4 posts tagged “lois mcmaster bujold”
well, i guess this must be the last volume in the series after all, considering the way she closed it. see, with good closure, i don't even mind that there are still loose ends left; it all depends on the style, i guess.
the pacing was a LOT faster than the first three, maybe even than those combined. there was almost no time for breathing once everything got slotted into place; the malice fights were truly epic, at specific parts. the molting malice they encounter was almost a joke as compared to what happens after, and it's actually quite refreshing to finally see dag put out of the action temporarily, and have fawn replace him as the hero.
i got somewhat annoyed at fawn still, for wanting her own home and whatnot, when she specifically said she would take up dag's lakewalker lifestyle. in this i think she expects to take more than give, and i'm not even sure why it annoys me, just that it does. i thought dag was her home? if so, what does it matter if she has an actual solid lodging or not? it seemed a somewhat hypocritical thing, so maybe that's why. either way, it's a small annoyance, and doesn't much matter considering the conclusion of the book.
the epilogue i found a bit weird, but it does show us what happens to our protagonists. in that itself it makes it quite satisfactory, and i'm glad to learn that those walnut shields are sought after. the aspect of it getting abused wasn't mentioned in that final note, so.. i guess it's of no consequence. she also left things quite open-ended, so that if she were ever to visit that world again she could pick things up where she left off. maybe not quite with dag and fawn, because it seems their stories are for the quieter things now, but in another character's point of view? maybe someone we've met along the way already? if so.. it would certainly make for another fascinating tale.
well, there's only so much i could say about it. especially since i read it two days ago, and it's becoming hazy already, but i got a very distinct good impression. maybe i'll move on to check out her other fantasy series after all. did i also forget to mention that 'horizon' is by far the most fitting title ever? quite awesome.
okay, so i slept on this one. and don't remember most of my likes or dislikes, because i promptly had a bad dream/nightmare, but i'll do my best to convey my general feeling toward this one as opposed to the first two books. here goes!
i definitely likes this one better than the first two, being as that the pacing was set better, and something rather exciting happens near the end, where i feel a good climax should be. then again, i do remember reading that she meant the first two to be one volume--in that case, it might be a bit of a mistake to market them as two books, but seeing as how popular they are and how long it would be if it were marketed as one volume, maybe not so. i don't know. honestly, the pacing did feel awfully odd for the first two, and yes, in an unpleasant way.. because i'd wondered if i was reading about malices in the sideline, for what? most of it was concentrated on them. it just felt like a romance in disguise, and that was not what i went into those expecting. in any case, the pacing in this book justifies the earlier two, i suppose, and the slew of new characters were also very entertaining, if a bit hard to keep track of at times. the one thing i found myself getting annoyed at from time to time was the almost lack of communication between dag and fawn; sorry, but soulmates of any capacity just don't hide that much. now maybe this is a more traditional interpretation of husband and wife, where the wife simply takes off her man's shoes every evening and cooks for him and ETC., but the almost lack of any loverly affection between them throughout this book was.. hmm. sure, he was protective of her and her of him, but that isn't much to go by.
all i'm saying is i like seeing healthy relationships in characters i like. and what dag and fawn has isn't it, yet; feels like they have a while to go, yet i hear the next book is the last installment in this series. kind of alarming to me, but well, i'm a reader and what can i say to change things? now, onto the good things. the REALLY good things, actually, because i just had to get that little part over with.
i've mentioned before that books rarely get me to laugh out loud; at most, i'll crack a smile. the first book showed instances of this humor that i really enjoyed (i mentioned their mishap on the horse, didn't i?) and now that their troubles with the camp are over, i'm finding more of that awesome humor in here nicely spread throughout the book; a good volume to keep up the mood, but not trying too hard. the catfish made me laugh outright; there were a lot more instances that i can't remember now that i've put some distance between myself and it, but i distinctly remember laughing. more to note on that later, if i remember. it was also amazing to see dag go about changing people's ways of thinking, mostly remo and barr (most especially barr). those scenes, i imagine, must be especially hard to write, considering she has to be impartial to the argument somewhat to be able to write that kind of disdain convincingly. what else.. hmm. crane's story was a bit of a surprise in itself, to find that something perfectly good could turn so perfectly wrong in an instant. makes me wonder if he would've killed fawn? he of course, had nothing to lose, but wouldn't fawn have reminded him of his own wife, especially considering that she was bonded to another lakewalker? or would it have made him bitter and threw all to the winds? dag's experiments with his ground were fascinating, and more so than usual, because now instead of fearing it, he's coming close to embracing what he might be able to do. i can't wait to see how he might find this helpful to any future malice fights.
umm.. conclusion was oddly satisfying. no need to go into it, since the next book is coming soon enough. hope it ends with enough closure to be fully satisfying, but again, what can i do if it doesn't? would be an awful shame, that's all. time to sign off and do some homework then..
i'm not entirely sure why, but this book at once both rounds out the characters, and annoys me at the way specific characters interact through that rounding out, because while we begin to see that what the two main protagonists feel for each other has become quite strong, there could yet be no happy ending. well, that's the gist i get from it anyway.
the pivotal "saving the world" moment, i should call it.. somehow it almost feels like fawn gets none of the credit. true, the characters within give her no credit whatsoever, but i mean i almost feel like she deserves nearly no credit. she is good at deduction, but that's something anyone could've figured out, including hoharie and dag before they made risky attempts. is there ANYTHING about her that makes her out of the ordinary? i'm finding her almost a bit of a letdown, because i wanted her to be more. can her powers of deduction do MORE than that? bigger mysteries to solve and all that.
i honestly expected there to be some kind of peaceful resolution in the first half of the book, but apparently there isn't. at one point i seriously thought dag was going to choose patrolling over her, and i don't think i personally would have forgiven that, but fawn did, and it disoriented and confused me. i understand saving the world is a big thing and all, but he couldn't have tried a bit harder to save what they had too? it was like he was walking around mostly in a daze not sure what to do; yeah but WHY, if she's supposedly like a drink of water to a man thirsting to death? i don't know. maybe big world-saving feelings are beyond me. whatever the word for it is.
still sleepy, but i think i'll use my sunday wisely and go read the next one anyway. i know if i don't do it now i won't have any time to later. off i go. i also hear book 4 will be the last, and i sure as hell hope not, at least until all these mysteries are at least somewhat solved, because i'm confused as hell.
missed reading. the two busiest weeks of my life, and today i woke up feeling like sleepwalking, so i figure i needed a wake-up call via my favorite pastime. here goes...
this book was thoroughly interesting in its world-building, in that i mostly remained fascinated throughout of the history and complexity she built from scratch. the age difference between the two characters was a bit weird, but i can get over that through the next few volumes, probably. what i did find weird was the pacing, because the action stops about halfway through the book, and then the rest of the book is about them going back to her place and getting married, which drew a big 'huh?' from me. cuz didn't she spend the entire first half setting up the history of the world, and the mystery of the malices? then that gets sidetracked and of course their RELATIONSHIP takes precedence. it seemed kind of jarring, and i don't know, it's weird for heroes to take time off out of nowhere just to be like "hey, let's get married!"
on the other hand, i'm likely to start reading the next volume within the next few hours, so i guess i'll find out the rest of that stuff going on with the malices. oh, and her description of the malice was kind of bland.. i didn't find myself getting remotely disgusted/scared; would that be considered a weakness? my favorite scene has got to be when they were on the horse and he gets aroused by her sitting on his lap, simply because it's amusing to see this character who's supposedly so stoic embarrass himself like that, and it's nice he has her for a weakness. i got annoyed with her throughout the book regularly though, because she seems to be so ridiculously juvenile about so many things. it's completely beyond me how these two characters can come together, and i frankly don't really feel it that much, aside from the lust.. so i'm guessing i'll count that as a weakness too.
gonna read the next one sometime soon now.
