I have come to believe that if romances are fantasies of love, and mysteries are fantasies of justice, F&SF are fantasies of political agency.

I also thought that the construction you gave romance was wonderful. I hope more romance readers take the opportunity look at your essays and the thoughts you have about romance v. fantasy/science fiction.

I’m glad you enjoyed Passage! Regarding the Romance/F&SF divide, I have some more thoughts that may be of interest to your readers in this interview (scroll down):

http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2008/04/sharing-knife-passage-by-lois-mcmaster.html

and also (some overlap) in this blog post:

http://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/guest-blogger-l.html

(Apologies if I have posted this twice — the Reply I tried earlier seemed to disappear into the e-ther, and has not reappeared yet, but upon reflection I realize it may simply have gone into a queue to wait for approval. In which case, delete this duplicate.)

best regards, Lois.

Interesting that you found it more fantasy than romance. I thought it was all about Fawn and Dag’s relationship and his relationship with his own folk and the farmers.

I feel it’s a quest book. Dag’s trying to figure out exactly how to go about accomplishing it (communication between farmers and lakewalkers so they might successfully defeat the malices and understand each other’s culture better).

I can’t wait for Horizon to see where she takes it all.

From an interview of LMB found here at the Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles forums:

So if I ever do get a chance to complete the Chalion books, it’ll be 5 volumes. Caz belonged to the Daughter of Spring, and Ista to the Bastard. Bully-boy Ingrey and his spirit wolf (from The Hallowed Hunt) were definitely the pets of the Son of Autumn. I still have the Father of Winter (god of justice) and Mother of Summer (goddess of, among other things, medicine), and I have beginning notions for both books, but I haven’t had time for them yet. I don’t know if I’ll still have the same notions if and when I do. The Father’s book would be next in my queue if I didn’t have other obligations.

Dag and Fawn were my favorite couple in the AAR reader poll last year. Usually that big of an age difference would kind of gross me out but LMB manages to make these two into a believable and lovely couple!

We have very different tastes in books, but I can see how Passage might be a B for you. It’s more SF/F than romance, while the first 2 books were more on the romance side (if you get what I mean). But Dag is not becoming a medicine man, he’s becoming a maker–something entirely new in his own world. At least that’s my interpretation.

I loved this book (enough to forgive LMB for marrying off Miles and deserting him).

Oh well, no matter. I am a total LMB fanatic and will get the book because it’s by her.

Hmm-regarding the Chalion series–wasn’t she going to write a book for each one of the 5 gods in that pantheon? She’s done the daughter, and the bastard, and the son–has she done either one of the parents? Will she? Does anybody know??

As we were discussing last night, one of the challenges in talking about these books is that Bujold has woven everything together so tightly, that it’s difficult to pull just one thing out to talk about, whether it be a passage to quote or an element of the story. Of course that’s a testament to Bujold’s strong world building, her ability to create a vivid and believable alternate reality, but it presents unique challenges to the reviewer.