Paladin of Souls

Sielujen paladiini on kuningataräiti Ista, hullu leski, joka vapautui The Curse of Chalionissa kirouksesta. Edellisen kirjan tapahtumista on kulunut muutama vuosi ja Ista on pitkästynyt. Suojattu elämä Valendan linnoituksessa on uskomattoman tylsää. Ista on onneksi aikaansaapa täti ja pian hän löytääkin itsensä improvisoidulta pyhiinvaellusmatkalta vailla sen kummempaa pyhää tarkoitusta — kunhan saa paeta Valendan pölyistä tunnelmaa.

Ista joutuu kuitenkin melkoisiin vaikeuksiin, kun vihollisen joukot ilmestyvät kuin tyhjästä ja vangitsevat Istan seurueineen. Matka vie kohti pohjoista ja vihollisalueita, mutta onneksi Ista pelastetaan. Hän päätyy Poriforsin linnaan urhean (ja pahuksen komean) kuvernööri Arhys dy Lutezin (joka on kiusallisesti sukua miehelle, jonka Ista aikoinaan murhasi) vieraaksi. Pian käy kuitenkin ilmi, että Poriforsin linnassa on jotain hyvin epätavallista ja että Istalla on merkittävä osa tilanteen ratkaisemisessa.

Alkaa villi tapahtumaketju, jossa koko Chalionin turvallisuus on vaakalaudalla. Ista joutuu kohtaamaan uudestaan jumalat, jotka aikaisemmin kohtelivat häntä kaltoin. Tarinan sankaritar on lievästi sanottuna vastentahtoinen.

Paladin of Souls on kertakaikkisen erinomainen jatko-osa The Curse of Chalionille ja tuotti aiheesta Bujoldille tämän neljännen Hugo-palkinnon (samaan on kyennyt aikaisemmin vain Robert Heinlein), kolmannen Locuksen ja toisen Nebulan. Bujold kertoo tarinaa mukaansatempaavasti. Kirja on hauska, tunteikas, jännittävä ja koukuttava.

Kenties parasta kirjassa on sen epätavallinen päähenkilö. Ista on noin 40-vuotias leski, entinen mielipuoli ja nykyään muuten vain kärsimätön ja kiukkuinen — ja todella ihana ihminen. Jumalten tahtoa vastaan taistelevasta Istasta on vaikea olla pitämättä.

En taida odottaa puoltatoista vuotta ennen kuin luen Chalion-trilogian kolmannen osan, The Hallowed Huntin. Jos se on läheskään yhtä hyvä kuin sarjan muut osat, luvassa on taas herkullista luettavaa. Bujold on taitava kirjailija, joka viimeistään nyt nousee suosikkieni joukkoon. (20.5.2010)

This one is harder to go into details without spoilers for either it or the Curse of Chalion (read that first), but it follows Iselle's mother Ista, after the events of the first book. She feels smothered by her overattentive companions (due to the aforementioned madness) and decides her only escape is a holy pilgrimage. Her household questions her capacity to make this decision and tries to surround her with enough pomp and ceremony to prevent anything interesting from happening, but she ultimately gets her wish for an adventure. She does not, being God-touched once before to disastrous result, get her wish to avoid the influence of the Gods once again. She must confront her past head on, and make peace with both the Gods and herself.

In terms of review, I'm going to copy paste this part across all three five gods books I've read. The theology and magic are excellent. The characters are strong, and, while in desperate circumstances and compelled to take impossible risks, do so in bold and interesting ways. There's some setup to get into the action, but Bujold weaves the stories together in a way that keeps the action flowing while making it impossible to predict what will happens next, in a way that never feels forced or unearned.

I can't imagine how hard it is to write sequels. As a reader it's impossible not to compare a sequel with what came before it - is it better? is it too similar, or too different? do the characters sound the same? was it even necessary to write?

Paladin of Souls sidesteps many of these problems by reusing the setting of the previous book and promoting side characters to main characters, but bringing back little else. Ista, protagonist of this book, was an important side character in Curse of Chalion, but many parts of her history, personality and motivations were left untold.

The curse that once impacted Ista and so many others is broken, but her lot in life was not much improved. She is still considered weak minded and much too old for a life more complicated than tea times and knitting the days away.

So she plans an escape of sorts, and is soon once again swept up into the affairs of political leaders and heroes and the gods themselves. This time it's more in her control, and suited to her particular strengths and needs. It's not often a 40yo women is the hero of a fantasy novel, but Ista is well up to the task.

The magical elements of the setting are cranked up much more than in the previous book. Things that were myths, or only implied, or occurred off-screen are now much more literal and happen constantly. Too much, perhaps. By the end I found myself rather tired of all the rules and metaphors, and the miracles became somewhat mundane by their constant presence.

I did not like Paladin of Souls as much as Curse of Chalion. The story was smaller, its scope more humble, but there was too much spinning of wheels for my liking. Oftentimes you'd have multiple pages dedicated to someone recapping something that had already happened, they'd muse and think on it a bit, then conclude that maybe things will be clearer in the morning.

It is perhaps a more mature way of navigating conflicts and challenges, but in the end the solutions were almost always “let's hope something bails us out” or “let's try magic”, so my patience for these scenes drained quickly.

I really liked Ista in the first book, but I didn't quite like her as a protagonist. She was a bit too quippy, too detached from the events she experiences. We were often told the stakes were high, but Ista never quite acted like she feared failure, and neither did I.

As a final aside, I don't care for how Bujold writes romance, and this book did not change my mind.

I have a feeling I'll appreciate this one as time goes on and I think back to the differences that made it stand out and forget some of the things that rubbed me the wrong way. I think it's well worth reading after Chalion, but I don't think I'll return to the series for some time.

3.5 stars.

This was a great addition to the Chalion series. Although you don't need to have read The Curse of Chalion to get into this one, you'll get spoilers for the first book and (more importantly) miss a lot of the background theology by skipping it.

Paladin of Souls ticks a lot of boxes for me, in the same way The Curse of Chalion did: Kick-ass women, interesting world-building (in this case the theology), a bit of romance, and a happy ending.

This is a somewhat unusual story, and it's all the better for it. Famously, it has a middle-aged woman as the protagonist, which for some reason is still such a rarity in the fantasy genre. Because of this, many of its themes (such as re-establishing a purpose in later life) are more suited for “older” readers, even if they're still universally relatable.

There are a few more familiar tropes in this one as opposed to Chalion, and it feels ever so slightly overlong, but this is a very intriguing and strong novel with themes of love, war, family and honour.

This is a sequel to [b:The Curse of Chalion 61886 The Curse of Chalion (World of the Five Gods, #1) Lois McMaster Bujold https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1322571773l/61886.SY75.jpg 1129349], and it continues with some of the same characters, although most of them remain offstage for this story. The first book was about the ordeals of 35-year-old Lupe dy Cazaril; this one is partly a story of gods, demons, and sorcery, and partly a character study of 40-year-old Ista dy Chalion, who has lived through the deaths of her parents, husband, and son, is tormented by guilt and self-doubt, and is generally thought to be insane. She goes on a journey in search of escape, and encounters an unwanted and dangerous adventure that brings out her hidden strength.As with the preceding novel, I very much like the characters, the scenario, and the writing style, and there are some welcome touches of humour here and there. There are aspects of the story that I'm not entirely happy with, but overall I'm willing to give five stars to this one: it's a fine novel.In her first three novels set in this world, I suppose Bujold was experimenting with her newly conceived gods and her new concept of magic, deciding how it should all work and what the limits on it should be. She'd already decided that direct contact between gods and humans should be very rare; nevertheless, Ista has close encounters with three different gods during her life, and meets one of them repeatedly during this story; which might be described as excessive. I don't think the gods appear so often in any other story set in this world.There are some magical applications here that we don't see again. The ability of a strong demon to control at least 18 other demons seems to be unique; that phenomenon never reappears in other stories. And the magical link between the half-brothers of Castle Porifors doesn't reappear either, although it took only one ordinary demon to create that. I don't suppose Bujold thinks of these as unsuccessful experiments, exactly; they were ideas that served for this particular story but didn't turn out to be useful for the series as a whole.For myself, I think they were not entirely successful experiments: both of them strike me as rather contrived and dangerously powerful. In the science-fiction world, I think [a:Larry Niven 12534 Larry Niven https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1596428206p2/12534.jpg] has commented that, whenever you introduce some new gadget X, you have to consider its implications in every subsequent story: why can't the problem be solved by using X?In the Penric novellas written after the novels, the use of magic and the gods seems generally more disciplined and restrained, which suits me. The danger in writing fantasy is that you can do anything and explain it away as magic or act of god; I think fiction works better, seems more credible, if you impose self-discipline and convince the readers that these things work within definite limits—fictional laws of nature.

Enjoyed having an older main character for once. Writing was great as per usual with Bujold, and I really enjoy the world-building.

...en dat was onverwacht interessant. De krankzinnige vrouw uit [b:The Curse of Chalion 61886 The Curse of Chalion (World of the Five Gods, #2) Lois McMaster Bujold https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1322571773s/61886.jpg 1129349], Ista, bleek niet krankzinnig maar wel behept met goddelijke interventiedingen. Nu dat uitgeklaard is, komt ze na jaren semi-opsluiting weer in de wereld. Veertig jaar, maar toch een soort coming-of-age-verhaal dus.En opnieuw is het meer het innerlijke van de persoon dan de grote troepenbewegingen waar het om draait (al wordt er wel gevochten en zo, uiteraard).Waar Curse of Chalion vol grote politiek zat, met intriges op het niveau van het hele koninkrijk, is dit een veel kleiner boek. Ista was getrouwd met een koning die nu dood is, haar kinderen zijn volwassen, ze was jaren gek verklaard, en ze heeft dus nooit een eigen leven gehad. Nu grijpt ze het excuus van een pelgrimstocht aan om een avontuur te beleven.Er is geen zwart of wit, en er zijn geen eenvoudige antwoorden: zelfs de schlechte schlechterik is eigenlijk maar een mens die er het beste van probeert te maken (op een manier dat het eigenlijk helemaal niet gepermitteerd is, maar alla).Ik heb er verrassend van genoten (andere mensen ook: Hugo en Nebula gewonnen), en ik vond het jammer dat, net zoals bij Curse of Chalion, het verhaal opnieuw helemaal afgesloten is.

Lois McMaster Bujold is an elegant writer, and I often just enjoy the way her words flow over the page. Paladin of Souls continues the universe of The Curse of Chalion. However, it references Cazaril and Iselle only in passing, instead following the Dowager Royina Ista into her life post-madness. Ista is a forty year old former madwoman whose widowhood is dominated by her late mother's overprotective court. She has never been in love and, having experienced her ultimate failure at age eighteen, has striven to leave no mark upon the world.

With the curse's lifting, however, Ista finds herself aching to escape her kindly prison and undertakes a false pilgrimage literally just to get out of the house. She is a unique hero in that she is neither young, strong, nor beautiful, and that is what makes her interesting and relatable. This story would not work if the main character was Iselle. It's about a grown woman with a grown woman's perceptions and priorities within the world. That is just far too rare in this genre.

The world itself also plays to my favorite theme of what happens when the Gods are just real. No faith necessary. Miracles, saints, and demons are all perfectly apparent and certain people are elected to play certain roles by ineffable but difficult to deny deities. Quintarian theology is explored much more deeply especially the nature of demons. Sadly, this means that a lot of the lovely ambiguity from Chalion (what's demon and what's a tumor?) is missing. It's all clearly Gods' work. For me, Chalion was superior in weaving mortal and divine together, but there is still a place for Paladin in this school.

Like Chalion, this book also took quite a while to get going. The slow start is worth it, and while the ending is a bit cheesy, it's also still quite appropriate. I've already picked up Hallowed Hunt, so I'll be finishing off this trilogy soon.

Wow, I really loved this book!! It has this mixture of war, religion, romance, and (of course) an awesome female lead. The tone was extremely different from the first novel, and I actually liked it better than [b:The Curse of Chalion 61886 The Curse of Chalion (Chalion, #1) Lois McMaster Bujold https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1322571773s/61886.jpg 1129349]. For some reason, Bujold always seems to surprise me. I pick up these books expecting to hate them, but end up pleasantly surprised. The only drawback to this novel was that everything wraps up nicely in the end, maybe too nicely... This was the same problem I had with The Curse of Chalion, but I have to admit that I appreciate the level of storytelling that she presents in both of these novels. 5 out of 5!

Executive Summary: A slow-paced but enjoyable fantasy novel that can mostly be read as a stand-alone.Audio book: This is my first novel read by Kate Reading. I have long heard she is a great narrator, and I would have to agree. She doesn't exactly do voices or anything but she does distinguish a bit between characters. She speaks clearly with good inflections and emotions.Full ReviewRight off the bat this novel is unique for me. The protagonist is a 40-something woman. That's never the case for any of the fantasy books I've read.This book like it's predecessor [b:The Curse of Chalion 61886 The Curse of Chalion (Chalion, #1) Lois McMaster Bujold https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1322571773s/61886.jpg 1129349], has a slow pace that somehow just works for me. The only other author/series I can think of that manages this is [a:Robin Hobb 25307 Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1394752275p2/25307.jpg]'s Edlerling books.I don't really remember the details of [b:The Curse of Chalion 61886 The Curse of Chalion (Chalion, #1) Lois McMaster Bujold https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1322571773s/61886.jpg 1129349], but that doesn't seem to matter. In fact I'd imagine you'd be able to read this book having skipped that one without issue. Not that I recommend it, because that book was also enjoyable.Most reviews I've read seem to indicate this is the best of the series. I found my enjoyment to be about the same. If anything distinguishes the two it's that this one doesn't focus on a male whose righting wrongs with his sword, but a woman who is doing it with her wits (and some help from the gods).I think this is one of those books you need to be in the right mood for. It's not a fast-paced, action packed sword and sorcery story. It's also not a politically charged struggle for power. Often times it seems that when strong woman are portrayed in fantasy, they are politically savvy nobility maneuvering for power.Instead we have a woman who decides she needs a journey. Not for adventure. Not for glory. Simply because she needs a break. Royina Ista has spent most of her life under a family curse or control of someone else. She just needs to get away. This doesn't seem to make sense to anyone else, so she does so under the guise of making a religious pilgrimage to pray for her daughter to have a grandson.Unfortunately for her (and fortunately the reader), the gods have other plans. Royina Ista is confronted with raiding soldiers, demons, sorcerers and a plot that threatens the safety of all of Chalion. There is a bit a of romance thrown in for good measure.All and all this is a well written and enjoyable fantasy story that is quite different from just about everything I read.