Penric's Fox

It was fun to be back with Penric and his demon Desdemona. This book picks up after Penric and the Shaman. The Shaman Inglis and Locator Oswyl are still with Penric as they are called to investigate the murder of a sorceress. The world and its five god structure of the Mother, father, Daughter, Son and Bastard is creative and well built. It has been refreshing to read multiple series set in the same fantasy world. They are set at different times and with different sets of characters, but the reader is not completely starting from scratch. The world, its politics, and its religious orders are very well-defined, but you will learn about it best if you begin with The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt. (You won’t be unhappy- it is a terrific series.) Although the Penric and Desdemona books are not a part of that series, you will understand more about the world and in particular the five gods and religious orders that play a significant role in the political and sacred powers that are also big factors in this story if you have read those books. Penric’s investigation is concerned first with the fate of the sorceress’s demon and second with the murder of the mortal sorceress. The story is smartly plotted and cleverly told. The integration of Inglis and the other shamans into the story is a real plus. They are likable and their magic adds interest. There are light moments as with the earlier books in this Penric series. My only complaint is that the books in this series have been short (really a novella) so everything seems to begin and end quickly with no room for multiple threads of plot. Still, Penric and his demon Desdemona remain engaging and interesting. The writing is fluent and the pacing is good.

As usual, Penric and Desdemona are both delightful. There's a murder to solve, with the help of old friends and new, plus interesting discussions comparing the powers and interactions of animal-imbued shamans vs. demon-riding sorcerers, and some ethical debate about how to resolve the unusual, maybe even unprecedented, fox/demon situation, mixed with Bujold's warm chuckla and exciting action. The course to the discovery of the murderer is fairly straightforward (if dramatic in climax) after a certain insight/ hypothesis is made, but the dénouement has its more serious moments, as Penric and a friend/colleague of the victim both must determine where they will draw the line between "could" (sorcerers can do a lot, forbidden or not) and "would" (given grave consequences internal and/or imposed), re. what the unrepentant killer deserves. Although Penric has not yet experienced the soul-crushing impossible-healing assignment we learn weighs him down by the time of the sequence starting with Penric's Mission, he does see here the grim and wasteful reality of selfish, irrational crime. His elderly, noble employer offers some pragmatic comfort. Clearly, I appreciated many aspects of the story, both light and thought-provoking, but I do need to mention a couple more elements that nearly made me mark it down to 3.5 on the Goodreads scale, not fully 4. One thing true of this novella, more than I recall occurring in the other Penric stories, was that at a number of points, I was forcefully reminded of LMB's other series'. Penric is very different from Miles Vorkosigan, but he shares a near-identical musing about how more responsibility/ authority surprisingly leads to LESS freedom. Penric is equally different from Dag Redwing, but there was a major controlled application of sorcerous power in the end that was perhaps too reminiscent of one "groundsetting". I'm not sure how I feel about that. Also, despite his charming reluctance to betray the stray demon or even the fox, Penric's academic curiosity is quite open to the possibility of experimentation on lower animals such as mice — and come to think of it, Dag experimented using mice, too, though I'm not sure he let any of his subjects actually die, as would be required for the procedure Penric considers. Anyway, I'll still leap just as quickly when I see the next Penric & Desdemona tale announced as I did this time, whether it's another fill-in of the years previously skipped over, or progress on his tentative romance. Even if they don't quite reach the "I LOOOVED it" level of the first, the characters and writing are still ahead of most the offerings out there in the Kindle-verse.

Interesting and amusing short story. Penric is a nice character with great quest to learn. It is not a gripping story but I would read more in the series.

I very much enjoyed the return of Shaman Inglis and Locator Oswyl, who we met earlier in Penric and the Shaman, in the most recently released Penric & Desdemona novella Penric's Fox. That said, new readers can begin the Penric books with Penric's Fox, as it stands enough on its own, and then read Penric and the Shaman. Penric's Fox is the fifth Penric & Desdemona novella. Rather than being listed as number 5, I think that the author made the correct decision to list it as number 3 because the story continues characters from the second novella Penric and the Shaman. The World of the Five Gods is one of my favorite worlds. The Father, the Mother, the Daughter, the Son, and the Bastard sometimes decide to take a very personal interest indeed in their worshipers. As in making a personal appearance at times. And I like the fact that there is room for both sorcerers and shamans in this world. In Penric's Fox we get to meet several more shamans and appreciate what abilities shamans possess versus what abilities sorcerers have. Penric's sorcerer abilities, of course, come courtesy of Desdemona. I have also especially enjoyed the developing relationship between Penric and his chaos demon Desdemona. I highly recommend the Penric and Desdemona series to those, like me, who enjoy character-driven fantasy and well-crafted tales!

This adventure was as good as the first four I have yet to read anything by this author I did not love. A chaos demon and the youngest son of a baron, what a mixture! In this story, Penric is asked to help find the murderer of a female temple sorcerer and where her demon jumped to. As it turns out the demon jumped into a nearby fox with six kits, but finding the fox was a chore. Discovering who the murderer was an even bigger chore. I highly recommend this book and look forward to the next one.

This book takes place fairly shortly after Penric’s Shaman, and Inglis the shaman is a major character in it. He and Penric are taking a day off work to go fishing up in the hills above Easthome, when Oswyl, senior locator of the Father’s Order, finds them and enlists their help in investigating the death of a sorceress of the Bastard’s order, whose body was found by a local boy and reported to the Father’s temple. She had been shot in the back with two arrows, and the only clue was a third arrow from the same fletcher, found some distance away with a tuft of fox fur caught on its head. The investigation takes several turns before the perpetrator is identified and captured. A good story with a fair amount of action to go with a good deal of magic.

My favorite writer. I don't think she has ever written a bad book. The only thing wrong with the Penric stories is that they come in drips and drabs. I want a book with all of them together so I can curl up and read them all at once. But at the same time, when a new Penris and Desdemona story comes along, it's like an unexpected Christmas, so there's that. Penric is a young man who is accidently possessed by a demon consisting of a conglomerate of personalities that have accumulated over many years. And these entities are all female, a bit of a shock for a young man. Penric has to not only learn to live with his demon(s), but to control its energy and the supernatural powers it brings, Most prominent of the entities is Desdemona, an older woman and a delightful personality in her own right. Their adventures are intriguing and fun. Bujold is an excellent writer, intelligent, and insightful. I love all her books. She has never let me down.

There really aren’t ever enough words to praise Lois McMaster Bujold’s books and her writing. Her cleverly created characters and worlds provide enjoyment similar To spending time with favored friends who don’t live close. It’s easy to delight in her characters because they are so wonderfully human and humane. I am often impressed with her ability to develop characters who are so complexly human with all of our frailties and strengths combining to make interesting sounds you actually care about...and now that includes demons as well. I truly appreciate and cherish her storytelling.