I've heard many great things about this book, although I've just done two fantasy trilogies so I may need to take a break from this genre for a bit.

I liked this a lot. I'm glad to be introduced to this author who has apparently written a wealth of other things. I quit reading fantasy novels for a while because I was annoyed that they always led up to some epic war, and it gets wearing reading about them. I greatly appreciated that this did not have much by way of battlefields. I expect I will be loaning it to some other people I know who enjoy a good escapist fantasy now and again.

I'm sending a HUGE thank you to my daughter for loaning me this book!
This was an excellent read! I couldn't put it down.
I kept reading faster and faster to find out what was going to happen, and then when I got close to the end, I found myself reading as slowly as possible because I just couldn't bear for it to end!
It is an extremely well crafted Fantasy set in a fully developed Medeval type world with it's society and government clearly set out. The story was so ambitious that many authors would have made it a trilogy. Lois McMaster Bujold however, encased all aspects of the story in 502 pages, and carefully detailed the entire saga. She laid the background of a pre-existing curse which lies over the royal family (perhaps there really is a prequel out there that I'm not aware of?) but then she goes on to weave the saga of the quest to release the curse.
I thoroughly enjoed this book and am heading right out to "Third Place Books" to see if I can find other books by this author.

Yay. I'm next on the list of family members to read this book. It's been in the back of my mind to read for a year now (it was discussed as a possible bookclub book, but ultimately wasn't picked). I'm glad it is now in my possession (oh dear, too many s in that, I fear), but am currently drowning under TBR books. Ah well.

Woah, this book was so good. VERY fast-paced and exciting and original story. beautiful storytelling. But my absolutely favorite part was Bujold's respect for her reader's intelligence. Never once did she "dumb down" the story, or pause the plot in order to explain something that might have been missed. Challion is a wonderfully fully crafted world that the reader is dropped down into, and taken along on this great ride. Yes, there are new vocabulary terms and new concepts, but rather than killing the novel's flow by defining these, Bujold's story continues along and she expects her readers to keep up (which isn't difficult to do at all). It was very refreshing, and exciting, to find all these new words and terms and learn about this world as the story was happening. I read this in only two days and wish it had been longer (but as I was trying to pack up my belongings for a move, it's probably good that it wasn't *Smile*).

The religions featured in this world were so FASCINATING too. The various gods and festivals (even the quadrenal vs. quintarian disputes between the different countries) were amazingly interesting. A very wonderful surprise.

The best part about discovering Bujold now is that she has such a LARGE body of work already written, so I won't have to wait to read something else of her's. The large volume of novels she's written is especially surprising to me because this novel was so rich and well-planned out. Normally if an author writes more than one book a year, I find them to be more shallow. That definitely wasn't the case with this novel. Great find!!

Giving this back to amaranta now. Thanks!!

Mine again.