Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Nessa on March 14, 2008, 07:53:07 PM
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read it here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1637/Paladin-of-Souls
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This is a fantastic book. It may be Bujold's best.
(I have been less impressed with her recent Sharing Knife books, though I still enjoyed them quite a bit. I think they were harmed by being split up; the plot then becomes too simplistic.)
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I started reading Bujold because you've so highly recommended her. I really enjoy her work and this has to be one of my new favorite books.
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Of the three books in this series, this is actually my least favorite.
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Hmm... Interesting. Any theories on why? I think I liked the third book the least.
One thing I liked about this was how when she met that one guy on his horse in the stream (I can't remember anyone's name right now), he was the very picture of a romance novel hero. Yet later she found out what was happening with him, and things did not go as they might have in a romance novel.
This may be a bit callous of me, but back when I heard that Lois was getting divorced, I worried that it would have an adverse affect on her writing the way Robert Asprin's divorce seemed to have on his (though that's actually a more complicated tale than I knew at the time). But it definitely didn't; instead, a pragmatic layer has been added to her characters' romances that makes them more believable and makes them ring true. She writes about real love, warts&all. Her characters come to life, and I really care about what happens to them.
Though, another reason I like this book a little more than Chalion is that the romance of the main character in Chalion feels kind of tacked on at the end. The powerful emotional core of Chalion did not involve the interaction of those two characters at all, so while I was happy that the main character got a romance angle in the end, it seemed not quite a natural outgrowth of the plot. The second book was much more satisfying in this sense.
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I was just thinking I should go back and re-read these (while waiting for the next Miles book--wheeee!)
Lois said she envisions doing two more books in the series, so there's one for each god (the Father and Mother are the ones that haven't been done yet) but she doesn't know when she might get to it.
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Oh my, Lois has actually started a blog, on myspace.
http://blog.myspace.com/loismcmasterbujold
Erk. I saw the note about it on dendarii.com, and thought it started March 2008, but it's actually been up a whole year. And here I was still reading via dendarii.com, much delayed!
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I liked Curse of Chalion the best, personally. Better main character.
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I liked the main characters in the other two books better. I'm not sure why else I didn't like this book as well, except it seemed more sexual, which is a turn off for me.