Cover Image: Knife Children

Knife Children

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Member Reviews

this was a really enjoyable read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed learning about the characters. I look forward to more from the author.

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I got a free Netgalley ebook in exchange for a review. I have to say I love this series a lot and the time it's taken me to finish it had something more to do with Covid than not wanting the series to end.

Or it's very poor formatting that shows up on my kindle, for which I took a star off for how jarring it was. Black bar across the middle of a page with page number and randomly enlarged and bold end text, and tiny beginning text with no capitals. Just awful throughout and I hope that was cleared up before true publication. Onto the true review!

The Barr we know from previous Sharing Knife books has grown -but when it comes to trouble, he still gets into it and now with Lily (a fire, sudden Lakewalker powers, a blightboggle/malice on her running away from home) it seems to be in his family. But Lily is his daughter and I delighted in how he tried to reach her and was taught in turn, their interactions and reactions to other family - a uncle, grandparents! - and horse girls and all that was great fun. Wish too that Lily had a book in how she interacts with her aunt and briefly met grandmother/great grandmother and future mother figures (does she get an apology like Barr did?). I especially like how Fig was the way he was, although I wish things had been mended more between mother and daughter.

I would love to see how mages became Lakewalkers (were they always maternal in tents/tent kin leaders?) and relate to malice in a book set perhaps before Dag and Barr's time which strikes me as a generation handling a disaster in the aftermath, reclaiming what's lost or finally gaining on it.

The parallel between the malice which grows in the wild and steals the ground-sense of living animals, plants and people and our ongoing current struggle to deal with and fight pollution and global warming/climate change is very real to me.

I'd love to also follow Lily's story more (or any Lakewalker lady in a novel of her own!) though I am sure Barr and Dag and Fawn have more beginnings than endings in this future that balances on the knives of children and their children and grandchildren in hope or shared doom.

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I'm a big fan of this author, although I hadn't read any titles from her in years. I'm glad I read this one!

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This novella is set in the world of the Lakewalkers, magically gifted rangers who protect the world against incursions of rapacious, malignant forces. Superstition and mutual distrust separate them from the rest of human settlements, so when a Lakewalker discovers he has a teenage daughter from a long ago, one-night stand with a farm woman, father and daughter must negotiate the gray areas of their disparate cultures. At first they are strangers to one another, and the daughter knows nothing of Lakewalker ways. She can no longer fit into the world she once knew, yet the insular, suspicious Lakewalkers are anything but welcoming. What is the responsibility of a parent in these circumstances? When is it right to intervene, and when is it best for everyone to let go? How much guilt must a person carry for a single mistake?

All the while, of course, new dangers pop up, and everyone has their own agenda.

I found that I liked this novella better than the novels on which it was based, although all reflect Bujold’s superb storytelling and compassionate care with her characters. It’s not necessary to have read the novels to enjoy this story (and it might be an interesting experiment to read this first, then go read the others for backstory).

Strongly recommended if you, like I, love anything Bujold writes.

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Knife Children is a novel set in Bujold's Sharing Knife world. While I love most of her books, this series has never been my cup of tea. Still, I enjoyed this installment perhaps more than the full-length novels in the series.

The story, like in most of Bujold's short stories of late, is fairly simple and short and not really the focus - this is a character drama, not high adventure. The protagonist, Burr, has a child from his youth who is not aware he is the father. But as a Lakewalker he has magic in his blood, and as the child has reached her teens that side of her has started to show. After an incident she flees her home and Burr follows, trying to think what to do.

As always, Bujold writes with extreme competence and reading is a smooth experience. There's never a twist and while the end result is usually easy to see it does not feel annoying. The story is built so that the end result is the only valid solution. Characters themselves are interesting and believable, even if there are quite a few for such a short story.

However, there is a caveat and I'm not sure how I feel about it. In his youth, Burr, effectively uses his magic to charm a young girl into having sex with, hence the child. There's some amount of regret over this later, and others reminding him that this is a bad thing. But there's an overwhelming feeling of 'oh he was just stupid when he was young, now he is a good man and doing the right thing'. In today's climate I'm not sure if this is valid. There's no question the relationship which is never described in detail, was at the very least not entirely consensual. It's very easy to draw a parallel to real-life where a guy did something to a drunk girl in college - which is still wrong regardless of how "nice" a man you've grown into.

This left a bit of a bad feeling and colored my view of the main character. Other readers may feel less strong about this - in the story the girl never indicates upset over what happened and is more treated as a youthful indiscretion on both parts. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

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Ahoy there me mateys!  I received a copy of this fantasy novella eArc from the publisher in exchange for me honest musings . . .

Title: knife children

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Publisher: Subterranean Press

Publication Date: Available Now!! (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1596069541

Source: NetGalley

The cover drew me in and three things convinced me to read this book:

I love Lois McMaster Bujold!  I discovered her through her World of the Five Gods series;
It is a Subterranean Press book and they do great work; and
This story is set in the Sharing Knife world.

Ye see at some point in the past I read the first book of the Sharing Knife series.  I remember enjoying it but literally nothing else (eek!).  While this novella is technically #4.5 in the series, it is a standalone.  I thought I would read this book to be reintroduced to the world and see if I should go back and read the whole series.

I ended up really liking this novella.  The basic premise is that Barr has a secret daughter who he watches over from afar.  After coming back from a longer than usual patrol, he finds his daughter missing and sets out to discover where she went.

The highlight of this book is Barr.  Ye meet him as a mature man on his way home from a long journey.  He was an impulsive youth who made bad decisions and has basically been paying for them ever since.  It was so nice to see a male character reflect on his immaturity and past mistakes.  Above all he didn't let those mistakes derail his entire future.  He was just so thoughtful and wonderful and always trying to do the right thing.  Ye get to watch his perceptions of the people around him grow and change as he gets to know his daughter.

I also enjoyed how the plot around the daughter was handled.  The politics of the family relations were messy and realistic-feeling.  One mistake really can impact generations and lots of people.  It was nice to watch the side characters also grow and change.  I did enjoy the unfolding of the father-daughter relationship.  I also rather loved the epilogue.

The characters and the relationships were the strength of this one.  The world building didn't thrill me that much when compared to the World of the Five Gods.  It just seemed kinda cheesy and too simplistic.  It surprised me that this series was written after the Five Gods books.  I don't think I feel the need to go back and read the rest of series.  I am, however, very glad to have read about Barr.  Barr reminds me of Cazaril in a lot of ways and I rather loved him.  So I do recommend this novella as a starting place to see if ye want to explore more of the world.  Arrr!

Side note:  I still plan on trying the author's sci-fi Vorkosigan Saga.

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Lakewalker novella!

Ah, the Lakewalkers! It's been so long since I've read the Sharing Knife series that I'd almost forgotten Malices, and Bonded knives. The Lakewalker's commitment to rid their world of the blight monsters that feed on living things, and as they grow more powerful, reproducing vassals out of mud from animal and humans. Eew!
I'd also forgotten about the beguilement aspects of the Lakewalkers.
Barr Foxbrush out of Pearl Riffle Camp, had discovered two years after her birth that he'd shockingly fathered a daughter, Lily Mason, with a farmer's girl, Bell Mason, he'd had a brief liaison with. And yes he had beguiled her, although as Barr tried to tell himself, "He’d not mistaken those artful glances of admiration she’d cast his youthful good looks." Something his leader would have been more than furious about if she'd known. His confession to his mentors Dag and Fawn Bluefield resulted in the mantra about Lakewalker persuasion never being used "on farmers for sexual favors, ever," was well and truly hammered home." As was Barr's responsibility.
Whenever he could make the detour to near Hackberry Corner he'd kept an eye on Lily from a distance in case she "threw to her Lakewalker bloodline."
On this visit he discovered Lily had run away. He trails her only to find she is indeed a Lakewalker in need of training and grounding. Of course their journey back to the camp is eventful.
I guess the part I really related to was the way Barr gradually found himself growing to care for Lily, appreciate her and fear for her. The way the father-daughter bond begins to develop.
As always with Bujold's writing, the twists she brings to her storytelling are intriguing.
A thoughtful addition to the series.

A Subterranean Press ARC via NetGalley

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Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite authors and I am always happy to read anything she releases. The Sharing Knife series is not as much fun as the Vorskosigen series, but it's enjoyable in other ways.

Barr of the Foxbrush Tent was an impulsive boy who has developed into an impulsive man. -Lakewalker elders see the promise of leadership in him, if only he can keep himself alive. In this novella, Barr faces the consequences of an early flirtation with a pretty farmer woman: a teenage daughter whose Lakewalker heritage has started to emerge.

Bujold tells the story well and also deepens our understanding of Lakewalker culture. While there is some action, Barr's story is about growing into the responsibilities of adulthood.

I received a review copy of "Knife Children" by Lois McMaster Bujold from Subterranean Press through NetGalley.com.

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The fantasy genre normally concerns itself with grand events. The scrappy band of heroes must defeat the Evil Lord who is trying to take over the world; the anti-hero must defeat the even worse villain before said villain destroys the city; the Chosen One must destroy the MacGuffin before the Dark Lord destroys all freedom. That sort of thing. What is often left out are the small domestic matters that would naturally take up the majority of the characters’ lives. Few authors take up these domestic matters as the focus of their stories, and even fewer do it well. Throughout her long career, multiple Hugo Award-winning author Lois McMaster Bujold has often focused on domestic matters, cutting into the complicated emotions that turn seemingly simple matters into complicated and dramatic stories.

Knife Children tells the story of Barr Foxbrush, a magically gifted Lakewalker returning home after patrolling the distant wilderness of Luthalia against the destructive creatures known as malices. Just a few days’ ride from home, he decides to stop by the Mason family’s home to see how they are doing. Specifically, he is there to check in on fourteen-year-old Lily, who is Barr’s daughter thanks to a youthful indiscretion. After Barr’s departure fifteen years earlier, Lily’s mother Belle quickly married a farmer, told him that Lily was his daughter, and has held the secret in all these years. But when Lily runs away after a tragedy, Barr must find her and own up to his past mistakes before they can move on into the future.

“He prudently waited until she had some food inboard before digging out and handing across Fid’s letter. He thought she’d have been happier if he’d offered her a rattlesnake, but she did take it, and, after biting her lip, ripped it open, scattering the carefully reaffixed sealing wax. She peered at the crabbed scrawl in the growing twilight, mouth moving as she sounded out the words. When she finished, she squeezed the letter into a tight ball and threw it hard onto the fire. Barr winced as it flared up, feeling for Fid.”



One of Bujold’s great strengths as a writer is her ability to create fully rounded characters who have great flaws as well as great strengths, but who are willing to grow as they move through their lives. Barr and Lily are no different in Knife Children. Though he spent his youth pulling pranks and giving his elders endless headaches, Barr has matured since then, becoming a responsible man who understands his duties to his family and his people. But he still has his flaws: he doesn’t want to admit to his past relationship with Belle, a farmer woman, even though withholding the truth does more harm than good.

Lily, on the other hand, is struggling under the weight of a harsh accusation and the trials of adolescence. She’s a headstrong young woman who is suspicious of the motives of her elders, but she’s also lonely and longing for praise and friendship.

Barr and Lily’s fraught relationship drives this story forward, not action or the dangers that lurk throughout the world they inhabit. Their conflict is all this novella needs to become a compelling story.

The worldbuilding in Knife Children is subtle, and while some of it is done in conversations– Lily doesn’t understand the Lakewalker culture, so he must explain parts of it to her– the rest is done through interactions between family and community, in the characters’ opinions of each other and of other cultural groups, and even through the dialogue and the way Barr and the others describe things. The Lakewalkers and their farmer counterparts live in a rough world filled with danger. Their speech, attitudes, and preconceptions show the reader the reality of it.

Lois McMaster Bujold was recently awarded the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, an honor given to just thirty-six authors in the award’s forty-five-year history. She has written everything from sweeping space operas to small-scale domestic dramas set in fantasy worlds. What she brings to all her stories is a realistic presentation of people, with all their flaws and skills, who are doing their best to make their worlds a little bit better. With Knife Children, Bujold has given us yet another brilliant and heartfelt story.

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Knife Children by Lois McMaster Bujold

[content warning - spoilers and discussion of sexual assault]

I have loved everything else I have previously read by Lois McMaster Bujold. I wanted to love this book. But I just could not. The entire plot is predicated on a rape that not only goes unpunished, but only barely acknowledged as rape by the rapist or any of the other characters.

Let me go back a step or two.

I had somehow missed Lois McMaster Bujold’s entire of body of work until recently. Probably because I am not really into military science fiction and had never read any Baen books (except the bardic magic books of Mercedes Lackey).

After her Vorkosigan series was nominated for the best series Hugo award, I decided to give it a go. I found the Tor.com reread (which is excellent, I cannot recommend enough) and I embarked. I feel in love. In love with the writing style, the world building, the characters. I started slowing down because I knew that the series, although vast, was finite. Every day while reading A Civil Campaign I went into the office of my coworker who had read the entire series and told him that the book was just “goddamn delightful.”

So when I saw a novella from Bujold from a series I hadn’t read yet on NetGalley from Subterranean, one of my favorite publishers, I thought I couldn’t go wrong. But quickly when I began reading I realized my mistake.

Which is not to say the book is bad. The writing style and the world building and the characters are all excellent. Ms. Bujold is a clear master of her craft and deserves all of her accolades. But I do not like a book where the entire plot revolves around a rape and the rapist ends up with, at most, a light scolding.

Barr is our narrator and rapist. He is a Lakewalker, which is a person with some magical powers including “beguilement,” which functions a lot like a Charm Person or Animal spell.

When Barr was 18, he used his powers to beguile a woman into sex.

I will quote the passage from the book that explains this:

“He’d been eighteen, just woken to what he’d naively imagined to be his full powers as a new patroller. The same beguiling persuasion that worked on animals worked on farmers, he’d heard, and, encountering that pretty young farmer girl when his patrol had camped on her family’s land, he’d been more than tempted to try it out. Bluebell hadn’t been unwilling. He’d not mistaken those artful glances of admiration she’d cast his youthful good looks. From admiration to arousal turned out to be but a step, and a step more from there to the loft of her father’s barn. Where he’d tried his best to give her as good a time as what he now recognized as his clumsy inexperience could provide.”

Although Barr claims she wasn’t unwilling, it is clear that he used his magical powers on her to get her to agree to have sex with him. Even if she seemed interested in him before he magicked her, his beguilement removed her ability to consent. That is not sex. That is rape.

This rape results in a child, whom Barr stalks from afar until she is a teenager and her Lakewalker powers develop. She has run away from home, and Barr finds her, brings her home, and explains her parentage to her and his family.

As mentioned above, there is some light scolding from Barr’s clan, and none from his daughter, the result of the rape. As for the rape victim? She is mostly offstage and is depicted as harried and shrewish, when she might in fact still be suffering from PTSD. In the end, the daughter chooses to remain with her mother’s rapist and live with him and his family.

I do not think that Ms. Bujold likes rape or is a fan of rape. I do not know her personally, but from reading her other novels, her blog entries on Goodreads, and her occasional comments on the Tor.com Vorkosigan reread, I feel pretty safe in concluding this. She does seem to understand that rape is horrific and has serious emotional consequences for rapist, victim, and progeny, as demonstrated by her portrayal of Sgt. Bothari, Elena Bothari, and her mother. So I do not understand why she doesn’t treat beguiled sex as rape in this novella. Because she does not, I did not like this book.

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This was a satisfying addition to the Knife series. Barr finds out that his daughter, who doesn't know him, or that the farmer who raised her isn't her father, is missing from home and may be showing Lakewalker tendencies. What will he say when he finds her? Is she Lakewalker? The answers and how Barr and his daughter get to know each other make for a fun read. I look forward to more!

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I didn't enjoy this as much as I'd hoped to.

While there were some very charming moments of father-daughter bonding, I felt this novella was lacking a certain je ne sais quoi and I ultimately couldn't get into the story.

While it's part of a series, it is a standalone, and I went into it with the expectation that I wouldn't require much pre-knowledge of the world/characters. Though the plot is in fact wholly standalone, I do wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more had I read the others—is there a context for the characters that I'm missing? Because as it is, I felt the story largely flat, and the characters difficult to emotionally bond with. Consider using this book as a starting point a mistake on my part!

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Ever made a mistake that you can never take back and can never tell anyone about? In Lois McMaster Bujold's fresh new foray into the world of the "Sharing Knife" series, Lakewalker Barr must come face-to-face with the consequences of some of his past transgressions - one far more serious than the others. During a one thousand mile journey home after a two year training stint in the Artic cold of the northern camps, Barr passes by a farm house he knows well. One he has kept a devoted yet distanced watch over for the past twelve years. But the farmhouse and all it's accompanying structures have been raized to the ground by fire. Consumed with concern, Barr gallops to the nearest village to learn of their fate. The family lives - well, most of them. And the oldest daughter, Lily, has taken off with her faithful horse and not much else after a heated family argument attempted to lay the blame of the destructive fire on Lily's head. Now the Lakeman feels bound to use his magical skill to find this farmer family's missing girl -- Barr's daughter, and open up a secret that has been held tight against his heart these past twelve years.

The game of cat and mouse as he looks for Lily quickly devolves into a life or death experience once a malice is discovered and one of it's malicious mud-men creations brutally attacks Barr.

This beautiful and fulfilling addition the "The Sharing Knife" series, where tertiary character are able to step into the foreground while fan favorites such as Dag and Fern are referenced with updates on their lives. This coming of age story not only marks Lily's coming into her own as a person, but of Barr growing into his parental role of adulthood.

I highly recommended this story to fans not only of Bujould's other works, but also Mercedes Lackey and Clare Dunkle!

** Special thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing a digital ARC copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

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A pleasant if not particularly memorable continuation of the narratives begun in Bujold's earlier books set in the world of the Sharing Knife. In this world, people are born Lakewalkers, with special bonds to the earth and others and capable of certain magics, or farmers, who are, well, not Lakewalkers. Lakewalkers protect the world from creatures called malices, which feed on life and threaten communities. In this novel, a Lakewalker man finds that his daughter, born years earlier to a farmer woman, is developing Lakewalker powers, and seeks to help the girl learn to understand and train her powers. This has never been Bujold's most imaginative or complex series, but it's interesting enough for a few hours' read.

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I was always going to love this. The Sharing Knife books are some of the best fantasy I’ve ever read and I was delighted to revisit that world. These stories examine the contrast between ordinary farmers and the ranger-like Lakewalkers who protect the world. Dag and Fawn illustrated this contrast as a couple but in Knife Children the contrast is between a father and a daughter. Four books worth of exposition had to be inserted into this novella but I found I needed it since it had been a few years since I read the books. As the mother of a 14 year old daughter Lily’s struggles rang true. Even farmer/muggle teens have suddenly appearing powers and hips and realizations about the world. I could appreciate Barr’s growing sense of fatherhood. I think I might have relaxed into the story more if I’d know that Dag and Fawn while mentioned do not appear.

Thanks to Netgalley for ARC.

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WOW. This is exactly what a Speculative Fiction novella should be. Not having read the rest of the series, I wasn’t familiar with the fantasy world, but the author masterfully drew me into and enveloped me in it. So much happened in a small amount of pages, and I felt super satisfied at the end, which I think can be hard to pull off in this form. Superb.

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This novella is set after years after the final book in the series, but I didn’t feel the need to reread everything even though it had been twenty years since I read them. There is enough backstory in this to help anyone understand what is going on in the books. Lakewalkers protect the land with their magic but keep their distance from the farmers and villagers that do not share their magical talents. Barr went against tradition and had a tryst with a farmer who had a child but he didn’t find out until several years later. He keeps an eye out on the child incase she develops lakewaker magic but since he doesn’t ride by that often he finds that she has run away from home on his latest ride by the farm. He volunteers to help with the search and finds her. Lily has developed the magic of her father’s people and doesn’t understand what is happening since she doesn’t know her father is a lakewalker. Barr finds her and due to fighting a blight he has to take her to his home camp and she learns about her parentage and the magic she possesses. This is a good introduction into this story universe and also works well as a reminder of the series.

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I don't think I'm alone in not loving The Sharing Knife quite as much as the Chalion books... they're still great, still wonderful writing, just not quite as beloved. Still, I'm delighted to have new writing in any of Bujold's universes, and I enjoyed this novella (set years after the main quartet, fleshing out a minor character who is just now building a relationship with his teenage daughter) a great deal. The denouement felt a little rushed, but otherwise a really nice visit to the matriarchal world of the Lakewalkers.

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