Paladin of Souls (Chalion series)

A story set in the Chalion word but not involving the major characters of the previous books. McMasters-Bujold's usual deft touch with characters and an engrossing plot. You can read this book ;without having read the previous two about Chalion.

(Kindle review) Well-formatted for Kindle, reads cleanly.

One of my favorite books, a great combination of character, plot and world. Excellent follow-up to Curse of Chalion (also a favorite book).

"Paladin of Souls" is the second book in the Chalion series. It could easily stand alone since the link between the two books is thin, and critical back-story items are explained again. This installment involves the same general locations, but focuses on the life of Royina Ista rather than Cazaril. My problem with this switch is I liked Cazaril a lot better than Ista. Even after we learned more about her, I didn't feel much of a connection to her as someone I cared about.

I rated the story down a star because the begining was slow, it took too long to setup the problem, and I was disappointed to find main characters from the first book din't play much, if any, part in this story. I enjoyed the second half of the book more so than the first.

I rated the story down a second star because the theology system seems a bit complicated in regards to souls, demons, second-sight, powers, etc. The author gives us bits and pieces of how all these things work together, but it seems overly copmlicated with new surprises around each bend. Rather than the gods granting amazing powers, their influence is more raw and undefined. I found this inability to harness and even understand the gods' gifts a bit frustrating. The ebook version did include some additional notes at the end, and I found those helpful to udnerstand the difference between the two main religious systems, themes, and even uniform colors.

About the author: Bujold is currently my number one author on the best authors list.
About the book: An entertaining story, a beautiful world that grows book to book, a strong sense of self and justice, a moving belief in honor, truth and responsibility.
About the story: Crazy Ista’s journey after her daughter’s happily ever after. Find out how she found herself and her future.

A must read.

Wonderfully complex story, well drawn characters. It helps to have read the first book but is not at all necessary. Starts a little slowly but picks up pace and gallops to its ending. The reader in the Audible version is excellent.

Wonderfully complex story, well drawn characters. It helps to have read the first book but is not at all necessary. Starts a little slowly but picks up pace and gallops to its ending. The reader in the Audible version is excellent.

For anyone who has read The Curse of Chalion: this book is satisfying beyond belief. This is Ista's journey, complex and wonderful. Lois McMaster Bujold takes a loose end at the end of Curse, and creates a full, lush tapestry. Would definitely recommend.

This book is nowhere near as exciting as the first book. If you really liked all of the "mumbo jumbo theology" aspects of the first book, then this is the book for you. If you liked the action and characters of The Curse of Chalion, then this is not the book for you. Ista is not near as interesting as Cazaril or even Iselle.

Ms Bujold continually humbles my hubris with my dictionary in hand to seek meaning and nuances of her vocabulary, as she delves into a fascinating culture with fascinating characters. I often wonder if her succinctly powerful descriptions and dialog require hours of rewrites or if she has them dripping off of her pen. I own everything she has written and often reward myself with a re-read.

The book was very nice. My advice for future sales is to wrap the book in a brown bag or paper towels before placing in box. The book was shipped in a larger box and the book cover can get damaged during shipping unless it's protected by wrapping.

The Curse of Chalion, then The Paladin of Souls are the best books I have read in a long time in any genre. The richness of the writing is extrodinary. Paladin of Souls especially, imagines something so fantastic that seems so probable, in Bujold's hands.

This series began with the Curse of Chalion in which the character of Ista played a small but pivotal role. Now, with her curse lifted, Ista is facing the never ending question of What am I going to do with my life? Ista is the dowager mother of the current leader of the realm. Some would relegate her to a boring existence practically confined to a royal residence for the rest of her life. But Ista is a young widow and with the curse lifted, she is restless. The story begins when she makes plans for a pilgrimage. The world that our author has built is rich in religion and political intrigue. Add in demons, demonic possession, and the living dead, and things get very interesting indeed. This series is only a trilogy and I will be certain to finish it. Not surprisingly, this very successful author can tell a good story. Her created world holds together well. I liked how supporting characters from the first book carried the narrative in this book. The book is suitable for young adult readers with sufficient maturity to understand a reasonably complex world and plot. Sex is only suggested, and violence is primarily of the fantasy type.

Lois Bujold must be good at giving acceptance speeches, because they sure seem to like giving her excuses to make them. It sure seems like most of her books arrive with the "Winner of [Blank] Award" already stamped on the cover to the point where it must be depressing for anyone else publishing books that year perhaps hoping to maybe have one gracing their shelves. She even wins awards that I wouldn't have expected to win . . . this book managed to pull off the rare feat of winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for that year, two awards that are typically given to SF novels, or at least novels that have SF elements. And then for good measured she won a Locus Award as well. Is she really that good?

Before everyone starts screaming at me, I will have to say that the answer is "yes". What Bujold has quietly managed to sustain across her career is an alarming level of consistency, to the point where I don't think its remarked upon that much, since people assume its like the sun coming up or your local Dunkin Donuts always having coffee . . . if it doesn't happen chances are the world is probably about to end. While not every one of her books is groundbreaking she consciously seems to be pushing against her own limits with each successive work (the closest comparison I can think of in SF terms is Robert Silverberg's run in the 1970s, although some might argue his was more impressive because each book was standalone and probably more searing because he couldn't rely on the familiarity of a consistent universe), and doing it with a pretty good instinct for what works. Its not enough to simply be decent every time out, her books often get (and deserve heaps of accolades) each time one appears and what's scary is how easy she makes it seem. If she were an assassin she would have not only murdered all of us by now, but in such increasingly clever ways that we'd still be somewhat impressed even as we met our demises.

What always impresses me is when authors somehow hear my criticisms of a previous work a decade after the book is written and then somehow go back in time and correct those criticisms in the next work so well that history changes and no one notices. "The Curse of Chalion" was a far better fantasy book than her previous attempt ("The Spirit Ring") but at times there was something timid about her use of magic, like she was more interested in telling an exotic historical tale than going full on fantasy, and her sense of drama at times was strangely muted. The characterizations were wonderful but often I found myself more interested in the characters than whatever was going on around them.

Here, she builds on what she did before but steps it up a notch and does so by keeping the setting but shuffling nearly every main character off to the side. So if you liked Cazaril and Iselle and Betriz then unfortunately you're going to have experience their future adventures in your imagination as Bujold not only fast-forwards the narrative three years but turns the spotlight on a character that only played a supporting role in the last book . . . Royina Ista, Iselle's mother.

In the last book she got to play the role of resident crazy person, getting the part that Michael Shannon would play if this were a movie and he was a woman, appearing occasionally to give cryptic hints about the curse that dominated the last novel and keep people on edge wondering she was going to swan dive or cannonball off the deep end. Three years later the curse has been lifted and she can stop being crazy but on the down side almost her entire family is either dead or inaccessibly married. What's a single middle aged woman with no real purpose and lots of royal privileges supposed to do? Molder in endless luxury while having every need fulfilled?

I know, most of us are probably saying "Oh God, yes" but it wouldn't be much of a novel if she decided that so, consumed with a need to see something besides castle walls and pampered scented cushions, she decides to put together a small pilgrimage and by "pilgrimage" we mean "an excuse to get out without anyone complaining too much". She gets the De Gura brothers from the last novel (and if you waiting for them to link arms and have one of them declare to be the shape of water or something then you'd be both a) silly and b) me), a courier that she coopts as a handmaiden and a priest of the Bastard (in this world, religion is based around the four seasons with a fifth god to be, much like my love of sad twee songs, always out of season) to make it all seem legit.

Anyone expecting the Bujold version of "The Canterbury Tales" might have had a case until the demon shows up and infects one of the party members, suddenly shifting the book from a stately romp to something with a bit more menace to it. Hinted at in the last novel, demons are entities that belong to both chaos and the Bastard and if in the corporeal world can inhabit living beings, leaping from one to another if the host dies. Having one may give you some magical powers if you can handle it but letting one live inside you is like locking a kid inside a cake store . . . everything looks delicious and stuck inside they've got nothing to do but eat it all.

Compounding THAT problem is a possible incursion by a foreign army, one that lands the tattered crew at another castle where she meets two brothers with links to her past (this seemed like the only false note in the novel to me because it seemed highly coincidental) and a strange mystery that is making the castle a really weird place. Which leaves Ista in the unenviable position of having to solve multiple dilemmas at once, and all of which are under time constraints that make them harder to solve the longer she waits. Next time stick with the pampering, girlfriend!

As I mentioned earlier, what sets this novel apart from "The Curse of Chalion" is the sense of escalating stakes, where one wrong move by Ista could ruin everyone's day. The plight of the two brothers is genuinely unsettling and readers who enjoyed the medieval political intrigues of the last book don't get that as much as a sidetrip right into "The Exorcist", with some suitably harrowing scenes once it all starts getting into gear. She makes up for keeping magic in the background the last time out by moving it more front and center here, only now its even more of a dangerous live wire, everyone fumbling around a hand grenade in a combination of a hot potato and Russian roulette. While before the characters were more trying to stay ahead of events and keep from getting caught up if things went pear-shaped, here Ista is thrust into a situation where its already gone so pear shaped that everyone is covered in pear juice and the fruit delivery guy is at the door backing the truck up with more. The additions of demons livens things up considerably and having people already messed up by this and more when the story starts adds to the general desperation. It took Cazaril half the book to get to where Ista starts and it only gets worse for her. And that's before the siege hits.

Throughout Bujold gently expands and explores the world she's already created, widening what we already knew and deepening our understanding of it, especially how the gods operate and their relationships with the people, and the true nature and cost of being a sorcerer. Her plotting and prose are as assured as ever and her range of characters a stronger mix than before . . . hers is the rare fantasy where the heavy lifting is done by the grizzled adults (instead of them being mentors or sages) while the young fresh faced folk hang out in the background waiting for the plot to need them again or taking selfies or whatever it is young people do (all kidding aside, one of the more remarkable things she does in this book is having entire subplots happening in the background of scenes, eventually integrating seamlessly into the foreground).

Its one of those books that reads easily but is so dense with history, romance, tragedy, action and humor that you wonder how it isn't twice as long as it actually is. Its that control that makes her as good as she is, I think . . . there are plenty of writers with as great or greater imagination than Bujold but they aren't able to harness it to a superbly efficient storytelling talent. Its the kind of fantasy novel that does exactly what you want a fantasy novel to do, mixing magic and heroism and a very real sense of living in a fictional world while standing quite alone by itself. Its clever and hopeful and hard fought and in the midst of all that's good about it to me its easy to forget what I ultimately find the most impressive . . . with its central tale of a woman learning how to live in a world once her family no longer needs her from day to day, Bujold does the rarest of things, she takes what should have been an epilogue and makes it more fascinating than the story that sets it up.

Paladin of Souls won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards when it came out, and is generally reckoned one of the prolific Bujold’s masterpieces, perhaps the best book she’s ever written. That’s a lot of hype to live up to. And it lived up to it.

All the problems I mentioned in my review of The Curse of Chalion stand. However, the heights of emotion which this book reached, particularly in the final third, more than make up for the worldbuilding problem I discussed in my earlier post.

In summary: Ista (analogous to the mentally ill Isabella of Portugal, mother of Isabella the Catholic) is freed from the titular curse of the last book. With her husband and parents dead and her sole surviving child grown-up and married, she’s not quite sure what to do with herself. To escape the narrow life planned for her by well-meaning relatives and friends, she goes on a pilgrimage, but when her party is attacked by enemy soldiers, she ends up at the castle of her rescuer Arhys dy Lutez–the son of Arvol, the man she killed long ago trying unsuccessfully to break the curse.

There are bigger problems than her old guilt and hatred towards Arvol, though. Arhys, his wife, and his brother are caught in a demonic mess that threatens to kill them all, and Ista has been brought there by a god, the Bastard, to sort out the problem. But with her last brush with divinity and magic having ended in Arvol’s murder, she’s reluctant to trust any deity.

Things get worse when more enemy soldiers show up to besiege the castle. There’s no way they’re all getting out of this tangle alive, but death at the right time might be worth everything…

My favorite part of this book was the character of Arhys, who is a genuinely good guy (despite his lax fidelity to his wife Cattilara). The other characters call him “great-souled” and despite his flaws, it’s obviously true. He has a strong sibling relationship with his illegitimate brother, and a romantic image of his long-dead father, which Ista shatters. But when the truth about his father, whose courage broke during the effort to lift the curse, is out, he says he does “not desire any softer wreath”.

The way Ista sees him shifts over time, from rescuer/potential romantic prospect to son of a man she hates to hapless part of a mess she’s meant to fix to hero. Their (decidedly non-romantic) relationship, with the grace of the gods, manages to heal Ista of all the rage, guilt, and bitterness that has haunted her since she killed Arvol in her failed ritual.

All the other characters are also sharply drawn–the clever, good-hearted Illvin, the determined though childish Cattilara, the complex figure of Arvol, and Ista’s own personality–cynical, impatient, tough, but reawakening to life.

"Paladin of Souls", the second chapter of Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion trilogy is just as fantastic as "The Curse of Chalion" and maybe slightly better. Shifting the focus from Cazaril and royal court, Bujold followed the formerly mad dowager royina Ista through a false pilgrimage into the heart of a war in which the mortal, demonic, and the divine are twisted together.

Set three years after the first book, the book begins with Ista having finished with the funeral rites for her own mother and dealing with stigma of her former madness. Wanting to just escape her childhood home, later asylum, Ista uses the uses the idea of a religious pilgrimage for the purpose if only for a little while. But hardly has it begun when her party is first attacked by demonic and then enemy forces. After being made a special prisoner, Ista is rescued like in a children's tale by Arhys dy Lutez, the commander of the border fortress of Castle Porifors. And it's only when Ista arrives at Porifors that things get really interesting.

Although Ista is the main character, Bujold returns two other minor characters from the first book the dy Gura brother though the younger Foix is given more attention than his elder brother. Attending Ista as her lady-in-waiting is "tomboy" courier Liss, who is both feisty and clever as well as been naive creates a well rounded character. The various inhabitants of Porifors and the their links to the great mystery that Ista and her party stumble upon are ingeniously constructed. Bujold further develops her theological system, which is one of the most unique and clever that I've personally read.

To be honest I couldn't find a fault in this book, from the first page I was hook and always wanted to follow along with Ista as she attempted to figure out what was happening in both the realms of the mortal and the divine. I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of fantasy and enjoyed "The Curse of Chalion."

When last we saw the Dowager Royina Ista of Chalion (who's actually only about forty), she had regained her sanity, the curse over the royal family (and thus over the country) having been removed by Castillar de Cazaril, who has now become Chancellor to Ista's daughter, the young Royina Iselle and her husband, Royse Bergon of the kingdom next door. That was near the end of the first volume of this excellent fantasy trilogy. Three years have passed since then and Ista, still tucked safely away in her recently deceased mother's country estate, is becoming seriously restless. She needs to get out, to travel, to do *something* other than sitting around with a clutch of handmaids, being protected. A pilgrimage, that's it! She can go on pilgrimage -- where to, exactly, she doesn't know, or care -- and she can insist on the absolute minimum of servitors and guardsmen. Besides, she somehow feels a push from the gods, an idea that she's supposed to go somewhere and do something. So, anyway, off she goes, with a handful of retainers (including Ferda and Foix from the first book) and it isn't long before she's caught up in both the geopolitics of Chalion and a supernatural struggle of major importance.

The first book laid out the basic tenets of a religious system for Ista's world -- a "real" system, because there really are gods in her world -- which I found fascinating. There are the five deities, Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, and the Bastard, each with its own particular interests and attributes. And there are the demons, who opportunistically invade the world of men, enter the first life-form they can find, and make considerable trouble as they attempt to move up the food chain. And there are saints, with assorted powers and gifts. Ista, however, knows something about saints, having been one herself for awhile -- nor is she sort of person to be frightened of or cowed by the gods, even when she looks them in the face, as she seems to do regularly. In fact, Ista doesn't seem to be afraid of anyone or anything.

Her nation's ancient enemies, the Jokonans, whose Five Princedoms are a continuing threat, are heretics. (Although, according to them, naturally, the people of Chalion are the heretics.) Moreover, the Jokonans, who invaded from overseas and for centuries ruled Chalion and its neighboring kingdoms (think Spain and the Moors), are preparing to make a bid to regain their lost conquests, and they intend to use a horrific strategy to accomplish their ends. Or one old woman on the other side does, at least.

There's plenty of blood and sword-swinging here, but also a good deal of carefully worked out sociology and philosophy. Bujold also couldn't devise a flat character if she tried; her players are multi-dimensional and believable in every sense. And she uses the language in splendid fashion. It might be arguable that she's even better at this sort of thing than she is at the marvelous space opera of the immensely successful Miles Vorkosigan series.

I read this immediately upon finishing the first book in the Chalion series. It followed the original's pattern in that the protagonist is another character that you don't expect to have the depth or complexity that she does. It reveals itself more and more as the story progresses. Lois McMaster Bujold is an exceptional writer and is a very good observer of humanity and human relationships. By the end of the novel, I felt as if the characters were actual people in my life that I knew, cherished and loved. It's a rare author who can make you feel that way about fictional characters. A very refreshing and unique take on the fantasy novel. You quickly forget your reading a fantasy and become very invested in the story's events. A satisfying story I didn't want to see end.

Ista is a middle-aged dowager queen made redundant by the reign of her daughter and son-in-law, and made an embarrassment by her inconvenient, scandalous history with her late husband the king and his court, and by her madness. None of these issues are as debilitating for her as others might hope, and when Ista grows bored with her retirement to an out-of-the-way part of the world, she concocts to set off on a pilgrimage. What she hopes will be a diversion becomes a recurrence of her gods-induced madness, entanglement in a brewing war, and an opportunity for love she'd long assumed she'd never have again.

What's good: There's quite a bit to like here. The characters' actions and environments may be larger than life, but their motivations and personalities are believable and original, in the way that real people whose social habits are more likely to buck the norms rather than ape them are original. Ista is compelling as a middle-aged woman still young enough to be gallivanting carelessly across the countryside and galloping hopelessly away from enemy soldiers on faster mounts, but old enough to make wise, experienced decisions and see through dissembling. The supporting cast are heroic, honorable, complex, and passionate - they display grand qualities in an authenticly human way, without resorting to stereotypes or inaccessible otherness.

There's a distinctive Maloric Arthurian character to the world and story that resonates, lending the book deeper mythological significance. Magic and the supernatural exist, but are not the realm of the regular man or accessible to just anyone who pursue them; nor are those who are chosen always best-pleased. The gods exist, but their limitations are significant and help drive the story. The sacrifice at the end of the novel is poignant and tone-perfect, efficacious without being a neat, custom-fitted solution to all of the problems.

What's bad: It started slow. This seems to be an increasingly common complaint from me, and I thought it might be because once again I managed to jump straight into a sequel, the other reviews on the store suggest this is legitimate problem with the book, and Paladin is more of a setting-sequel than a story- or character-sequel. However, what the story costs in a slow start it pays back in continuously unfolding and resolving mystery. (In other words, instead of a big ta-dah! at the end, the story presents frequent, smaller unravelings that answer what we think is the burning question, only to reveal another burning question beneath.) While this sounds like it could be irritating, it's a rewarding reading experience because the mysteries and solutions don't come off as cheap ploys or bait-and-switches, but as the natural results of deeper investigation.

The Takeaway: I wouldn't have expected it even when I was a third of the way into the novel, but this is possibly my favorite book I've read since buying the kindle. I heartily recommend it.

A stunner. This is a worthy successor to [book:The Curse of Chalion|61886], though it is a very different book; and so it should be, given the protagonist. Ista, former royina of Chalion and former madwoman, is left washed up on the shore of middle age by events beyond her control. Possessing neither responsibility or agency, she decides to take her life into her own hands for what's really the first time in her life, and sets off on a wandering journey without any more goal than to break out of the rut that has held her for so long. And so she meets demons, gods, and a dead man, and finds a purpose she never could have imagined.

Besides being witty, wryly funny, and occasionally heartbreaking, <i>Paladin of Souls</i> is a story about doubt, faith, purpose, and grace. And it has a middle-aged heroine--something there should be more of.

Paladin of Souls is Lois McMaster Bujold's latest novel, her third fantasy, and a fairly direct sequel to The Curse of Chalion. It seems that Bujold's energies are now focussed on her fantasy secondary world, centered on the Royacy of Chalion, which has certain similarities to Renaissance era Iberia. At any rate, I understand that her next novel will be another Chalionese book. This seems a good choice -- I liked both The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls better than her most recent Vorkosigan book, Diplomatic Immunity.
Paladin of Souls is the story of the Dowager Royina Ista of Chalion, mother of the new Royina Iselle, and widow of the late, cursed Roya Ias. The Curse of Chalion covered the events leading to the lifting of a terrible curse on the royal family of Chalion. Ista, who bore bravely years of living under the curse, with a terrible load of guilt and fear, as well as the burden of a loveless marriage and possession by a god which made her essentially insane, is now free of that. But her family and retainers are very protective of her -- her regained sanity remains in doubt, and she has lived a very circumscribed life. As the book opens she is chafing under what is in essence imprisonment, and she conceives the notion of a pilgrimage, ostensibly to pray for the birth of a grandson, but in reality simply to get out of her household for some time. She recruits, partly by accident, a new attendant who is actually a not very wellborn young woman named Liss,distinguished mainly by her horsemanship (she is a courier); and a priest of the Bastard to guide her pilgrimage: a young, fat, irreverent, and rather lusty fellow. She also accepts the protection of a group of soldiers led by two brothers, Ferda and Foix.
What she had hoped would be an interesting journey rather quickly turns dangerous. There are rumors of a great outbreak of demons, and disastrously one soon possesses Ferda. Then they run into a raiding party from the neighboring princedom of Jokona, who are adherents to a (mutually) heretical form of the Chalionese religion. They are rescued by a local nobleman, a great fighter and very handsome man named Arhys. At Arhys's castle, Ista finds a very jealous wife, and a severely ill half-brother, and, worse, indications of more aggression from the Jokonans. All this is surely tied to the infestations of demons ...
I thought it quite well done. Ista is an affecting character. The magic system/religion that Bujold has worked out remains interesting and a good source of plot conflicts. Perhaps Ista's powers seem to scale just a little conveniently to match the needs of the plot -- ever a problem with fantasies. But I enjoyed reading the novel, and I was surprised at several turns (if at other times things worked out a bit routinely). It is another fine story from Bujold.

The spiritual pilgrimage of a middle aged woman who finds herself widowed and with no more children in her house may not, on the face of it, sound like an interesting story. But Lois McMaster Bujold is a remarkable writer and if she wanted, I have no doubt that she could enthrall readers with an account of drying paint. Not that she would have to, for her fantasy world of Chalion is as interesting as it is intricate.

Ista, the Dowager Royina of all Chalion, is suffocating within the walls of her home castle and simply must get away to do something ... anything but continue in the confinements of her courtly life. Haunted by dark secrets from her past, and freed by the death of her elderly mother, she launches haphazardly into a pilgrimage, but is she fleeing from her destiny or to it? She collects an odd assortment of traveling companions as if by random as she sets out, however, each of them turns out to be not only a richly human and dynamic character but exactly who and what she needs.

The members of their small caravan soon find themselves fleeing from what at first appear to be random raiding parties form across the Jokonan border. They are, in fact, even then being swept up in a swirl of supernatural forces directed by the gods. Visions of a man reclined as if on a sick bed and pleading for her help give Ista a hint as to the direction she is being drawn. She finds the man strangely compelling but the vision is a sign of the gods involvement and she tries to turn violently away with all her strength. Ista has never imagined it possible to find love in the autumn (perhaps late summer) of her life, or ever for that matter, but finds herself inexorably drawn into the spiritual tangle that enfolds the man in her visions.

The theological construct in her world of five gods may be a challenge for some to accept, but once that is done, the story is both believable and compelling. Perhaps too believable and I would forewarn those not well grounded spiritually. I'm not usually a fan of fantasy, preferring stories closer to the real world, but Lois has captured me as a reader with her use of description and subtlety. If you have no problem sorting out fantasy from reality then by all means escape for a visit to the world of Chalion! You will find it both refreshing and rewarding.

Reviewed by Hugh Mannfield at [...]

Paladin of Souls is the second novel in this series, following The Curse of Chalion. In the previous volume, Cazaril is god-touched, becoming the portal by which the Lady takes away the curse. Iselle and Bergon have married, uniting Chalion and Ibra under their joint rule, and Cazaril and Betriz have also married. Iselle ensures that Cazaril can support Betriz in proper style by making him Chancellor, replacing the unfortunate dy Jironal. Ista returns to Valenda to care for her failing mother.

In this novel, three years later, the Dowager Provincara has been laid to her rest and the last of the mourners are leaving the castle. Since her mother's death, Ista has felt confined in the castle and feels a need to go out into the world. On an impulsive, she runs out the castle gate and down the road, but soon tires and is overtaken by her keepers. On the way back, she meets some pilgrims traveling to various holy places and decides that she will go on a pilgrimage. She notices a young divine of the Bastard in the party and, when he shows up at the castle as she is preparing to leave, Ista accepts him as her spiritual conductor.

Others appear and become part of her party: Liss the courier lass and the dy Gura brothers with their ten Daughter's men. She leaves behind all her old maids in waiting and servants as well as most of her apparel and jewels, choosing to travel incognito and without pomp.

All things appear well during the first three days, but later they encounter a bear possessed by a demon, which flies into Foix de Gura when he cuts off the bear's head. Then they almost run into a troop of Jokonan soldiers, who have become lost while returning from a raid on the town of Parma in Ibra, and they flee for safety. Thereafter, she learns that she is becoming a saint of the Bastard. The pilgrimage is really not bringing her much in the way of peace and serenity.

This novel is a worthy sequel, continuing the tale of the curse, but very different in focus than its predecessor. It is a sort of belated coming of age or middle-aged reevaluation story, with Ista in the central position. It seems that the lifting of the curse had unforeseen consequences, including an infestation of demons. It changes Ista's life forever, but also brings her unexpected rewards.

This novel has an unusual cast of characters, including an animated dead man, a sorcerer dedicated to the Bastard, and a demon-possessed master sorceress and her cadre of sorcerers. There is also a demon-gnawed groom, a demon-possessed horse, and a demon-possessed, strong-willed and foolish young woman.

This novel builds upon the previous story, but doesn't require it. I had forgotten almost everything from The Curse of Chalion, yet I was able to follow this one fairly well. Most of it unfolded as Ista learned her new role, casting new light on previous events. However, I now wish that I had re-read The Curse prior to reading this volume.

Highly recommended for Bujold fans and anyone else who enjoys magical adventures with an element of mystery and romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

The royal house of Chalion lived beneath a horrible curse for 3 generations. Ista, the dowager Royina of Chalion, had been given the means to end the curse by the very Gods themselves. But it went horribly wrong and she spent many years with the terrible burden that she was nothing more than a murderess. And the curse remained strong, claiming the lives of her husband and her son. Because of the terrible burden placed on her by the Gods, Ista cursed them roundly and retreated into madness.
Thanks to another who was given the means, the curse was lifted and Ista was content to live out the rest of her days quietly. But with the quietness came boredom and the overprotection of her family and retainers. In a desperate bid to escape her velvet prison, Ista enlisted the help of her daughter, the current Royina, and friends to go on a journey around the country side. Under the guise of a religious pilgrimage, Ista undertakes her journey. What promises to be a few months of freedom instead turns into another task for the Gods. For they are not quite finished with Ista yet.
Demons have been appearing with a startling regularity and the fifth God, The Bastard, patron of the Demons, wants to welcome them back into his realm. The Gods are all powerful but they can't lift a leaf without a human agent. The God enlists the unwilling Ista and in doing so draws her into to the life of Arhys dy Lutez and the mystery of Castle Porifors. Ista, the reluctant saint, must corral a posse of enslaved Demons and aid a sundered soul in getting back to its God, while also confronting the demons of her own past.
This book is a sequel to the also excellent `Curse of Chalion.' It is not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy the second, but it does help explain some of Ista's sometimes oblique references. I gave this book 4 ½ stars instead of five because the beginning is a bit slow. But once the book hits it stride about 1/3 of the way through, it becomes a serious page turner. I barely recognized poor sad, mad Ista from the first book. In this one she is a serious heroine who is commanding and compassionate. Bujold writes tremendously and just as in the Curse of Chalion, she makes religion another character in the book. While the Daughter of Spring was the main deity in the first book, the Bastard is the main one in this book. And what a deity he is. He has a wicked sense of humor and, as befitting a deity known as The Bastard, he seems somewhat preoccupied with matters of the flesh. And lest you think this book is all about Ista, it really isn't. There are other very fascinating characters such as Arhys the warrior, his brother Illvin who sacrifices a lot to keep his brother alive; Cattilara the steele-willed chatelaine of Castle Porifors; Liss the competent and fearless courier and the brothers Ferda and Foix whom we'd met in the previous book. I hope there are other books in this series because I loved the outcome of this story and would love to visit Chalion and her people and her Gods again.

Lois McMaster Bujold is already fairly famous in the science fiction genre, but has recently begun writing fantasy as well. This is obviously a gift, for her writing is some of the best I've had a chance to read.
Paladin of Souls is in the rare sub-genre of fantasy that deals with personal faith. The gods of her worlds are invented, but the simple faith and the miracles that come from it are not; Christians and non-Christians alike should have no problem identifying with the characters in it, their doubts and their faith.
Paladin of Souls does not disappoint. It is the sequel to "Curse of Chalion", but one does not have to read the original to understand or enjoy any of it. The book takes a secondary character from that original and makes her into the protagonist, giving her a chance to redeem herself. It makes a delightful sequel but an even more impressive stand-alone novel which I read before I discovered Curse of Chalion.
Having failed to lift the curse on her line and thought insane by her own mother, the main character seizes a chance to escape her prison of well-meaning relatives by beginning a spiritual pilgrimage that is interrupted by war. A middle-aged woman who believes her best years are already past, she learns that the gods care only about her soul, not her aging body. She must reconcile her bitter rage with the gods who failed to answer her prayers with the grace and faith she needs to stop a similar tragedy from occuring.
As always, Bujold's characters are human, full of depth that is rare in fantasy. They have hopes, dreams, doubts and fears, they bear scars, they are not superhuman nor young and untried, but rather the kind of ordinary person that rises to greatness with modesty and the same sense of ethics that drove them from the beginning. Although her worlds are realistic and sometimes gritty, her books are deeply satisfying, with heroes and villains all receiving their just rewards without seeming far-fetched. Her world is imaginative and rich, filled with original ideas, cosmologies and people, and just begging to be explored in more depth in the future!
After so much praise, I do not mean to damn this book by saying I liked Curse of Chalion even more. Paladin of Souls was a great read and well worth my time.

Paladin of Souls is Lois McMaster Bujold's latest novel, her third fantasy, and a fairly direct sequel to The Curse of Chalion. It seems that Bujold's energies are now focussed on her fantasy secondary world, centered on the Royacy of Chalion, which has certain similarities to Renaissance era Iberia. At any rate, I understand that her next novel will be another Chalionese book. This seems a good choice -- I liked both The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls better than her most recent Vorkosigan book, Diplomatic Immunity.
Paladin of Souls is the story of the Dowager Royina Ista of Chalion, mother of the new Royina Iselle, and widow of the late, cursed Roya Ias. The Curse of Chalion covered the events leading to the lifting of a terrible curse on the royal family of Chalion. Ista, who bore bravely years of living under the curse, with a terrible load of guilt and fear, as well as the burden of a loveless marriage and possession by a god which made her essentially insane, is now free of that. But her family and retainers are very protective of her -- her regained sanity remains in doubt, and she has lived a very circumscribed life. As the book opens she is chafing under what is in essence imprisonment, and she conceives the notion of a pilgrimage, ostensibly to pray for the birth of a grandson, but in reality simply to get out of her household for some time. She recruits, partly by accident, a new attendant who is actually a not very wellborn young woman named Liss,distinguished mainly by her horsemanship (she is a courier); and a priest of the Bastard to guide her pilgrimage: a young, fat, irreverent, and rather lusty fellow. She also accepts the protection of a group of soldiers led by two brothers, Ferda and Foix.
What she had hoped would be an interesting journey rather quickly turns dangerous. There are rumors of a great outbreak of demons, and disastrously one soon possesses Ferda. Then they run into a raiding party from the neighboring princedom of Jokona, who are adherents to a (mutually) heretical form of the Chalionese religion. They are rescued by a local nobleman, a great fighter and very handsome man named Arhys. At Arhys's castle, Ista finds a very jealous wife, and a severely ill half-brother, and, worse, indications of more aggression from the Jokonans. All this is surely tied to the infestations of demons ...
I thought it quite well done. Ista is an affecting character. The magic system/religion that Bujold has worked out remains interesting and a good source of plot conflicts. Perhaps Ista's powers seem to scale just a little conveniently to match the needs of the plot -- ever a problem with fantasies. But I enjoyed reading the novel, and I was surprised at several turns (if at other times things worked out a bit routinely). It is another fine story from Bujold.

This pleasant sequel to The Curse of Chalion contains all the hallmarks of the Lois McMaster Bujold style -- an underdog protagonist with unexpected strength, extremely engaging characters, three-dimensional villains, witty and epigram-laced writing so good you want to read it aloud to somebody, and clearly written action concerning a situation that starts out fairly complicated and gets a lot worse, and more complex, before it gets any better. As usual, Bujold is compulsively readable. I think if she wrote VCR owner's manuals, I'd stay up past midnight turning their pages.
However, this is a lesser work than her previous novel in the same setting. I think this is the nature of the setting she picked. Readers of the past book have gotten the message, which was well-hidden until the end, that if you trust Chalion's gods and do what you know you ought to do, the gods will make sure things turn out okay in the end. Curse of Chalion contained mixed blessings that made the gods seem mysterious and mercurial, but here, the gods speak to the protagonist face to face and whenever she gets into too much trouble, they give her another superpower that can get her out. Also, readers of the previous book, knowing you get into more trouble ignoring the gods than taking their (admittedly oblique) advice, may be as miffed as I was at the protagonist for her perverse insistence on doing things the hard way no matter how many others suffer.
Okay, I got that out of my system. Now, don't let it stop you from reading the book. This isn't the VCR manual I said I'd read if Bujold wrote it. It's a fine novel, one of the best you're likely to read this year, and a welcome return to a vivid and fascinating world. Just because it's not flawless (as Curse of Chalion is, or very nearly) doesn't make it not a gem.

At 40, Royina Ista feels trapped by her caring relatives. With her husband and parents dead, she decides on a fake pilgrimage as a way of escaping their smothering care. What begins as a merry voyage quickly becomes dangerous. A plague of demons has overrun Chalion. The demons are a form of elemental that gain knowledge from their hosts and return power. But the power comes at a cost--ultimately leading to the destruction of the host's soul. And in Chalion, the soul is very important because the gods (they worship 4+1 gods) are quite real, quite present, and quite powerful. But even the gods can only work through people and one person they decide on is Ista. And the god that favors Ista most is the 'bastard,' the one god outside the normal temple system. A god denied by Chalion's neighbors.
When enemy cavalry captures Ista, PALADIN OF SOULS picks up the pace and its emotional wallop. Ista is an unwilling saint, but although people can deny the gods, they do so only at a price. Still, even the gods' powers seem inadequate to deal with the real challenges ahead of her. How, exactly, does she safely send the soul of a man to the appropriate god when that man has already been dead for months?
Author Lois McMaster Bujold writes a powerful and emotional story. PALADIN OF SOULS is a mature work by one of the best SF authors writing today. I found first half of the book a little slow and Ista initially difficult to like. Once Bujold got through her setup and cranked the story into overdrive, however, the adventure, emotional intensity, and characters were compelling, real, and vivid. Fantasy fans will also find Bujold's world-building to be fascinating. The gods, religions, cultural differences among people, and the magical system are all fully developed and a joy to read.

This was my first book by Lois McMaster Bujold, picked up on a visit to a bookshop, principally because of the "Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel" banner across the top of the cover. I was expecting science-fiction, or least something science-fictiony, but this is little more than a medieval romance with a dash of the supernatural. I also found that Paladin is a sequel to an earlier novel involving the same world and some of the same characters. Unlike other reviewers, I didn't find not having read the first book a disadvantage to understanding or enjoying Paladin. Bjold does a good job of filling you in on the details of the previous story, dolling them out in bits and pieces until you finally understand the source of the main character's gloom and misery.

But even if Bjold failed to clue you in on all the background, it really wouldn't matter as so much of the enjoyment that comes from this novel is found in Bujold's development of character and in her writing style. With few exceptions, the characters are all well sketched, with logical motivation and each distinct from the other. Bujold's writing called me to read slower, to really taste the words and the sentences. Paladin was a great feast of language.

Bits of the story seemed a bit improbable, such as an army of 1500 soldiers marching across the countryside without anyone being aware of it, or 3 prisoners escaping from the midst of this army simply by walking out. But these are really small complaints when weighed against such a beautifully written story.

"Paladin of Souls"
by Lois McMaster Bujold,
© 2003

This is an interesting little story of the development of a 'saint' in another place and time. The world is definitely not this one: the Gods are present and, to some, they can be seen and talked with. You can understand the desire of the heroine to leave her prosperous life. She was wedded and widowed young, suffered and recovered from a mental decline, and her Mother just died and was buried. She is the most important person in the castle, but she is blanketed by all the rules and protocols of the place. Her escape is thwarted and she is brought back, only she escapes again, this time it is successful and with a bit of the sanction of the others below her: she goes on a pilgrimage.
She has dreams and starts to feel she is descending into madness again, but her religious mentor on this pilgrimage, is also having some dreams, so maybe it is part of a plan she has to figure out. There a lot of excitement, ambushes, escapes and subterfuge. In the end she helps make things as right as possible.
The writing was very good, though at times it got a bit romantic, at other times it really soared with the best of writers ('her smirk lingered like perfume'). I enjoyed reading this book.

The main character of Paladin of Souls is unexpected. She's a middle-aged widow whose daughter is the Queen of Chalion. She's spent a good half her life in madness. She's carries a shameful secret from her past around with her. She was a minor character in the Curse of Chalion, but now we get to watch her rebirth after the madness has been lifted. Her development, slowly gaining confidence and insight into who she is at this life stage, is wonderful to watch.

One problem with Curse had been plot pacing. That problem is not present here. Ista grows fed up with the smothering atmosphere of her home and hits the road right away. All I can think here are cliches: non-stop action, the action doesn't stop, Bujold keeps the action coming, etc, etc. It doesn't make any sense at first, but at least it isn't boring, and as the story progresses all the seemingly random events start to fit together.

The only negative criticism I could come up with for this book had to do with the prose. Bujold had a habit of using negatives in a way that she must think sounds poetic or high-born, but got annoying with over-use. For example, saying "not a little" to mean "a lot." This is a minor complaint in a book that I otherwise thought deserved all the awards and praise it's gotten.

One could read Paladin without reading Curse first, although I don't recommend it - that could spoil your enjoyment of Curse

I have been working my way through the entire back catalog of those books which have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Out of all the novels I've read so far (about 1/2) this is the best one. The thing is--it's not a perfect book. The first 75% of the book is brilliant but then the ending just falls apart. I've read other book by Bujold since this introduction to her and it is a constant problem with her--she doesn't end things well.

*spoilers*

The reason the ending fails here is because the core mechanic of the book is that the people in the book think she's crazy but we the readers know she isn't crazy, just misunderstood. So it is essential that this basic tension holds steady throughout the book. But it doesn't...at the end our protagonist actually begins to not only appear crazy, she acts crazy too. It is shocking that Ista wonders if Cattilara could be so selfish as to not help keep Arhys alive during his final raid. Cattilara is selfishness personified. It's not the type of rational thought she should be having. She keeps relying on her "spiritual mentor" even though time after time he has shown himself to be unreliable. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results and that is Ista by the end of the book. She no longer simply looks insane, she begins to behave in insane ways. In the end she wins not because her rational side has overcome her fears and doubts, she wins not because knowledge and experience teach her self understanding, she wins because that is her fate. It is a deeply dissatisfying ending.

Earlier on the store, I had reviewed the first book in this series: The Curse of Chalion. I had given it a reasonably good review, three or four stars, I believe. I had rarely had such a nasty reaction to a review as the response I had to that one. Beware of giving Bujold a lukewarm reception. I had made the mistake of noting that I had read some of her other work and really disliked it-- earning me several nasty emails from rabid fans.

I still stand by all that. I heartily dislike her earlier work. I thought The Curse of Chalion was okay. I think that Paladin of Souls is really pretty good. Ista is the best Bujold character that I have read so far, and she carries the book. I'm still not sure that the book ever escapes triteness with the plotting. Luckily, the characters were good enough that I really didn't care. I'm not sure that I would have awarded it the Hugo, but it is clearly a cut above the much of the fantasy fiction out there.

So am I going to enjoy The Hallowed Hunt or not? Someone care to explain to me in the comments why she has such a following?