The Hallowed Hunt (Chalion, Book 3) | Lois McMaster Bujold

The Hallowed Hunt (Chalion, Book 3) | Lois McMaster Bujold | A superb book by a superb author

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The Hallowed Hunt ...

	The Hallowed Hunt (Chalion, Book 3) Lois McMaster Bujold, 2005 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A magnificent epic tale of devotion, possession, obsession, and strange destiny from the author of the Hugo Award-winning

Paladin of Souls

Lois McMaster Bujold

The half-mad Prince Boleso has been slain by a noblewoman he had intended to defile -- and Lord Ingrey kin Wilfcliff must transport the body to its burial place and the accused killer, the Lady Ijada, to judgment. With the death of the old Hallow King imminent and the crown in play, the road they must travel together is a dangerous one. And though he is duty-bound to deliver his prisoner to an almost certain death, Ijada may be the only one Ingrey dares trust. For a monstrous malevolence holds the haunted lord in its sway -- and a great and terrible destiny has been bestowed upon him by the gods, the damned, and the dead.

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Amazingly wonderful!

Lois McMaster Bujold is an incredible author! Her worlds are detailed, fully-realized and intriguing. Each of her characters is deep, complicated, and unique. And the plots! Wow! She is one of the few authors I read where I can't guess what is going to happen about 50 pages in. Her writing is for intelligent readers and I appreciate that she doesn't dumb her books down.

This book starts rather quietly. But as the darkness and suspense built up I was more and more involved/invested. The plot/idea/premise was fascinating. I was on the "edge of my seat."

So...as you can tell, I highly recommend this book to you.

In fact, LMB just can't write them fast enough for me!

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A superb book by a superb author

This third book in the "Chalion" or "Five Gods" series requires a bit more thought to appreciate than the previous books. Or maybe it's that it takes more effort to identify with the protagonist at first. I strongly recommend making the effort, since this story is wonderful, highly re-readable, and a little philosophical (what is the nature of leadership?). Chalion is mentioned only in passing, but since this story takes place hundreds of years before the previous two books, that should be okay. Just don't expect to hear from any of the human characters from the previous books. The Bastard and the Brother do turn up here, quite a bit in fact. For the rest, get the book! It's worth your time.

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Gods, Demons, Ghosts and Animal Spirits

The king lies dying and now the prince is dead, apparently killed in self-defense by the young noblewoman he was going to rape in a magical ritual.

So opens an amazing and complex work of fantasy set in Bujold's mystical land of Chalion. For the young woman is haunted by a leopard that the prince had slain to steal it's magical power, and the man sent to guard her and take her to the capital for trial hides a totem wolf within himself.

Were this the only work we had to judge Lois McMaster Bujold by we would still be hailing her as a fantasy genius. But since she has written books that are sharper, deeper, funnier and closer to the human spirit, this suffers only by comparison to her Vorkosigan series and to the other Chalion books. It stands completely alone and independent of the other Chalion novels, and in some respects, her fans may be disappointed not to have another adventure with the old friends from those books.

This is still a tour de force, where a divine can be possessed by a demon to great comic effect, where a polar bear can expose corruption and where for a night the dead can walk once more and choose. It is a love story and an adventure story full of desperate rides and struggles. It does not get five stars only because we do not have the option to give six stars to her other books. Taken in an of itself, this is a wholly satisfying fantasy. Highly recommended.

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Good third book in the Chalion series.

2007 was a year of many colors for me, but one minor thing that it certainly was is the year that I had to admit that I actually kind of like Bujold. Or, at least, I kind of like the Chalion books. This was a surprise to me, as I disliked what I had read of her earlier work. I have read enough reviews on the fantasy side of the web to know that serious Bujold fans see it the other way around; they generally do not seem to think that Chalion holds a candle to her "earlier classics".

But anyhow. I really liked both The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls. I also liked The Hallowed Hunt, if perhaps a smidgen less than the first two books. Only peripherally linked to the first two books, this novel explores a different kind of magic in this series backstory-- the gift of being linked to the spirit of an animal. I suppose that I liked this a little bit less because this particular territory has been done and done to death. I was also a little bit disappointed in Lady Ijada as a heroine after the extremely powerful Ista in The Paladin of Souls. Still, it was intriguing and kept the pages turning. Pretty much the best that you can hope for from this kind of classic fantasy.

I will be going on to start the Sharing Knife series after this.

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Not up to Lois' usual high standards.

I'm a BIG fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's Sci-Fi books and have read and enjoyed every single one. IMHO, of the four fantasy novels of hers I've read, HH ranks third ahead of 'Sprit Ring' and behind 'Curse of Chalion' and 'Paladin of Souls'. Being such a huge fan, I hold my expectations for her books at the highest plane of reading enjoyment.

'Hallowed Hunt' was better than most of the stuff I've been reading lately. Substandard-Bujold is better than no Bujold to read at all.

Lois usually nails her characters with details and paints them and their inner selves with a dedicated precision. Although her hero Ingrey has a wry sense of humor and is a trifle audacious, I found a major drawback was you really don't get to know him as well as you did Miles Vorkosigan or even Cazaril from `C of C'.

Lady Ijada, the female lead literally lights up the room for Ingrey, but doesn't get much help from Lois in making her a brilliant character for us readers. This is surprising because Lois usually does this very well for headstrong & liberated heroines.

The 'villain' even gets short shrift as he could have been more sympathetically portrayed with more revelations about what was going on within his psyche.

I think the limiting factor of 'HH' was that it was written from Ingrey's point of view, and had to follow him throughout the tale. We only saw what was in Ingrey's eyes and head, so we couldn't get deeply into the Earl Horseriver's or Ijada's noggins because of that. Maybe if Lois employed use of the magical 'vision' connection between these characters that device could have helped develop their motivations.

Something I've never caught Bujold in before were production flaws. 1. Hallana is ripely pregnant when we first see her, and she delivers a healthy baby girl a short time after. Not a week later, Hallana is back in the capital, sans newborn without even mention of a wet nurse. Seems to me there'd be a baby needing care while Mom is gallivanting throughout the countryside. I remember my infants required a lot of attention. Then 2, Ingrey is next-in-line to inherit a sizable estate, but no mention of that at the end of the story. Considering he was somewhat impovershed and not-landed, that might loom as an important thing to mention in the epilogue.

However, Lois does deliver on the magic and supernatural end of the tale, making an interesting read of the whys and wherefores of spirit animals and ghostly Weald warriors. She's in top form on the plot and witty repartee between Ingrey and any would-be word jouster.

The supporting cast shines greatly over the principals. Jokol, as the boisterous sailor-poet prince, and Hallana, Temple Sorceress and physician are most memorable. Even Hallana's husband, Oswin, in all of ten pages, is made more interesting and fuller fleshed than the primary characters.

'Hallowed Hunt' might be substandard Bujold, but it's a helluva lot better than most of what's out there. Read it!

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