The Curse of Chalion: a fantasy novel based on Spanish history
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The Curse of Chalion, by
Lois McMaster Bujold, is one of the best fantasy novels of the latest years. It
belongs to that rare category, which also contains Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, C.S.Lewis's Perelandra, Walter M. Miller Jr.'s Canticle for Leibowitz, or Poul Anderson's
Orbit unlimited, that combine an interesting
adventure plot with important ethical dilemmas and deep questions about the
nature of man and God.
In this novel, as deftly crafted as her
Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold has pushed further the bounds of subcreation as defined by Tolkien in his
paper On fairie stories. She presents
us, not just a coherent imaginary universe, but even a strange God, which
rather than three persons displays five, together with important differences from the God we have
heard about.
