Product Description

Acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writer Lois McMaster Bujold—five-time winner of the Hugo Award—brings us the third installment in her New York Times bestselling romantic fantasy

The Sharing Knife, Volume Three: Passage

Young Fawn Bluefield and soldier-sorcerer Dag Redwing Hickory have survived magical dangers and found, in each other, love and loyalty. But even their strength and passion cannot overcome the bigotry of their own kin, and so, leaving behind all they have known, the couple sets off to find fresh solutions to the perilous split between their peoples.

But they will not journey alone. Along the way they acquire comrades, starting with Fawn's irrepressible brother Whit, whose future on the Bluefield family farm seems as hopeless as Fawn's once did. Planning to seek passage on a riverboat heading to the sea, Dag and Fawn find themselves allied with a young flatboat captain searching for her father and fiancé, who mysteriously vanished on the river nearly a year earlier. They travel downstream, hoping to find word of the missing men, and inadvertently pick up more followers: a pair of novice Lakewalker patrollers running away from an honest mistake with catastrophic consequences; a shrewd backwoods hunter stranded in a wreck of boats and hopes; and a farmer boy Dag unintentionally beguiles, leaving Dag with more questions than answers about his growing magery.

As the ill-assorted crew is tested and tempered on its journey to where great rivers join, Fawn and Dag will discover surprising new abilities both Lakewalker and farmer, a growing understanding of the bonds between themselves and their kinfolk, and a new world of hazards both human and uncanny.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4028 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-22
• Released on: 2008-04-22
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Publishers Weekly
"Compelling . . . Bujold excels at creating interesting and sympathetic characters, and this story will satisfy readers who enjoy romance as much as adventure."

About the Author

One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold burst onto the scene in 1986 with Shards of Honor, the first of her tremendously popular Vorkosigan Saga novels. She has received numerous accolades and prizes, including, for best novel, two Nebula Awards (Falling Free and Paladin of Souls), four Hugo Awards for Best Novel (Paladin of Souls, The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance), as well as the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella The Mountains of Mourning. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. The mother of two, Bujold lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Customer Reviews

It keeps getting better
While reading the first two in this series I had this disjointed feeling between them as if the editor in a moment of selfishness decided to separate a perfectly good book into two in an effort to make more money. I still feel this way ,however, this new book continues like a sequel should and is a well thought out adventure with a swifter pace that tackles many of the issues brought up in the first two books. I enjoy the character development more as Dag learns more about himself and his purpose in life. I also enjoy the interesting mix and sometimes clashes between the farmers and the lakewalkers. All in all I felt very satisfied by this book and am looking forward with renewed interest to the last book. I feel as though the author has finally gotten her toes dug into this world and is finally doing a good deal of work to make it real to her readers and more fleshed out. The first two were more romance and a bit weak in the character and world building in my opinion. Not to mention just a wee bit too sappy. This one does a much better job at giving hints as to the secrets behind it all and adds some nice juicy conflict to spice things up.

disappointed this time...
I was very disappointed in this latest installment of the Sharing Knife series. Not because the story is uninteresting or poorly told, but because Ms. Bujold has fallen into a trap that one usually sees only in first time authors.

Note that I am a great Bujold fan. She has been my favorite author for some years now. I always pre-order, and always read her latest offering in a day or two. Her stories are always ingenious and well crafted. But this time she has slipped in crafting her basic premise. I'll try to talk about it without specifics, to avoid making a major spoiler for those of you who haven't read the book...

A neophyte author often solves the hero's current dilemma by some sort of gross overkill. For example, to get out of some local crisis, the hero invents an infinite energy machine, an endless matter duplicator, effortless teleportation, and so forth. At which point, the original concerns of the story should become insignificant in view of the enormity of what has just happened. But the author doesn't recognize that, so the story proceeds without its principals realizing that their civilization has just had its economic or power structures turned upside down.

In The Sharing Knife, part 3, this sort of thing happens. We already know that our hero is among the world's best scouts, warriors, healers, and lovers. However, to solve a specific local problem, she makes him into a superhero, able to kill anyone at a distance with a twitch of an eyebrow. If he were an evil man, he could be an emperor the next day. But, of course, he's a nice guy, so we don't worry about that...

Our hero is on a quest to foster trust between the magically talented lakewalkers and the more numerous mundane folks who fear them. Right. So he does this by demonstrating his new superpowers in front of a mundane audience. At the same time, they learn that some lakewalkers are actually evil. What I don't understand is why the plot doesn't then veer off into panic and riots among the mundane populace. Maybe we'll see it in the next book. Anyway, our hero has been given way too much ability this time, and it cheapens the story. Too bad.

Always good, even in split books
I have read Bujold since she first started getting published. She is always a good and innovative storyteller. She has created a new world for Dag and Fawn with the mighty river as part of this latest book.
I was disappointed that marketing decided to split the 2 large books into 4. It is terribly frustrating to wait for the last one.
In Passages, Dag is exploring new realms in regard to groundsense and his abilities. And part of that is how Dag and company react to everybody. And how everybody react to them.