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Penric & Desdemona (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Bujold is a bit hit or miss for me, especially her fantasy, and even in the Vorkosigan series, which I do love, some of the books I adore and some I didn't even finish. So the Penric books were sort of vaguely on my radar, but from what I knew about the series (featuring a young man who body-shares with a female demon and solves mysteries), it looked like it was probably not going to engage me all that much.
However, nobody told me there was an enemies-to-friends arc in this. I was unprepared and I have now read 4 of the novellas in about 2 days. At least they're short.
I did not start reading because of that; I started because I ran across a book review for one of the recent ones that said it worked pretty well as a standalone, so I decided that maybe, rather than starting at the beginning, I would read a recent book and see what I thought about it. The Assassins of Thasalon looked interesting from the blurb, so I picked up that one.
Within the first few chapters, I was completely gone for Penric's chaotic household and messy, sprawling circle of friends/family, and especially head over heels for Adelis, his straight-laced, hyper-competent, military brother-in-law, with whom he has an interestingly conflicted relationship and towards whom my id made an immediate beeline.
By the time that I was at about the 30% mark of Assassins, every little bit of information about Penric's backstory with Nikys (his wife) and Adelis made me want to read those earlier books more (burned?? healing??? stranded????), so I decided to stop where I was in this book to avoid getting any more spoilers for earlier books I was definitely going to read, and just go back and find the book in which these characters were introduced. So I ended up reading the following:
Penric's Mission: This is an absolute DELIGHT. Foreign spy Penric shows up to suborn General Adelis Arisaydia, immediately gets caught, and Adelis is arrested and has his eyes put out and Penric feels so guilty about it that he infiltrates the household to heal him using demon magic, while trying to pretend to Adelis's sister Nikys that he is not, in fact, the person who is responsible for her brother's mutilation (and also trying to heal him without admitting to anyone that he is actually healing him, since that would involve having to explain the entire awkward "possessed by a demon" issue). The whole thing was absolute id catnip for me on every level, between the h/c and the identity porn and the nervous dance of trust-mistrust between Penric and the Arisaydia siblings.
And this was followed by:
Mira's Last Dance: By far my least favorite of the ones I've read. How, I ask you, can you take a premise like "injured, uneasily allied fugitives in the mountains" and make it this squicky, irritating, and boring?! Although there were some fun bits, mostly it's a waste of a good concept. Also, Adelis spends most of this book being a dick, and the Penric/Nikys pairing is IMHO a lot more appealing later, after they're married, than while they're skirting around admitting they're attracted to each other. If I had started with this one, I would never have read another.
I was sufficiently annoyed by that book to skip ahead a bit to:
The Physicians of Vilnoc: Another fun one! Well, "fun" for values of fun involving a plague, I guess. But the plot is tense, there's lot of entertaining byplay with the ensemble cast (old and new), and Adelis is in it a lot.
And then I decided to return to:
The Assassins of Thasalon: I mean, it starts with Adelis getting concussed, which is definitely starting out on the right note, but in general, even aside from delivering nicely on h/c where I want it, this book was really excellent! The plot is tense and twisty and fun, the supporting character interactions are very often straight-up adorable (especially Adelis interacting with Penric's household, Penric adopting a stray assassin, and everything going on with Adelis's fiancee's household), and the enemies-to-friends (well, more like antagonistic allies to friends) arc with Adelis and Penric goes to some very nice places.
Having read all of these back to back, from Nikys and Adelis's earliest interactions with Penric and Desdemona to Assassins which is set several years later, I think the thing that charmed me the most wasn't just Penric and Adelis becoming close (although that too) but Adelis making friends with Desdemona. He goes from being totally weirded out and deeply distrustful of the entire demon-possession situation, to being able to tell whether Penric or Desdemona is in control (they both speak using Penric's voice), referring to her as his demon-in-law, and introducing her to people as Madame Desdemona, separately from Penric, which delights her. Meanwhile, Desdemona goes from having absolutely no love lost on her end either, to being protective of him and reluctantly conceding that MAYBE Adelis's fiancee is good enough for him in the last book. (She's great, by the way. I love her.)
There are a couple of intermediate books I still haven't read, so I'll definitely be getting to those. I don't know if I'm going to go back and read the ones earlier than that, because Penric seems to be a lot more isolated in those, and doesn't have his Orbas circle of friends and family, and I think I would miss the more ensemble-y feel of the later books after he gets a home and family. But I'll probably end up reading them, because Penric and Desdemona are also really enjoyable!
However, nobody told me there was an enemies-to-friends arc in this. I was unprepared and I have now read 4 of the novellas in about 2 days. At least they're short.
I did not start reading because of that; I started because I ran across a book review for one of the recent ones that said it worked pretty well as a standalone, so I decided that maybe, rather than starting at the beginning, I would read a recent book and see what I thought about it. The Assassins of Thasalon looked interesting from the blurb, so I picked up that one.
Within the first few chapters, I was completely gone for Penric's chaotic household and messy, sprawling circle of friends/family, and especially head over heels for Adelis, his straight-laced, hyper-competent, military brother-in-law, with whom he has an interestingly conflicted relationship and towards whom my id made an immediate beeline.
By the time that I was at about the 30% mark of Assassins, every little bit of information about Penric's backstory with Nikys (his wife) and Adelis made me want to read those earlier books more (burned?? healing??? stranded????), so I decided to stop where I was in this book to avoid getting any more spoilers for earlier books I was definitely going to read, and just go back and find the book in which these characters were introduced. So I ended up reading the following:
Penric's Mission: This is an absolute DELIGHT. Foreign spy Penric shows up to suborn General Adelis Arisaydia, immediately gets caught, and Adelis is arrested and has his eyes put out and Penric feels so guilty about it that he infiltrates the household to heal him using demon magic, while trying to pretend to Adelis's sister Nikys that he is not, in fact, the person who is responsible for her brother's mutilation (and also trying to heal him without admitting to anyone that he is actually healing him, since that would involve having to explain the entire awkward "possessed by a demon" issue). The whole thing was absolute id catnip for me on every level, between the h/c and the identity porn and the nervous dance of trust-mistrust between Penric and the Arisaydia siblings.
And this was followed by:
Mira's Last Dance: By far my least favorite of the ones I've read. How, I ask you, can you take a premise like "injured, uneasily allied fugitives in the mountains" and make it this squicky, irritating, and boring?! Although there were some fun bits, mostly it's a waste of a good concept. Also, Adelis spends most of this book being a dick, and the Penric/Nikys pairing is IMHO a lot more appealing later, after they're married, than while they're skirting around admitting they're attracted to each other. If I had started with this one, I would never have read another.
I was sufficiently annoyed by that book to skip ahead a bit to:
The Physicians of Vilnoc: Another fun one! Well, "fun" for values of fun involving a plague, I guess. But the plot is tense, there's lot of entertaining byplay with the ensemble cast (old and new), and Adelis is in it a lot.
And then I decided to return to:
The Assassins of Thasalon: I mean, it starts with Adelis getting concussed, which is definitely starting out on the right note, but in general, even aside from delivering nicely on h/c where I want it, this book was really excellent! The plot is tense and twisty and fun, the supporting character interactions are very often straight-up adorable (especially Adelis interacting with Penric's household, Penric adopting a stray assassin, and everything going on with Adelis's fiancee's household), and the enemies-to-friends (well, more like antagonistic allies to friends) arc with Adelis and Penric goes to some very nice places.
Having read all of these back to back, from Nikys and Adelis's earliest interactions with Penric and Desdemona to Assassins which is set several years later, I think the thing that charmed me the most wasn't just Penric and Adelis becoming close (although that too) but Adelis making friends with Desdemona. He goes from being totally weirded out and deeply distrustful of the entire demon-possession situation, to being able to tell whether Penric or Desdemona is in control (they both speak using Penric's voice), referring to her as his demon-in-law, and introducing her to people as Madame Desdemona, separately from Penric, which delights her. Meanwhile, Desdemona goes from having absolutely no love lost on her end either, to being protective of him and reluctantly conceding that MAYBE Adelis's fiancee is good enough for him in the last book. (She's great, by the way. I love her.)
There are a couple of intermediate books I still haven't read, so I'll definitely be getting to those. I don't know if I'm going to go back and read the ones earlier than that, because Penric seems to be a lot more isolated in those, and doesn't have his Orbas circle of friends and family, and I think I would miss the more ensemble-y feel of the later books after he gets a home and family. But I'll probably end up reading them, because Penric and Desdemona are also really enjoyable!
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SAME!
It's funny, I tend to read the Penric books in fits and starts, which is unusual for me, but I think the "long series of novellas which are not necessarily in chronological order" makes it harder for me to stay on top of this one, even though I really like it as a whole. So I read the first Penric and loved it, then took a while to get to the next two ('Fox' and 'Shaman', because I was reading them in internal chronology order), then took another while to get to 'Mission' -- which I LOVED -- and then got stuck after 'Mira' and haven't caught up since.
Actually, the reason I went back and read 'Mission' when I did is that I was talking to my friend who had just binged the series and said a character was introduced in 'Mission' who was one of those Bujoldean characters we invariably both fall for that she writes so well (like Aral, Arhys in 'Chalion', etc.) and she was 100% correct.
So probably your write-up is a sign that I should go back and read 'Physicians' and 'Assassins'. One of the reasons I sort of fell off the wagon is that I was worried the Penric/Nikys courtship stuff would swamp the parts of the dynamic I liked best about 'Mission', which is the Arisaydia siblings and Penric-Desdemona-Adelis -- but what you're describing about the status quo those three reach is adorable, and I should go see it for myself! I was also skeptical about the mention of Adelis's fiance, but if even Desdemona approves, I guess I'll give her a shot :P
re: earlier books -- I don't think you miss much by skipping 'Fox' and 'Shaman', but I do think Penric's Demon is worth reading, because the beginning of Penric and Desdemona's relationship is pretty neat. (IDK, maybe it doesn't have the same impact / maybe you've already gotten a lot of the fun of that out of the later books looking back. But it does that thing Bujold IMO does particularly well, where two characters who start out with a gulf between them end up forging an unexpected strong bond by treating each other as people -- in this case, Penric treating Desdemona as a person to start.)
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Things do focus pretty heavily on Penric/Nikys for a while (I just started reading Prisoner of Limnos, which looks like it's going to continue their will they/won't they for a while) but at most it's only two or three books, and then Penric goes back to solving crimes while interacting with his broadening circle of friends, relatives, and in-laws.
I was kind of skeptical about Adelis's fiancee at first as well, but I really love her; she's very tough-minded and enjoyable.
The early Penric and Desdemona relationship does sound like fun and much more my thing than I realized it was going to be. I will look forward to that, then. :D
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I hadn't thought of it like that but now that you mention it, I can see it! Like there's a similar "reluctant allies" thing where they don't trust each other's methods or motivations but have to work together. Of course I am very on board for that sort of thing. :D (And it probably won't surprise you that I ship Adelis/Penric-and/or-Desdemona, but like in a way where I'm happy for it to coexist with Penric/Nikys.)
and then Penric goes back to solving crimes while interacting with his broadening circle of friends, relatives, and in-laws.
That is good to know! I do enjoy Penric solving crimes as a plot driver :)