Jan 29, 2010
Lighthearted
rated it:
Fawn Bluefield always believed that blight bogles were nothing more than wild tales; when she set off alone cross-country, she thought her main worry would be bandits. Learning that a Lakewalker patrol was just ahead of her on the road in search of a bogle, she almost changed her plans—almost. Desperate to leave her old life behind, Fawn pushed on–and found herself captured by the bogle’s slaves.
Dag Redwing is a veteran Lakewalker patroller with a painful past of his own. Tracking More...
Dag Redwing is a veteran Lakewalker patroller with a painful past of his own. Tracking More...
May 07, 2009
Jennifer
rated it:
Bujold, as usual, sets up an interesting situation. Two people with complex pasts face an ultimate evil. Unfortunately, as usual, the exciting premise at the beginning of the book rots away into one long, dull conversation for the rest of the book. I half expected one of the uninteresting characters to jump up and start singing, "Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of Words! First from him than from you! Is that all you blighters can dooooooooooo?"
The characters are dull. More...
The characters are dull. More...
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Apr 23, 2009
M—
rated it:
This series had been repeatedly recommended to me, starting nearly a year ago, by a friend of mine. This friend had also advised that I avoid beginning the books too close to bedtime and that I obtain, at the very least, the first two books of this quad so that I could read them back to back. I really need to start taking her word at greater weight.
I waited for a long time before bothering to track down a copy of this first book this series because at the time I had only just read th More...
I waited for a long time before bothering to track down a copy of this first book this series because at the time I had only just read th More...
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Aug 17, 2010
Beanbag
rated it:
This is more of a 4.75. Mainly because I felt the book changed so much from beginning to end.
When we first meet Fawn and Dag the story seems like one of action and war. It's brutal and they both have to fight for their lives, saving each other in the process. It evolves into a rather simple, but very nice, romance, however. Since the over-riding arc of the story is completed over the course of several books, the change of tone makes this book itself feel unfinished. Since I plan to More...
When we first meet Fawn and Dag the story seems like one of action and war. It's brutal and they both have to fight for their lives, saving each other in the process. It evolves into a rather simple, but very nice, romance, however. Since the over-riding arc of the story is completed over the course of several books, the change of tone makes this book itself feel unfinished. Since I plan to More...
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(8 people liked it)
May 26, 2010
Mei-Lu
rated it:
If it didn't say Lois McMaster Bujold on the cover, I would NEVER have guessed that this book was written by the same person who wrote the Chalion books. The Chalion series is clever, sophisticated, mature and complex. This book, while well-written, is more of a romance novel with fantasy elements. I prefer my books to have story with a touch of romance rather than romance with a touch of story. The romance in question here features a doe-eyed, naive, VERY young damsel in distress (like so y
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