Penric's Mission

Bujold's Penric series, her "retirement project" has been a nice way to continue to get new fiction from her, even though she's not planning to write any more books. Instead she's been releasing this series of novellas as e-books. And as much as I prefer physical books, the electronic format isn't so bad for these shorter installments, which I can often read in one or two sessions.

The third installment jumps forward in time. Penric and Desdemona have been together for over a decade now, and they have a seamless partnership, with a deep knowledge of and respect for each other. It also throws the reader right into the action, with Penric getting kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon in the first chapter.

Structurally, this story is a lot like Cryoburn, with kidnappers, shady governments, and shaky partnerships. Adding to the comparison is the fact that Penric is acting more and more like Miles with each passing story. This can probably be chalked up to the chaos demon rubbing off on him. But more than once that chaos demon is the voice of reason. Maybe this will end up being a bigger arc, but my gut says it's just Bujold falling back on old patterns. Not that I'm really complaining, but I'd rather Penric be his own character than a re-tread.

Regardless, I'm enjoying this series. And it took me so long to get around to this installment, that the next one was released while I was reading it. Which was a nice surprise. I hope Bujold keeps writing these for a while yet. At least until there are enough of them for it to make sense to release a physical collection that I can put on my bookshelf.

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