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    The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon
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    The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon
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    The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon
    Ebook504 pages8 hours

    The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon

    By Lois McMaster Bujold

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “An engrossing, satisfying read and a fitting conclusion to the series.”
    Anniston Star

     

    One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold has won numerous accolades and awards, including the Nebula and Locus Awards as well as the fantasy and science fiction genre’s most prestigious honor, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, four times (most recently for Paladin of Souls).With Horizon, Bujold brings her remarkable Sharing Knife saga to its magnificent conclusion, as Fawn Bluefield and Dag Redwing Hickory must keep their love strong in the midst of an ever-changing world--even as Dag’s apprehensions and abilities increase along with the malevolent threat surrounding them.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061984815
    Unavailable
    The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon
    Author

    Lois McMaster Bujold

    One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold burst onto the scene in 1986 with Shards of Honor, the first of her tremendously popular Vorkosigan Saga novels. She has received numerous accolades and prizes, including two Nebula Awards for best novel (Falling Free and Paladin of Souls), four Hugo Awards for Best Novel (Paladin of Souls, The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance), as well as the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella The Mountains of Mourning. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. The mother of two, Bujold lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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    Reviews for The Sharing Knife, Volume Four

    4/5

    447 ratings38 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book is an excellent conclusion to the series, providing closure for the major plot elements without freezing the characters into a static position just because the story is "over."[return][return]I am particularly fond of the setting in this series since it is something you don't often see in the current crop of fantasy novels. The frontier settlement aspect provides a different set of basic conflicts than you'd find in a city or within the sweeping vistas of epic fantasy.[return][return]I do have to say that my decision to start reading this late in the evening was a mistake, but only because I got sucked into the story and before I quite knew what happened I was halfway through the book and it was three in the morning...and I had work the next day.
    • 5/5
      A lovely and fitting end to the series (although I would be perfectly happy if it went on for a dozen books more). I got much more attached to Arkady than I expected to, and seeing everyone else's character development round out was a treat.
    • 4/5
      This is my favourite in the quartet. I really like the way it pulls together and builds upon the themes and ideas raised in the preceding books. More family, more discoveries about Lakewalker healing, more communication and teamwork and relationships between farmers and Lakewalkers -- and more danger, which illustrates exactly why such things are desperately needed. Dag gets an opportunity to be an apprentice again, not just to be the one teaching and leading others. And while the beginning feels very Dag-focused, Fawn and the other farmers get their chance to shine.Dag went on more urgently, “The future is happening right here, every day. You can swim or you can drown, but you can’t choose not to be in the flood. I suppose the real insight is that it’s always been that way.” He took a breath. “I think we should start learning to swim.”
    • 5/5
      Now at the southern end of their journey, Dag has finally found a teacher who can help him learn more about his strange new powers. Arkady is a groundsetter and he recognizes that Dag, even though he is little trained, can be one too. The problem is find a place for Fawn in the Lakewalker camp where she is seen only as a farmer girl. Dag learns a lot in two months but he doesn't agree with the camp's policy of not providing healing for farmers. When Finch, a young man Fawn has met at the camp market, comes and begs for assistance for his 5-year-old nephew who has lockjaw, Dag doesn't think twice before going to help even though it will likely cost him his place in the camp and his teacher. When he is kicked out of the camp, he and Fawn decide to work their way north again. She's newly pregnant and would like to find a home before her baby is born. At first, they decide to join a party which includes Finch and some of his friends but the party soon grows with the addition of Arkady and Barr. Also in the party are a couple of untrained half-breeds. They also meet again with Fawn's brother Whit, his wife Berry, and Berry's uncle and younger brother. Trailing both Dag and Arkady is a jealous young female patroller who has been trying to pry Dag loose from Fawn ever since she met him. Once she realizes that he is the hero of Wolf Ridge, she becomes even more determined to have him for her own. Dag isn't at all interested and is completely in love with and loyal to Fawn but Neeta isn't easily discouraged and reappears throughout the story trying one approach after another to separate Dag and Fawn.The trip is hard and made even harder when the group runs into two different malices. Luckily, Dag has been working on a way to protect Fawn and has expanded the protection to Fawn's brother Whit and his wife Berry. When the party is scattered during the malice attack, it is up to those protected farmers to find a way to save the group and introduce the malice to mortality. This was a wonderful story filled with great characters set in a well-developed world. It was about making small changes to bring about a changed future. Dag wants to change the dynamic between farmers and lakewalkers. He wants to change the world and pave the way for a future after the last malice has been destroyed.
    • 4/5
      Slowly setting up their new way to live, a satisfying conclusion to their arc.
    • 4/5
      I’ve spent weeks now reading about Sharing Knives, and I don’t regret it :). So many elements of this series greatly appeal to me: the frontier-like setting, the dialect, the monster hunting, and of course the romance. I loved Dag and Fawn, both individually and as a couple. Dag is the flashier character, but Fawn…Fawn is one of my favorite sorts of protagonist: an everyday person with no special powers, who relies primarily on her wits and resourcefulness to tackle her problems. She was the heart of the story, and such a sweet, supportive wife. Together, she and Dag made a wonderful team. I’ll miss reading about them, their charming friends and kinfolk, and their adventures in their fascinating Wide Green World.
    • 5/5
      This series makes my life more wonderful.
    • 3/5
      The ending of the Sharing Knife series continues with the divide between farmers and Lakewalkers. This book focuses on Dag learning skills that could help create a better relationship between the groups of people. The story also continues the romance as well. It is a good ending for the series, with similar tone and pacing. Overall I enjoyed the series and it is well written, it is just not something I usually reach for.
    • 4/5
      Main review of all four books below, this is the one where they journey back, kill a flying malice, and Fern has a baby.I love the Vorkosigan books, and expect great things of Bujold. I'm not sure the Sharing Knife series is a Great Thing, but it is a fun, sweet, page turning romance, with a nice sense of world.The main plot is that there are Lakewalkers, who are tribal mostly-nomads with magical powers, who live hard lives fighting against the Malices, destructive monsters that hatch at random across the land. They share the land with Farmers, who don't have magic powers, and just get on with growing stuff, until occasionally they are eaten by Malices. The Farmers don't like the Lakewalkers, because generally Lakewalkers turn up at about the same time as everyone dies and there's a crisis, and they have scary magic and can mind control them, and the Lakewalkers don't like the farmers, because they don't have scary magic and don't really appreciate that the Lakewalkers are living grim and miserable lives risking themselves hunting Malices while the Farmers just live of the fat of the land.Obviously into the middle of this comes a love story, where a young Farmer girl and an older Lakewalker man are drawn together by a crisis, and fall in love. He appreciates her worth when the rest of the world have ignored it, and she helps him to move on from his previous tragedies and learn to love again. It's as clichéd as it sounds, but it's sweet and fun. Dag is a bit of an annoying Mary Sue, as he wanders the land being the only one who has had the Deep Insight that the farmers and lakewalkers should work together, and makes huge leaps in his ground magic that have eluded all other lakewalkers. Fern is a bit annoying too - it is quite nice, in a way, to have a heroine who is _not_ Plucky or Feisty, but is supportive and loving and cooks really well, (and to be fair, she is quite good when it comes to the crunch) but on the other hand it's a bit annoying when all the boys run round with bows and Fern stays home and cooks. It was part of the miscarriage project - Fern loses her baby when she's attacked by a malice, and the final book is very Babies Are The Happy Ending, as she finally has her first born. I thought it was much better than many of the other (non-fantasy!) books for capturing the feel of how the grief runs through lots of things.I wasn't sure about the racial parallels - it is a bit of fantasy North America, the lakewalkers are more the magic, patrolling, tent dwelling, natives, and the farmers are much more the settlers. Having a moral of 'the lakewalkers need to just get on with the farmers more and protect them and stop being so snooty and superior' is a bit ikky. I really wanted more of the Big Story. There are little hints of back stories, that maybe the Malices were made by Sorcerers who also destroyed much of civilisation, and that maybe just fighting them one by one isn't enough, and that maybe Dag's most powerful magic is very close to malice magic... but it never really went anywhere (and the author has said that this is the Whole Story, although who knows?)But it was a fun page turning romance, and I enjoyed the Huckleberry Finn riverboat adventure feel, and the fun cast of characters.
    • 3/5
      After taking almost 2 months to finish the last book I read, I went through this one in about 3 days! I think it also helped that my internet was down.

      Anyway, I do enjoy this series, and I like the characters and all, and the climactic battle was very exciting, but I could have done without all the pregnancy stuff.
    • 4/5
      This was my favorite of the four novels - it really digs into the social and moral implications of the magic system the previous three volumes have been setting up, and there's quite a bit more action. The relationships between the characters are established, so they can get on with doing things instead of moping around, which makes for much more interesting reading in my opinion.

      I would really like to see a second trilogy set twenty years in the future that is a straight-up adventure to see how some of the social change plays out. I am curious what romance readers think of this series - as a fantasy series it's really not up to par, although it has tremendous potential.
    • 4/5
      This final book of the series dragged a bit in the beginning and the middle, but the climax and ending sure made up for it.Still, it's interesting how my feelings about the characters have changed over the course of four books. I really liked Fawn in Beguilement and Legacy, but by the halfway point in Passage she started getting on my nerves, and in Horizon she was downright annoying. It's not exactly that she's a Mary Sue, though sometimes she comes dangerously close. Her saccharine nature, which I think was meant to endear her to the reader, just makes me want to reach in through the pages and slap her. It also has a lot to do with her taking on a much more passive role as the series progresses. Like I noted in the last book, the focus definitely shifts from her to Dag.The books themselves shift their focus too. Whereas the first book was more of a romance than anything, the last couple of books are more about exploration and adventure. I don't mind this so much, as I can always appreciate a series that evolves. I also enjoy how more of the world is revealed with each book. The magic system is truly a unique one, not to mention the evil threat of malices and mud-men.All in all, a decent and satisfying end to the series, with everything wrapping up nicely. Perhaps a little too nicely. But since these books are meant to be fun, feel-good reads, I guess I can't begrudge it that.
    • 4/5
      Until the Sharing Knife series, I had never read Lois McMaster Bujold. She is one of my husband's favorite authors, though, so I decided to take a chance on beginning this series. I am the type of person who reads a book cover to cover, no matter how much I dislike the book. I also will read an entire series even if I was not enamored with beginning volumes. Coming to Horizon, the 4th of the Sharing Knife series, I was (to say the least) NOT excited. The first three volumes, to me, were slow, over written, had too many lengthy descriptions of sex between the two protagonists (Fawn and Dag), and for me was so over written I literally scanned as many as 15 pages of text before coming to a point of interest. But I HAD to read this 4th volume or my OCD would go crazy on me!As such, I bought the book within a few days of it's release three years ago, in 2008, and it sat on the book shelf until just this week (July 2011). I was expecting another convoluted over written story and hoped it was true that this would be the final volume. To my extreme surprise, though, I was captivated and enthralled and so brought into the story I read it in two days - for a slow reader like me that is amazing speed. I LOVE this book!!The characters are so well written, and there are new characters added to the group that had come together in the first 3 volumes. Even Fawn the farmer-girl and Dag the Lakewalker suddenly showed themselves in 3D technicolor. Love between characters is offered to the readers without "sex scenes", friendships are made and expand under the mastery of Bujold's words in a seamless characterization, tragedy and near-tragedy is written without over dramatization.I whole heartily recommend this series to anyone who would like to read a fantasy combining love, upset, forgiveness, and coming together of two cultures. The whole series? Yes. Even though I greatly disliked the first three volumes, one must trudge through them in order to be prepared for volume four. Without the background much will be lost to the reader.
    • 3/5
      I do so wish that Lois McMaster Bujold would get back to Miles Vorkosigan's universe. This is yet another installment in the Sharing Knife series. Farmer Fawn and Lakewalker Dag come from clashing cultures and are trying to heal the rifts. There's a lot of good stuff in here for fantasy aficianados: bone/life magic; mysteriously intriguing evils to be fought; a big land to be travelled by caravan and boat etc. But she just doesn't bring it together enough to be either exciting or funny. There's not enough dramatic tension; I find it comes off as soppy. She *can* do funny romantic - see A Civil Campaign for some great farcical moments - but Bujold is being far too nice here.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Although Dag's power as a medicine maker has been growing since he gave up patrolling, by the beginning of Horizon he's reached the limit of what he can learn on his own. He and his Farmer wife, Fawn, head to the nearest Lakewalker camp, where Dag strikes up an unusual - and somewhat uneasy, due to his unorthodox opinions about Farmers - apprenticeship with the master groundsetter Arkady. However, while Dag is learning to control his newfound power, Fawn is growing antsy; as much as she loves Dag, a camp full of Lakewalkers that treat her as barely human is not a place to settle down, and while she still believes in Dag's mission to save the world, she's also anxious to have a home to call her own. But where can she find a home that her unique family will fit in?Review: Overall, I love Bujold's books and think it's a travesty that more people aren't reading them. Specifically, however, I don't think this was one of her strongest books, even within this series.Don't get me wrong; it was still a crazy-enjoyable book. It got me out of a slight reading funk induced by too much holiday cheer and not enough down time. I still love Fawn and especially Dag as characters. The action was as heart-stopping as ever, and this book managed to get all of its sub-plots and characters to a satisfactory end and comfortable stopping place without leaving things feeling pat or overly wrapped-up. The world-building and magic is still as unique and interesting as it ever was, and I really appreciated how Bujold has expanded the scope of her world in each book in this series, without it ever feeling expository or inorganic.Still, there were a couple of things about this book that didn't sit quite right with me. The first was that it seemed a little disjointed into two separate halves. The first half is all Dag and Arkady in the Lakewalker camp, and then it seemed like all of a sudden, they're out on the road, with only the briefest of scenes to smooth over the transition. My other problem was that there were just too many characters. Bujold can write brilliant characters when she's got the time and space to flesh them out a bit. In the third book, Passage, we got a passel of new characters in the beginning, but we got to spend enough time with them that by the end we love them almost as much as Dag and Fawn. In this case, however, new characters keep getting added into the group, without much time spent on developing them, and as a result the book starts to feel a little overcrowded and not as emotionally resonant as I would have liked. All in all, though, this was a good end to a great series, and it's one that I'll definitely be revisiting in the future. 4 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: Don't start on the last book, but this series as a whole is highly recommended for fantasy fans who like unique, well-thought out magic systems, non-traditional fantasy worlds, sympathetic characters, lively dialogue, a good sense of humor, and a little bit of romance stirred into the pot.
    • 4/5
      Great stuff! I'm not sure if this is the last in the series, though, or if it will continue...
    • 4/5
      Great stuff! I'm not sure if this is the last in the series, though, or if it will continue...
    • 5/5
      I recently had read the first 3 books in this series, and they just kept getting more intriguing. I'd read and loved Bujold's other fantasy series that started with The Curse of Chalion, and found them a great read. I'd call that one High Fantasy, this is a series though that has hints of science-fiction in it that could explain the magical world, and is set in what could be our far future, but has a 19th century American frontier feel. The first "Sharing Knife" book, Beguilement, is more a set up for the books to follow, which pull you closer and closer into this world where life-destroying "malices" are fought by Lakewalkers with quasi-magical powers. Especially because they hold themselves apart, they're distrusted by the surrounding farmer community. When in the first book Dag the Lakewalker and Fawn the farmer fall in love, they find they're accepted by neither community and in this book undergo a journey to find a place and way they can gain acceptance. The first book plays somewhat like a conventional romance book (somewhat May/November, Fawn is 18, Dag 55, but they work well together), only far better written than the books I find in the romance aisle.Bujold is wonderful at world-building and at creating characters you can fall in love with, and even her more unsympathetic characters are rounded and understandable. All the Sharing Knife books are certainly page-turners, and this one is arguably the best of the four and did not disappoint.
    • 5/5
      I kind of like how there is no huge evil menace plot in this series. There is an evil menace, but no armageddeon-style event which must be averted. And the relationship between Fawn and Dag is really sweet (if also a little creepy in the may-december sense...)
    • 5/5
      A great conclusion to the series. The series was very consistent with each book adding more to the fantasy world and expanding on the themes from the books before. She writes great fantasy stories.
    • 4/5
      In the final book of the Sharing Knife series, Bujold finally brings all of the threads of this world's metaphysics together into a comprehensible pattern. In a style only Bujold regularly pulls off, the fantasy tale of a tiny domestic girl who just wants to live a comfortable farm life with her warrior husband manages to be something of a story of female empowerment. Bujold fans never get to see Cordelia Vorkosigan do all of the terrifying speed we are positive she did after the birth of Miles, but we do get to see Fawn get medieval on some pretty terrifying malices. As in the previous three books of this quartet, Dag and Fawn need to bring Lakewalker and Farmer together if they want to defeat malices, overcoming the prejudices of both and culminating in some angst-ridden but action-packed fight scenes.If you read this story as a Mississippi River-inspired fantasy world, but I don't recommend it. If not necessary, and doing so adds sketchiness to the relationship between Dag and Fawn. Instead, read this and be truly satisfying story of two standout people who know the only way they can live happily together if they change the world. The ending might be too sappy for some, but I find it wholly satisfying.
    • 5/5
      Sharing Knife Horizon is the fourth volume in the saga of Dag and Fawn Bluefield. The story begins shortly after the end of book three, and opens at a leisurely pace. Dag and Fawn soon part with old friends, and throughout the story slowly build up a new set of friends, family, and problems. The pace and action increase as they discover a dangerous new type of Malice. This is a very satisfying book for fans of the series. New readers are probably best served by starting with volume one. Bujold does do a good job of reminding the readers of important facts from the previous volumes, but for new readers these previous plot briefings would spoil the joy experiencing the full saga as it enfolds over the entire series. A great series for fans of fantasy sagas with romantic elements and a lead couple in a committed relationship.
    • 4/5
      Where the previous book in this series was slow moving to the point of tedium, this moved amazingly fast. Bizarrely fast, in fact, given that the previous two books were given over in whole or part, to how absolutely impossible it was that any LakeWalkers could ever associate with Fawn and Dag. It's not quite forgotten -- they all flee a camp yet again, taking yet more LakeWalkers with them to bulk out their ragtag parade -- but it all seems rather more hand waved as lipservice.That said, I liked this. As I've said, it was way, way faster paced than the previous book. The characters were drawn more sharply -- Neeta in particular was pretty standout, but so was Sumac. Though Arkady didn't so much have a personality as react to everyone else's. I have no idea if that was meant to be the case or not, but it was slightly bizarre to read.Some nice touches and dealings with consequences, and all in all, a pretty neat rounding up of the whole series. At any rate, it inspired me to go back and re-read the other three books, and check if a fifth is likely. Interestingly enough, they actually make a lot more sense read as all four in a row, the pacing is clearly across the four books. IIRC, they were intended to be two pairs, and well. If they'd been published together that might have made sense. As it is, I put off reading this for months because the previous one was weirdly paced and didn't really have an ending, so much as just... stopping.
    • 5/5
      The culmination of this series is just great. All the elements that made the previous books good come together in a perfect mix for a fitting close to the saga. The romance and relationship aspects that make the book feel like a "cozy" at times are balanced out by a truly terrifying climax and a satisfying ending. Recommended.
    • 3/5
      I'm giving this a neutral review as I want to read the earlier books before getting into this one - I am very fond of Ms Bujold's work, however so I'm sure that at the very least it will be more than palatable. Once I get caught up I'll edit or change my review.
    • 5/5
      This book is an excellent conclusion to the series, providing closure for the major plot elements without freezing the characters into a static position just because the story is "over."I am particularly fond of the setting in this series since it is something you don't often see in the current crop of fantasy novels. The frontier settlement aspect provides a different set of basic conflicts than you'd find in a city or within the sweeping vistas of epic fantasy.I do have to say that my decision to start reading this late in the evening was a mistake, but only because I got sucked into the story and before I quite knew what happened I was halfway through the book and it was three in the morning...and I had work the next day.
    • 4/5
      Ahh--now I see the problem with this series. Lately, I've been reading lots of Charles Dickens novels, and suddenly the relationship between Bujold's heroines and Dickens' came upon me in a flash of understanding! Any Bujold heroine under age 21 is thin, beautiful, clever, loyal, earnest, moral, and very, very boring, just like Little Dorrit, Esther Summerson, and Kate Nickelby. Bujold's late-teen heroines have escaped the Dickens universe, no doubt in search of sex and adventure. Run, Amy, run! I really liked the third book in the "Sharing Knife" series (Passage,) because it had a few characters with emotional complexity, including a great villain. In this 4th and last installment,Bujold returns to the formula of the first two books, with rah-rah cheerleader Fawn--who never, ever, makes a mistake in her dealings with other characters--center-stage. (And what is it about some of Bujold's heroes? Sheesh, find some women near your own age!) I'm going to go re-read Paladin of Souls or Komarr or Barrayar. Ista, Ekaterin and Cordelia, thank goodness, are magnificently complicated, make mistakes, say the wrong things, and misjudge people. The way REAL women do.
    • 4/5
      Good. It really managed to tie together all the loose strings of the first three books. Dag finally got his plan for integrating farmers and Lakewalkers started - no more needing to keep pushing, it's moving with its own momentum now. As usual, Fawn sees things he missed and smooths the path for their plans. And is finally able to deal with the emotional scars of her first pregnancy. Dag's reaction to learning what his groundripping is would almost be funny, except it points up both how worried he's been about it and how isolated the different sectors of Lakewalkers are from each other, never mind the farmers. Nice.
    • 4/5
      Horizon is a satisfactory conclusion to the Sharing Knife books. The little group that Dag and Fawn have gathered around themselves head north along the river again, pausing while Dag finally learns how to properly use the talents which were developed to a somewhat disturbing extent in the previous book. An unauthorized healing of a farmer youngster with tetanus results in a precipitous departure from that Lakewalker camp, and everyone's off on a long trek back north: Dag, Fawn, a group of farmer boys, a few rebellious Lakewalker youngsters, and Dag's very respected teacher (who though he was bluffing... but ends up coming along for the ride).This book is all about hammering home the plausibility and importance of Lakewalker-famer cooperation. Two of the young people in the group are halfbreeds who need to learn how to manage their groundsense; meanwhile, Dag is experimenting with a making which may be able to protect farmers from having their minds controlled by malices. By the time the group (fairly inevitably) meets up with a malice-grown-strong, it's a farmer who saves the day and kills the malice, finally providing Dag with the evidence he needs to get the Lakewalker camps to listen to his ideas.An epilogue gives us a work-to-do-but-happily-ever-after ending: Fawn with a baby and Dag respected, in much demand for preachin' his philosophy of cooperation and teachin' his farmer-protecting maker-work.Bujold writes well, and although the message is strong doesn't quite come across as preachy. As always, interpersonal relationships are a strength. (This is slightly to the detriment of the series as a whole -- I care mostly about the characters I've met, and no matter how much they talk about it the reality of the Big Bag Thing That Might Happen is never really brought home to me: I only care because they seem to care, not because it's actually become scary for me.) Bujold's left herself enough loose ends to write plenty more in this world, but also tied up the series well. If we do get more, I'd prefer something not from the perspective of the Dag-and-Fawn pair -- their one-in-a-million Lakewalker/farmer True Love makes their perspectives not as interestingly conflicted as they might be.
    • 5/5
      Authors have a different strengths that they bring to their craft: plotting, characterization, world building, action, etc. Bujold is such a fantastic writer because she's a master of all of these, as she's shown repeatedly in her novels; but in The Sharing Knife series (ending with Horizon), she focuses her attention almost entirely on something a bit more unusual-- relationships. Sure, her other skills are in fine form with plenty of heart-stopping, gut-wrenching action scenes and memorable, believable characters, but, really, these books are primarily about a small cast of characters (and through them, their communities) growing together. It's a gentle and wonderful ride.