Shallow Thoughts On SK: Beguilement

[ase]

My Deep and Meaningful post was derailed by norabombay and I trying to write science fiction epics on the phone again, so I will instead offer this thought: my second, scattershot dip into The Sharing Knife: Legacy is not reconciling me to the romance or Fawn; it's making me gesture emphatically at The Steerswoman's Road instead. I am not supposed to be annoyed at plucky Fawn, but oh, I really, really wish her selfish recklessness were not presented as courage.

Comments

[ase.livejournal.com]

charlie_ego makes pretty much the point I would. I might say, if I feel the author's hand weighing the scales, I feel she weighed them by giving Cordelia bonus character traits, but in Fawn's case by creating a plot that broke in her favor. You probably missed the Mercedes Lackey Valdemar books, but I keep waiting for Fawn's snow-white telepathic stallion to come riding up and present itself as validation of her Special-ness. This isn't a feeling that makes me inclined to enjoy any scene she's in, which is sort of a problem in a romance novel.

Re: Miles: series bias is a powerful and subtle thing, yes. I want an LMB book as good as Mirror Dance or Memory, but I think she can do that without returning to the Milesverse. I am less sanguine about the prospects of her doing it in the Sharing Knife universe.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I thought Curse of Chalion was as good as Mirror Dance, and maybe (in a lot of ways) even as good as Memory (minus the Miles-bias at the end, where Haroche gets destroyed and Miles gets a shiny new job, which does kind of disturb me). But it's certainly a very different book.

I think she could do it in the Sharing Knife universe, but I'm increasingly less convinced she can do it with Dag, Fawn, or any of their compatriots.