A highly satisfying and timeless tale of a broken hero’s recovery. Those who expect a typical sword-and-sorcery fantasy from the title or cover will be disappointed. Fans of Bujold’s sci fi Vorkosigan Saga should feel right at home with the strengths evident here: character development, world building, complex enemies, great dialogue, understated romance, and limited but well-framed episodes of violence. In a Medieval setting of competing kingdoms, the nobleman Cazaril served Chalion well in one of its wars, but was subject to treachery and ended up a galley slave for years. After escaping, he hobbles his way back to Chalion, feeling like an old man at age 35. He is saved from poverty by getting offered the job of tutor to the teenaged princess, Iselle, and older companion and cousin, Betriz. Though Chalion is at peace, Cazaril gets drawn into protecting them from impending dangers. The king is old and sickly, and a pair of evil brothers in the positions of chancellor and top general are plotting ways to make the future succession put them on top. The threat of them corrupting Iselle’s brother/prince or wangling a marriage to Iselle turns Cazaril into a hero again.There are no dragons or wizards or werewolves in this tale. There are, however, ghosts and living saints, and a special realization of dualism between matter and spirit. So you could call it theological fantasy. The only magic comes through special prayers and incantations made to one of the five gods worshiped in this world-- the Father, the Son, the Mother, the Daughter, and the Bastard, each with their own churches and accolytes. We only deal with one form of magic, the death spell, revealed in the first pages of the book in Carzaril’s discovery of the body of someone who cast one. The main premise of the book is that some inequality of souls taken in a critical use of the death spell in Chalion’s history that has led to a curse on the royal family. How to reverse this curse is Cazaril’s second challenge in this tale. The reader comes to recognize a third challenge: how can Cazaril fulfill his secret love for Betriz? Because of his health and poverty, Cazaril never believes he is a serious candidate for her hand. This could be suitable grounds for a lot of mushy stuff, but for me Bujold handles romance here in her usual masterly way. By making it more of an underground river, providing a tender refuge for me from his travails and sensitizing my empathetic hopes.Humor is less prominent in this book than in other Bujold stories, but it works its way nicely into the fabric. For example, here Cazaril elicits the charm of the former queen:“Your granddaugher is a delightful young lady.”“To a man of a certain age, Cazaril, all young ladies start to look delightful. It’s the first symptom of senility.”I was moved when learning about the origins of Cazaril’s saint-like power to bear the tasks he assumes. I will tantalize you by saying only that it has something to do with what he learned after his punishment as a galley slave when he tried to save a boy from abuse: I found out that there is a place beyond fear. When the body and the mind just can’t sustain it any more.Some of the interesting theological mechanics explored in this tale remind me more of the Divine Comedy or St. Augustine than the spiritual inventions in classic fantasies such as Dune, Lord of the Rings, or Pullman and C.S. Lewis’ series. In the following excerpt, the king’s zookeeper of sacred animals, Umegat, compares the constraints on human and godly powers and the explains the role of saints: But have you really understood how powerless the gods are when the lowest slave may exclude them from his heart? And if from his heart then from the world as well, for the gods may not reach in except through living souls. If gods could seek passage from anyone they wished, then men would be mere puppets. Only if they borrow or are given will from a willing creature, do they have a little channel through which to act. …Or …sometimes, a man may open himself to them, and let them pour through them into the world. …A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He—or she—freely gives the gift of their will to the god. And in renouncing action, makes action possible. In sum, this fantasy doesn’t have the flash of transporting you to a totally different world like the other classics mentioned, but it is great for creating a society close to our own, but different enough to be a parallel universe. The people follow our pathway with a phase of hereditary monarchy, but plausible alternative religions develop. In this universe a few human events of mythical or miraculous proportions gain a reality. But none of this overlay is heavy and is well subjugated to the drama of compelling story. The soul searching and attempts by Cazaril to make meaning of his fate feel like a creative way to lighten his load. I loved the following example which feels like the story of Job given a Buddhist slant: If the gods saw people’s souls but not their bodies, in mirror of the way people saw bodies but not souls, it might explain why gods were so careless of such things as appearance, or other bodily functions. Such as pain? Was pain an illusion, from the gods’ point of view? Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.
3.5 stars. This is a well-written story filled with politics, adventures, blessings and magic. The main plot was straightforward and enjoyable although the prominence of gods and curses undermined the importance of the characters while making the political machinations seem somewhat trivial. The real strength of this book was in it's protagonist Cazaril. A decorated soldier, his betrayal and imprisonment left him a shattered husk at the beginning of this novel. More than a story of war and politics or even of gods and curses this is the story of one man trying to put his life back together. At the start of this book Cazaril is a broken man, trudging alone down the road he is scorned by passers-by. When he arrives at the home of his former employer he reveals the depth of his suffering and is given a second chance. Cazaril drives the plot forward through his attempts to dispel a curse (apparently Scooby-doo was busy) and save a princess (so was Mario). However for me the real struggle in this novel was Cazaril's attempts to mend his shattered psyche while fighting his feelings for the woman he loves.At times however Cazaril lost my interest and when this happened I lost interest in the story as a whole. His pondering about the spirituality of life as a galley-slave seemed forced and sometimes preachy. His willingness to allow the men who betrayed him to suffering and death to escape justice until the plot forced him into a confrontation was disappointing as well. His lack of desire for revenge separated him from other protagonists in recent fantasy i.e. Monza in Bested Served Cold, Jorg in the Broken crown trilogy. While I guess I should regard his turning the other cheek as admirable his passivity coupled with his preaching made him a frustrating hero to root for at times. With Cazaril as the sole POV character and so much of the story about his personal struggles none of the other characters really jumped off the page at me. Iselle seemed a rehash of other intelligent, strong-willed, politically aware princesses in fantasy. (Elayne in WOT, Lyrna in Blood Song, Sidonie in Kushiels, Peach in...no wait scratch that one). Most of whom I liked better than Iselle. Betriz is a likeable romance option for Cazaril but I never really felt that she was a strong character on her own merits. The arch-villain Dy Jironal was a standard evil chancellor. A scheming, nepotistic politician motivated by greed and ambition. The hints in the story that he wasn't always so bad and that the curse turned his own good qualities against him felt like a waste of a great opportunity. He could have been given depth and shown as a good man who was corrupted into making bad decisions (similar to Logain in Dragonage) but instead the opportunity to give him some redeeming qualities was passed up and he remained a 2-D villain. The story itself wasn't particularly engaging. It featured a pre-occupation with court intrigue which has never really interested me. The wider reaching politics were pretty predictable while the plot was often strung together by divine intervention and mysterious curses. I also felt that the prominence of god's in this story, and their frequent interventions made the characters decisions and actions seem unimportant. The frequent use of god's as plot-points isn't my preferred type of story, although for those who like this kind of high fantasy this plot will surely be enjoyable as it was handled well here.I thought the world-building was one of this book's biggest strengths. The fact that the people of the country worship the 'bastard' a god of death was a nice twist as this sort of worship is usually reserved for evil foreigners/invaders in fantasy. The endemic warfare, often glossed over or ignored in fantasy, was also well done and it served to make the world more realistic. In just 1 book the author created a complex and intriguing world history reminiscent of the Iberian peninsula in the middle ages, while the story of 'The Golden General' was an especially interesting piece of lore .Although the frequent Deus Ex Machinima's caused by the god's interventions and lack of depth in secondary characters made it hard for me to really get into this one, overall I still found this to be an enjoyable story with a good setting and an interesting main character.
What do You think about The Curse Of Chalion (2003)?
Revised from 3 down to 2. I really like her scifi a LOT better. I found the hero too good to be true - I mean almost a parody of a hero at times. The world is the tired old medieval-cum-fantasy world, the story fairy tale like with what you know is going to be a happy ending - therefore no suspense, of COURSE Cazarel is not going to die for Pete's sake. Fortunately all threads are tied up so I do not feel any compulsion to continue. In fairness, it may have had a lot to do with the narrator, Llo
—Sandra
Fantasy Review BarnI don’t know what anyone else looks for in their fantasy, but for me the number one requirement is characters I care about. This is hard to define, of course; I can’t describe what it is that creates emotional engagement in that way (if I could, I’d bottle it and sell it), but I know it when I see it.And Cazaril is it, indubitably and without question. From the moment he walks onstage in his rags on page 1, he is a man I care deeply about, someone I’m rooting for all the way. He’s not great hero material (almost everything he’s been involved in seems to have gone wrong), he’s rarely called upon to wield a sword and he’s ill for most of the book, but he is a towering character of a kind that’s regrettably rare in all fiction, not just fantasy.The other characters are fully rounded personalities, too. The princess who doesn’t like being manipulated and decides to take control of her fate. The handmaiden who doesn’t angst when rejected, but quietly waits for her moment. The mad woman who turns out to be far more interesting than that description would suggest. And the villains who are just as much tragic victims of their fate as anyone else. And hallelujah for that.It’s curious that in many ways the characters fall into traditional fantasy stereotypes: the battle-weary warrior; the feisty princess about to be forced into an unwelcome marriage; the playboy prince; the evil advisor to the king. And so on. And yet they never felt in the least bit stereotypical, to me. Nor were their actions ever predictable. The plot centres on returning warrior Cazaril, still recovering after being betrayed into slavery, and looking for work where he was previously employed as a page. To his surprise, he’s given the job of tutor/secretary to lively princess Iselle and her companion Betriz, and then accompanies them to the royal court with all its intrigues. From there, things roll along nicely, and only one stupendous coincidence near the end rocked the credibility somewhat. This is not a high-action tale, and most of the tension comes from the history (read: enmity) between Cazaril and the man who betrayed him. I liked very much that Cazaril isn’t hell-bent on revenge, though, and just wants to keep his head down and survive as best he can.The magic is low-key, and revolves around the five gods, the Father, Mother, Son, Daughter and Bastard, and the way they interact with their human followers. I’m not normally a big fan of god intervention, but maybe that’s because few authors execute the idea as well as it’s done here.What didn’t I like? The names, for one thing. If you’re going to have a traditional monarchy, it’s just as easy to call the participants king, queen, prince, princess, etc. Inventing all-too-similar terms like roya, royina, royse and royesse is just downright confusing. And if the titles are bad, the character names are worse: how are you supposed to pronounce Teidez and Betriz, anyway? I kept wanting to call them Tiddles and Beetroot. Then there’s the romance, which all felt ever so slightly perfunctory.But truly my quibbles were few and minor. This is a beautifully written book, with a memorable and wonderful main character, a plot that doesn’t depend on villains who are evil just because, and a resonant ending which brought me to tears. It’s not a sword-waving type of book, depending more on dialogue and reason to drive things forward. And I absolutely loved the saints who fell on each other with glee (there’s someone else like me! How is it for you?) and the long, detailed and gloriously funny theological debates (which is not something I ever thought to write). Highly recommended. Five stars.
—Pauline Ross
What a delightful world. The work that went into researching medieval Spain sows, as does theincrediblemimagination that went into turning the story into its own consistent telling rather than just a metaphor. Now layer on top of that a deep theological debate nested in an other-worldly system where the debate is not between monotheistic beliefs and their prophets, but polytheistic beliefs and the acceptance or rejection of a lucifer-like god as a force for good or ill. Top it all off with strong likable characters prevailing against the odds to save a kingdom a family and a world and you have a masterwork.
—Tom Merritt
