Bujold, Lois McMaster - The Curse of Chalion

[oyceter]

Stayed up much, much too late last night finishing this, and then suddenly realized that it wasn't that spectacularly good.

I did like it, and it was a nice return to solid, world-building fantasy, a subgenre of which I find I'm reading less and less of now. melymbrosia remarks in her review of Paladin of Souls that Bujold doesn't ever let her protagonists suffer too much for their mistakes, and I think that's the thing that I keep picking at in my head that makes this good, but not satisfying. This is particularly evident because I read it right after Fool's Fate.

Another thing that struck me was how corporeal the gods in this world were, how one could pray for things and have them granted and how real it was when they talked of things like miracles and saints. I'm not quite sure why that felt so peculiar to me; it's not as though fantasy is replete of gods or anything -- witness the David Eddings books and the Kushiel books, among many. I suppose with the Spanish influence, it felt a little more like a Guy Gavriel Kay book, which, outside of the Fionavar Tapestry, treats gods and religion much as they are in the real world. I enjoyed the setting, although I think I would have more with more detail and more depth -- I still don't think I have a good feel for the world outside of the five-god religion of theirs, no solid grip on the culture or the psychology or something that makes it different than just a Spanish-influenced fantasy world.

I very much enjoyed Cazaril and his age and his feel of having gone through too much. I particularly liked how he wasn't the fresh young boy from the village ala so many epic fantasies, brained by the fact that he was a bona fide hero out to save the world or stunned with the notion that he had some sort of epic destiny. I liked his acceptance of things and his fierce protectiveness toward his ladies. Lady Betriz was a bit meh for me -- didn't quite get as good of a sense of her personality, but I very much adored headstrong, smart Iselle. I am a sucker for a heroine who can play politics/court maneuvering.

More on Bujold protecting her protagonists here, with spoilers:

I was going along quite well with the book, especially when the plot really hit full speed with the murder of Dondo, and I was rather fond of the idea of Cazaril living on borrowed time, with a killing demon and ghost trapped in his body, yet set on doing the right thing. I especially liked how the book delved into the difficulty and the frustration of being god-touched and of having this access to the gods, almost like Fitz, used so many times as Catalyst, personal life bent to the Farseers and the Fool. And it felt at first as though the book would head that way, especially when Bujold killed off Teidez and with Ista's revelation, but then, at the climactic moments, she backs off. Suddenly, the goddess' touch in Cazaril's life leads his critical mission to Ibra to succeed with flying colors. Despite some haggling with the roya over the treaty terms, it really goes incredibly smoothly for something of that import and for something that is really a last-ditch attempt to save themselves. And from then on, everything goes peachy, which I feel is really not the sensation one wants the reader to get at the climactic moment of the book. And that's what bothered me. At the very moment when I should have been on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen to Cazaril and Iselle and etc., I was instead skimming a little because I wasn't nervous anymore. I kind of figured at that point that Bujold really wasn't going to do anything horrible to Cazaril, and that everything would end up well, which took all the tension and the anticipation out of it.

And I can't help but compare it to the fantasies that I've read in the past few years and really loved -- Robin Hobb's three trilogies, the Kushiel trilogy (ok, not really loved, but blazed through), Juliet Marillier's seven swans trilogy, George R. R. Martin (again, not loved, but greatly admired), Guy Gavriel Kay, Neil Gaiman -- all of them had a palpable loss to them, sacrifice and hardship and all the things I loved so about the LotR movies and books. That's what I feel was missing in this book, the satisfying feeling of having my heart torn out and shred to pieces. Heh. Because while Cazaril does make a great sacrifice for Iselle in working the death magic, in the end, he is spared quite lightly. The view of the goddess leaves him slightly punchy and giggly, all those he loves are pretty much ok, he gets the girl, and everything is peachy keen. He doesn't really give anything up. Instead, he gains everything for something he doesn't quite pay the price for. I could argue that being haunted by Dondo and the idea that he was going to die was a price paid, and yet, thanks to the terms of death magic, it feels more like a price averted than really paid in full (especially when seen next to Ista's horrifying story). He has given nothing up really, and so, there is less emotional weight in the ending. Compare with the GGK or the Hobb books, or even Juliet Marillier (who I think is slightly fuzzy but still packs an emotional punch for me) -- what makes them so satisfying for me is the fact that I am not sure that everything will be ok. Usually, I'm pretty sure that the hero is going to save the world, but the question is always, at what cost? The price paid to free Tigana is heartbreaking, especially for Dianora, and Fitz is slowly stripped away of almost everything that he cares about in the Assassins series, which is what makes the healing in the Tawny Man trilogy so satisfying. And even in the Tawny Man, there are some moments that tear me up. So that emotional core is missing in the book for me, which is what makes it a good read, but not particularly memorable.

Let's see if Paladin of Souls does the same...