Passage-Lois McMaster Bujold

Passage
Lois McMaster Bujold
Eos, May 2008, $25.95
ISBN 9780061375330

Having his family exile him for marrying outside his community, former Lakewalker captain Dag and his beloved wife, the farmer's daughter Fawn head to her home, Bluefield Farm. His dream of an understanding between farmers, riverfolk and Lakewalkers shattered as each distrusts the others even as they need each other to survive. However, all three groups question the need of change since a millennium of doing things in the old ways has kept the peace and restrained the deadly malices through Lakewalker control of “ground energy”.

Dag and Fawn lease a houseboat from a riverfolk, but the owner and others and their boats mysteriously vanish soon after. Dag begins to investigate even as he begins to explore his expanding powers now that he ahs broken out of the Lakewalker limits. His ground-sense warns him a new deadly danger to the world order is coming as farmers settle into new lands and riverfolk extend their water world while Lakewalkers remain stagnantly static.

The third cerebral Sharing Knife fantasy (see LEGACY and BEGUILEMENT) continues to explore the negative impact of prejudice on people. Each of the three prime groups has vivid pictures of how they see the other two races and cannot get past those beliefs. This causes stagnation limiting development by stifling potential in order to force fit the
norm. Thus Dag and Fawn by breaking out of the prejudicial beliefs they cherished grow while others stagnate and their metamorphosis propelled by their love make them the only hope to save a world suddenly in trouble due to expansion into forbidden lands. Well written and extremely exciting, Lois McMaster Bujold will have her audience pondering the wisdom of the PASSAGE.

Harriet Klausner