The Curse of Chalion

Review #1

The Curse of Chalion audiobook free

This author is a master, and this is, to me, her finest work. That’s why I’m bummed that the Kindle version is a dud; it literally won’t open on my device, and this is after troubleshooting with Amazon and replacing the book with a new electronic version. Good thing I own three physical copies of this title, but I’d love to have a working copy on my Kindle, too! Can the publisher and Amazon fix this?

Review #2

The Curse of Chalion audiobook Series World of the Five Gods: Chalion

If you have read a lot of mainstream major fantasy over the last ten years, the work of people like Duncan, Jordan, Hobb, Brooks, you will likely enjoy this one very much. I have read two other books by this author, and this one is the best I have read so far.

The tale begins with a grimy old man making his way along the road. Eventually, you realize he is neither an old man nor the average person. The story takes the “special person who does not know he is special” trope and gives it a bit of a twist by making the hero, Caz, a thirty something man who has had lots of experience in the royal court but ends up in a battle which results in his being sold to a slaver. He is treated horribly on the ship and goes through what we later understand through bits and pieces of revelations is a sort of religious experience.

I am trying not to spoil anything; that is why I am being vague.

Anyway, as the story progresses we see the effects Caz has on the lives of the people in the kingdom he comes into contact with, especially two people he ends up assigned to oversee.

As a hero, Caz is likable and heroic but so totally unassuming you just can’t help but like him. It will soon be discovered he has a dark and dangerous mission assigned to him by the Gods!!

OK, first of all, the writing is good in this book. No clunky sentences or terrible dialogue. The main characters are types in the sense we find them repeatedly in this kind of fantasy. Examples: the inexperience royal who is mislead by his fawning followers who have terrible motives; the young woman who is smarter and stronger than she should be given the social roles of her gender; the old woman who is wise but judged crazy; the aging ruler who was once good but now is old and a bit crazy and weak. You get the picture. But the main characters are psychologically distinct and we see them develop and change.

Unlike The Game of Thrones where every character is psychologically developed and there are over a dozen main story lines all going at once, in this book we have the traditional focus on a limited few characters and there are none of the lengthy sections where chapter after chapter shifts to a totally new time and country. There are a few jumps where you start a new chapter to find that the trip they started out on at the end of the previous chapter is over and suddenly they are riding into a courtyard after a two day ride, and I remember at least one place where there was the old “winter gave way to dripping eaves and warm winds” time shift.

However, generally things move along without major jumps. The plot all focuses around the major group of characters and so while there are two separate orders of soldiers and a few religious orders, there is no real detail about them or the people in them or the political intrigues going on behind the scene. There is enough background here that if the author had wanted this could have been a ten volume series. The bad guys plot, of course, but mainly we see the results of this rather than read about the plotting or the psychology of the plotters, which is actually good here because the plotters are meant to cause problems not provide us with in-depth characters.

If the author had wanted, I easily saw a place about 3/4 of the way through where she could have ended “Book one” and then gone on to “Book Two” and fleshed out the characters and motivations and such a bit more rather than end the book. Things do move a bit quickly in the final fifth of the book and a few things resolve rather quicker than they might! (I wish the last fifty pages had taken more like one hundred pages.) But if anything you will only wish things had slowed down a hair because you realize you are about to end the reading experience!!

There is a little bit of tear jerking sacrifice toward the end that may make you sniffle a bit or bring a drop to your eye. But that is good. 🙂 Lots of devious plots. Not much in the way of sword play, but it is not totally lacking in this, especially toward the end. The magic is more personal religious experience rather than fire ball throwing and mountain tumbling down stuff. No dragons. Sorry. There are some very interesting crows!

If you are looking for one of those series where things go on and on and every character is gone into in depth so that you fear the series will not be done before you shuffle off your mortal coil, this will not fully satisfy.

But if you want a stand alone, one volume, traditional high fantasy novel with interesting characters if not totally unexpected circumstances and themes, this will satisfy you. I very much recommend this book.

Just a quick note: if you like this you might enjoy the old Barbara Hambly series The Darwath Series: The Time of the Dark, The Walls of Air, and The Armies of Daylight. There are lots of one volume fantasies published twenty or thirty years ago that are excellent and have been forgotten.

I will try other of her books, though the one I am reading now by her, “Penric and the shaman,” seems a bit light.

Review #3

Audiobook The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

I’ve had this novel sitting in one of my many to-be-read piles for more than a year. I knew McMaster Bujold could write well from her Vorkosigan books. I simply am easily distracted by something new.

I regret not reading it sooner. This is a truly marvelous novel of one man’s journey through tremendous difficulties and how those woes are redeemed, ultimately, for the good of many. And if you are tired of SF novels not dealing with matters of spirituality in any depth–a lack that is shameful given how very religious humankind has always been and likely always will be–you will find this a truly satisfying exploration of faith, loss of faith, prayer, curses, blessings, fate, free will and divine intervention. It’s also a novel that, while dealing with religion, doesn’t sneer or cast ministers or saints in an sarcastic or demeaning light. It takes the subject quite seriously and explores it without the arrogance that a secular elite can cast on it. It takes the “what if” of this religion being truly existent and says, “Now, how does this work out in a cursed kingdom with a man who’s suffered about as much as he can humanly take?”

Whom the gods choose is not always a happy camper. (Think of all the martyrs of various religions.)

The fantasy setting: A medievalish, fortress and castle filled world akin to Spain/Portugal several hundred years ago, where reilgion is part of civil and royal life, where saints are acknowledged as god-touched, and where a curse has come upon a royal line due to a cataclysmic event during a previous time of warfare.

The protagonist: Lupe dy Cazaril, an honorable man and brave soldier of gentlemanly lineage who had been betrayed in warfare, resulting in a tour of galley slavery (think Ben Hur-ish oaring for one’s enemies). He is damaged in body and humbled, but his nobility of spirit and wisdom and unselfishness and wits are intact. You will root for this character, and perhaps, like me, weep for him, too.

The situation: Through a chain of events, Cazaril comes back to his home town and is engaged as tutor to the royesse (a princess), whose brother is heir to the throne. Terrible events have fallen and continue to befall this cursed family, and Cazaril, who feels great loyalty and comes to love his charges and his patrons, becomes inextricably entangled in the intrigue and plots (supernatural and human), while himself a target of those who originally wished him dead and caused his slavery, the two most powerful men in the land of Chalion, barring the ruler himself. Court intrigue abounds. Cazaril must use all his powers of observation and intelligence, and all his courage and endurance, to seek and accomplish the liberation of his beloved charges from dangers of curse and plotters.

I don’t want to say much beyond that, since the pleasure of the novel is in the reading and the roads taken. I”ll let you walk those roads unspoiled.

What I will say is that as a devout Christian, I thoroughly enjoyed the spiritual world McMaster Bujold has created. You get a sense of a religion drenched, god-observed world, and how that can bring great dangers (heresies are punished in just as cruel ways as history records), and obedience and selflessness are as powerful as a Christian would expect. The religion is certainly not Christianity (five gods of both attributed genders, various sexual preferences acceptable), but the echoes of a Roman Catholic religion is there in the sanctuaries, devouts, pilgrimages, saints, miracles, etc. And the idea of the chosen ones of god is there: One person’s virtue can make a huge difference to his circle of influence, as it does here. And the climactic scene is so beautifully and simply depicted (no excess of prose, no over-the-top language pyrotechnics), that it allows us to feel the lightning-fast and world-altering moment as participants, without clutter, with just wonder. It’s magnificently achieved.

Cazaril is one of my fave characters ever. A man we’d all like to know, a man we’d all love to see in the corridors of power-someone who puts the good of others above his own good, someone who acts with total purity of heart, wise and generous and humble.

I can’t wait to get into the second book in this series, PALADIN OF SOULS, which follows the adventures of one of the cursed and redemption-needy characters from this novel.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. A novel that rewards the reader who is patient and observant during the slower-paced opening.

Review #4

Audio The Curse of Chalion narrated by Lloyd James

Bujold is a master of the flawed character and the deep, value driven plot. Here she produces one of her best works. Gods are real but not as you might like them but more believable. The hero is a real hero, but doesn’t look or feel like one, to anyone. You have to learn a great deal to begin to see it… and the journey is not just interesting but really impressive. I’ll avoid plot spoilers because it was such a joy to discover this work of art.

It has a sequel (Palladin of Souls) and others in the same world (Penric’s Demon, Hallowed Hunt) that are also brilliant. This stands alone perfectly well, and is perhaps the best of them.

Review #5

Free audio The Curse of Chalion – in the audio player below

I was lent this book back in 2001 when it first came out and, though enthralled by it, had unfortunately forgotten the name of the author and the title. Fortunately it turned up in my recommendations so bought a used copy.( Sadly, although the next volume of the Chalion books, which won an award,has been reprinted this one has not.)
I was so glad I did. Lois McMaster Bujold plunges you into the realm of Chalion which is beautifully realised and completely coherent. Unlike many sword and sorcery fantasies this is brilliantly characterised, multi layered, subtle, believable and unexpectedly humourous. The intrigue, violence and unexpected twists in the plot make this a very satisfying read from the first moment of meeting Cazeril trudging his way along along a muddy track to the unexpected resolution.
The three Chalion books seem to be a complete departure from her usual oevre for this author. I have read a few of the Vorsakian books and they are not to my taste, but for anyone who likes Guy Gavriel Kay’s work the Curse of Chalion is highly recommended.

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