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beccastareyesOn Social Fantasy...
This blog post may contain spoilers for Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife books...
Once upon the time, there was a land where mages ruled in giant cities and were able to do remarkable things. Then, tragedy struck -- the cities were destroyed, and only the minor mage nobles that lived in the outskirts and the peasants survived. Worse than that, the cataclysm created (or brought forth -- no one was quite clear what) malices, things that fed on life energy itself, and seemed to just appear out of the ground, growing and learning as they ate more. The remaining mages, seeing that the malices were the fault of their people, discovered a way to destroy them -- priming a knife made of mage bone with the death of a mage. There was no need to kill someone for such a knife -- after all, people died of lingering illness, wounds in battle, or just plain old age all the time, and a mage's bone was easy enough to get if you didn't mind the funeral arrangements being a bit bloody. The mages, now Lakewalkers, named for their patrols around the giant lake that was once five smaller lakes, devoted themselves to finding and stopping malices, and keeping the farmers (or so the non-magical peasants that survived were called) safe, and living on land that was less likely to have a malice appear. It was a never-ending battle -- malices would appear at random, to be caught (hopefully) by Lakewalker patrols and dispatched before they started killing the farmers.
That's the set-up for the Sharing Knife books. Now, if this was traditional fantasy, the books might be about finding the source of the malices and killing it dead. But, that's not what happened. Because The Sharing Knife is what I like to think of as Social Fantasy.
So, farmers and Lakewalkers don't interact much. Farmers think Lakewalkers are necromancers or cannibals, or that they can read minds (Lakewalker magic can work as empathy). Lakewalkers think the only way that they can relate to farmers is to rule them (which lead to the Rocks Fall Everyone Dies scenario above) or to avoid them, and that any use of Lakewalker abilities to help farmers out (say, healing a broken leg) means that the malices might win. Add in that there is no intermarriage between the groups -- Lakewalkers see farmers as dead weight, and any half-farmer kids as diluting the magical blood. Add in the risk that a Lakewalker can accidentally magically charm a farmer. Farmers don't trust Lakewalkers, after seeing too many young farmers get turned away, and the basic mistrust of a group of people who rely on wealth working with a nomadic group that don't like owning more than they can carry via horses.
Enter Dag, a Lakewalker patroller and Fawn, a young farmer woman who is leaving home. The first book in the series is very much 'man meets woman and they fall in love, despite the fact that both of their families disapprove'. Dag and Fawn try to work it out, and the story grows from there -- in the second book, Dag realizes how utterly broken the system is. Not just because it means he and Fawn are ostracized, but because Lakewalkers treating farmers as dead weight and farmers treating Lakewalkers with suspicion hinders keeping both groups alive against the Monsters that Drain People's Life Energy. So, the third book begins the tale of 'How can we fix this (especially when both groups don't see the problem?'. Not just so Dag and Fawn's kids can grow up in a world that will at least tolerate (if not accept) them, but to better fight the malices.
What interests me is that the malices are a problem in the series, but not the problem. As in, I would not be upset if the last book ends with them still showing up. I would be upset if the last book ends without some type of mixed group, even if most Lakewalkers and farmers can't be friends.
It also helps that the romance is both essential to the plot and not the sum and total of it. (Well, that and I get the sense that Dag and Fawn are both equals in their relationship, despite the fact Dag is a lot older than Fawn -- ignoring getting killed on patrol, Lakewalkers generally live longer than farmers, so, as Fawn puts it, despite the fact Dag is a generation older than her, she and he will grow old at the same time -- and more experienced in romance, and has powers that Fawn doesn't. And the story doesn't stop when they are together, nor does Fawn fade to the background because of lack of said powers.)
There's a bit of a meme on the Bujold mailing list to guess whether reviews for the series are written by romance fans or fantasy fans. Romance fans will focus in on Dag and Fawn and ignore (or get confused by) the worldbuilding; fantasy fans will focus in on the worldbuilding and gloss over the relationship. Truthfully, this is a case where both are central to the story, as are Fawn's and Dag's relationships to their families, to their friends, and to their societies. (Another plus -- the two live in their worlds, and things don't suddenly slide to the background because they are In Love.)
Can you tell I am impressed by this?
It's not that
This blog post may contain spoilers for Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife books...
Once upon the time, there was a land where mages ruled in giant cities and were able to do remarkable things. Then, tragedy struck -- the cities were destroyed, and only the minor mage nobles that lived in the outskirts and the peasants survived. Worse than that, the cataclysm created (or brought forth -- no one was quite clear what) malices, things that fed on life energy itself, and seemed to just appear out of the ground, growing and learning as they ate more. The remaining mages, seeing that the malices were the fault of their people, discovered a way to destroy them -- priming a knife made of mage bone with the death of a mage. There was no need to kill someone for such a knife -- after all, people died of lingering illness, wounds in battle, or just plain old age all the time, and a mage's bone was easy enough to get if you didn't mind the funeral arrangements being a bit bloody. The mages, now Lakewalkers, named for their patrols around the giant lake that was once five smaller lakes, devoted themselves to finding and stopping malices, and keeping the farmers (or so the non-magical peasants that survived were called) safe, and living on land that was less likely to have a malice appear. It was a never-ending battle -- malices would appear at random, to be caught (hopefully) by Lakewalker patrols and dispatched before they started killing the farmers.
That's the set-up for the Sharing Knife books. Now, if this was traditional fantasy, the books might be about finding the source of the malices and killing it dead. But, that's not what happened. Because The Sharing Knife is what I like to think of as Social Fantasy.
So, farmers and Lakewalkers don't interact much. Farmers think Lakewalkers are necromancers or cannibals, or that they can read minds (Lakewalker magic can work as empathy). Lakewalkers think the only way that they can relate to farmers is to rule them (which lead to the Rocks Fall Everyone Dies scenario above) or to avoid them, and that any use of Lakewalker abilities to help farmers out (say, healing a broken leg) means that the malices might win. Add in that there is no intermarriage between the groups -- Lakewalkers see farmers as dead weight, and any half-farmer kids as diluting the magical blood. Add in the risk that a Lakewalker can accidentally magically charm a farmer. Farmers don't trust Lakewalkers, after seeing too many young farmers get turned away, and the basic mistrust of a group of people who rely on wealth working with a nomadic group that don't like owning more than they can carry via horses.
Enter Dag, a Lakewalker patroller and Fawn, a young farmer woman who is leaving home. The first book in the series is very much 'man meets woman and they fall in love, despite the fact that both of their families disapprove'. Dag and Fawn try to work it out, and the story grows from there -- in the second book, Dag realizes how utterly broken the system is. Not just because it means he and Fawn are ostracized, but because Lakewalkers treating farmers as dead weight and farmers treating Lakewalkers with suspicion hinders keeping both groups alive against the Monsters that Drain People's Life Energy. So, the third book begins the tale of 'How can we fix this (especially when both groups don't see the problem?'. Not just so Dag and Fawn's kids can grow up in a world that will at least tolerate (if not accept) them, but to better fight the malices.
What interests me is that the malices are a problem in the series, but not the problem. As in, I would not be upset if the last book ends with them still showing up. I would be upset if the last book ends without some type of mixed group, even if most Lakewalkers and farmers can't be friends.
It also helps that the romance is both essential to the plot and not the sum and total of it. (Well, that and I get the sense that Dag and Fawn are both equals in their relationship, despite the fact Dag is a lot older than Fawn -- ignoring getting killed on patrol, Lakewalkers generally live longer than farmers, so, as Fawn puts it, despite the fact Dag is a generation older than her, she and he will grow old at the same time -- and more experienced in romance, and has powers that Fawn doesn't. And the story doesn't stop when they are together, nor does Fawn fade to the background because of lack of said powers.)
There's a bit of a meme on the Bujold mailing list to guess whether reviews for the series are written by romance fans or fantasy fans. Romance fans will focus in on Dag and Fawn and ignore (or get confused by) the worldbuilding; fantasy fans will focus in on the worldbuilding and gloss over the relationship. Truthfully, this is a case where both are central to the story, as are Fawn's and Dag's relationships to their families, to their friends, and to their societies. (Another plus -- the two live in their worlds, and things don't suddenly slide to the background because they are In Love.)
Can you tell I am impressed by this?
It's not that
