Reasons to Love: The Sharing Knife Series

It's no secret that I love Lois McMaster Bujold and her writing. I've read most of her science fiction world containing Miles "What did you do?" Vorkosigan. I tried to grok the Quaddies in that universe, but... it didn't reach. Skill issue on my part. Today's focus is a series that is kind of a post-apocalyptic fantasy romance.

Fantasy in that the tech level is pretty much smithies, horses, and carts. They have crossbows, and a certain percentage of the population has magic. Post-apocalyptic in that there was a glorious past civilisation, but it clearly imploded and left wreckage that people are still cleaning up.

The wreckage? Life-eating monsters called either "blight bogles" or "malices".

The Lakewalkers can kill them, but it takes the sacrifice of two Lakewalkers. One to provide the bone knife and the other to 'share' a death with the Malice. The Lakewalkers imbue a knife with a death by stabbing themselves through the heart. You can imagine that kind of grim dedication to do that. This has been going on for centuries before the start of the story.

But it isn't just the Lakewalkers. There's a separate portion of the population. Otherwise regular folk who don't have magic. They're referred to as 'Farmers' in the novels. They're the ones who live their lives as normally as a pre-industrial person might hope. Growing crops and the next generation. Making things and plying trade. All while being incredibly suspicious of the Lakewalkers.

They've stayed separate. The Lakewalkers remaining aloof from the Farmers, and the Farmers maintaining a paranoid suspicion of the Lakewalkers. At least until Dag and Fawn meet each other and have a misadventure. Which is the instigating incident on four books of preventing another huge disaster before it happens.

The key message of the series seems to be about tradition versus innovation. Finding new ways to solve old problems. With plenty of examples of how it could all go to shit.

Any other writer would make Fawn the helpless maiden who needs rescuing and Dag the big, strong, dominating, and muscular example of maleness. I can tell that Ms Bujold is just as tired of those tropes as I am. Fawn's only flaw is that nobody's answered her curiosity before Dag came along.

Once her hungry mind has something to chew on, she starts asking smart questions. Which helps Dag unlock several new ideas.

And as for Dag - he was tired of living and scared of dying until he met Fawn and helped her slay a Malice. He's in his forties, has lost a hand and a loved one in a previous Malice battle. And it's breaking his handed-arm that awakens an ability that frightens the fuck out of him.

Mostly because he can do some things with it that Malices do.

Part of their adventures is finding someone to teach him what the hell this all is. The other part is mostly educating people about their mis-assumptions regarding Lakewalkers and magic.

It's clear that the only way to prevent a disaster is to heal the divide between Lakewalkers and Farmers.

They don't have a complete solution, by the end of the series, but it's clear that they've made a good start. I highly recommend that you read this series.