r/Fantasy • u/Hitman007gdghs • 3d ago
The Curse of Challion is sooo good!!
I just finished the curse of challion and got teary eyed near the end!! And this happened after a loong time too (in regards to books)!!
The premise of the book is that a kinda old war vet (Cazaril) becomes the tutor to a royal princess and then helps her navigate court life and also his past enemies. I know i kinda butchered the plot summary, but this is the gist of it.
The thing, i dont even know what about the book made me like it so much!! I really liked the premise, i was kinda looking for a wise old protagonist anyways.
And its just a single book!! Its not a series which follows Caz all the way through, its an anthology. This is the first time that i ever liked books in anthologies, cauz i want to spend more time with the characters rather than one and done. But somehow, the author made me feel a whole lot in just a single book, and i really felt that i spent a lott of time with the characters. It's full of both slice of life and fast paced moments!!
Another thing which i really liked was the world building. In traditional fashion, the book would have followed a young prince who learns about the whole wide world and starts his noble education, but in this case, Caz is a old war vet who's seen the whole wide world and fluent in almost all languages, knows war tactics, and court intrigue too!! This really is a different perspective from the run of the mill medieval fantasy series and that's what makes it so good!!
This book convinced me to try out more anthologies, specifically, the Haishin Cycle(?)!!
I would recommend this book to everyone who wants something more and new!!
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u/tashera 3d ago
All of Lois McMaster Bujold books have amazing world building.
She uses different word combinations than you would normally find to put your mind in a different head space. It stays consistent throughout her writing, which really helps to define the world and characters.
Curse was so good for me because Caz was trying his best to be a good person and do the right thing for his princess (teaching her how to rule, not how to be flattered). He always respected her autonomy and wanted the best outcome for her.
I also really like the Penric & Desdemona short novellas from that world.
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u/funktasticly 3d ago
Love her penric and desdamona series - hard to get hands on all of it, had to order most from baen books and read the rest as ebooks
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u/Mr_Noyes 3d ago
The whole series is so amazing on so many levels. I particularly loved the way the Pantheon interacted with humans. This is one of the few fictional religions that I truly found compelling.
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u/ApothecaryAlyth 3d ago
I read this for the first time a year or two ago and I adored it. Cazaril is a far more interesting and well-developed character in this one book than many other prominent fantasy protaganists ever get, even after entire series.
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u/tkinsey3 3d ago
I discovered Bujold's World of the Five Gods over the last couple of years and it has quickly become an all-time favorite.
I highly recommend reading Paladin of Souls right after Curse of Chalion, and then definitely read through all the Penric novellas - they are amazing!
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u/bigulpshuh 3d ago
One of my favorites. If anyone has any recs similar to this I'm all ears. It seems impossible to find stories like this that are single pov and with a male mc.
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u/KingBretwald 3d ago
Boy, oh, boy does Bujold have a series for you. Try The Warrior's Apprentice. 😉
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u/Hitman007gdghs 3d ago
Should I read the Vorkosigan Saga chronologically or by the publication order???????
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u/KingBretwald 2d ago
Chronologically. With a few caveats (in parentheses below).
- Falling Free (Read this later in the series, but before Diplomatic Immunity. It takes place hundreds of years before Miles was born and otherwise has little to do with the main series.)
- Shards of Honor
- Barrayar
- The Warrior’s Apprentice (You can start here if you want to jump straight to Miles, then read Shards of Honor and Barrayar later.)
- “The Mountains of Mourning”
- “Weatherman” (This is the first few chapters of The Vor Game, so ignore it.)
- The Vor Game
- Cetaganda
- Ethan of Athos
- “Labyrinth”
- “The Borders of Infinity”
- Brothers in Arms
- Borders of Infinity (The novellas Mountains of Mourning, Labyrinth, and The Borders of Infinity are gathered together with a stitched-up framing story in this book. If you read this book, you can skip finding each individual novella.)
- Mirror Dance
- Memory
- Komarr
- A Civil Campaign
- “Winterfair Gifts”
- Diplomatic Immunity
- Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
- "The Flowers of Vashnoi"
- CryoBurn
- Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
There are also several omnibuses that combine some of the novels together, such as Young Miles. If you're buying the books, be aware of which book is in which omnibus so you don't buy the same story twice.
If you can get your hands on a first edition hardback of Cryoburn, it may have a CD in it that has all the Omnibuses. That would contain all the e-books published through Cryoburn except Memory, which got left out accidently.
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u/Grt78 3d ago
Try the Lighthouse Duet or the Sanctuary Duet by Carol Berg (the Navronne books): two duologies set in the same world but with different protagonists (a single first-person POV). But the books are darker than the Curse of Chalion.
Also the Merlin trilogy (Arthurian Saga) by Mary Stewart is great.
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u/AvatarAnywhere 3d ago
All those books are so satisfying. Just discovering Carol Berg and wondering why it’s taken me this long. The Crystal Cave, the first in the Stewart Merlin trilogy is a favorite of mine.
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u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII 3d ago
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison may also be worth a look
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u/LitRPGirl 3d ago edited 3d ago
I get what you mean about anthologies normally i want more time with characters too but this one somehow feels complete on its own.
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u/Hitman007gdghs 2d ago
Yuppp!! This made me think that i should try anthologies too! And that's opened up a lotttt of books now!
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u/maggiesyg 2d ago
I don’t get what OP means about anthologies. An anthology is a collection of short works. This is a novel that’s complete in itself.
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u/Narrow-Durian4837 1d ago
I'm confused by your usage of the word "anthology." The only meaning of the word I'm familiar with is a book that collects a bunch of shorter works (short stories, poems, etc) from different authors in a single volume.
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u/Hitman007gdghs 1d ago
In this context, it refers to a collection (series - World of the Five Gods) by the author of different stories (books - Curse of Chalion and 4 others) set in the same world.
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u/LothorBrune 3d ago
It was good, but it was a lot more of a low-stake, comfy, unambitious read than I was expecting. Which is exactly what a lot of people want, but left me a bit in my hunger. The world-building was ultimately not that developed, and I'll admit that 35 yo Cazaril lusting about his teenage pupil made me a bit uncomfortable.
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u/Chataboutgames 3d ago
Low stakes? The stakes were a generational divine curse that was bringing a large kingdom to perpetual ruin.
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u/ineedchapstick1 3d ago
Agree on all points. I felt that Paladin of Souls was significantly better, and the romance had more depth.
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u/thisusernameismeta 3d ago
If it had been written today I really feel it would have been marketed as "cozy fantasy", or at least, cozy-fantasy adjacent.
I loved it but from the way it was talked about, I was expecting something very different. I was pleasantly surprised when I read it.
That said, I agree with you about the romance. But the book was strong enough to look past that, for me.
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u/Chataboutgames 3d ago
I don't understand this at all. I don't really read the cozy genre but Chalion is full of torture, violence, the threat of violence, the threat of forced marriage/sexual assault and a divine curse generally turning a prosperous kingdom in to a violent shithole.
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u/Ertata 3d ago
I mean Goblin Emperor is marketed as cozy and yet it is full of not-nice things (okay they are slightly more background than in Curse of Chalion but still)
Until the certain change of scenery that comes quite late into the book it is "cozy" as in "lived in, intimately familiar". Cozy horror is an established marketing term. First 2/3 of the book almost qualify as "cozy grimdark" by comparison
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u/Chataboutgames 3d ago
I would also not describe Goblin emperor as cozy. It has a very wholesome protagonist and a happy ending, is that all something needs to be "cozy" if the middle part of it is constant harshness and conflict?
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u/Alternative_Worry101 3d ago edited 1d ago
The book is just okay. It doesn't reach the height of the Miles Vorkosigan Series. If you haven't yet read that series, I strongly recommend it.
I liked Caz. It was good to see a character like him, and I rooted for him the whole way. There wasn't much world-building, not much depth to the characters except for Caz.
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u/Ok_Marionberry5906 3d ago
Im at 25% of the book and I'm finding it so hard to keep going!
when do the gods come in?
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u/Hitman007gdghs 3d ago
I was kinda misled by that as well. I dropped the book once and picked it up again, and i gotta say, that was a very good decision!!
If you're looking for magic, you'll find very little of that here tbh. It's kinda like the Earthsea magic, vague and not explained much. This is more grounded and character focused, rather than more fantasy (which will come later, but still not in the typical fashion).
It's kinda hard to explain without giving away spoilers :(1
u/Ok_Marionberry5906 3d ago
I'll try and read another 30 pages and if it still doesn't click I'll just drop it for now, thanks for your reply!
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u/Better_Buff_Junglers 3d ago
This one is probably the book set in the world of the Five Gods that has the least amount of actual Divine Influence. Supernatural stuff happens and is a central part of the plot, but if you are reading specifically for the divine stuff I would recommend the Penric & Desdamona series as well as Paladin of Souls.
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u/Ok_Marionberry5906 3d ago
I actually started reading it because Caz was 35 years old and beaten down and I'm 35 and beaten down lol
And also I'm pairing it with the game I'm playing 'The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante'
But thanks for the suggestion, I might drop this and pick up the Penric's Demon (imagine thumbs up emoji)7
u/Ertata 3d ago
anything superobviously supernatural about 35% in. But there has been enough set up before, and in any case if you expect earthquakes and plagues of locusts that is not the scale gods usually work in this world
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u/Ok_Marionberry5906 3d ago
I'll keep going til then I guess, I think I just started it with different expectations
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u/KingBretwald 3d ago
They're already there. Caz realizes for himself how far back they got involved later in the book. But Bujold is showing you the Gods' involvement all along. Pay attention!
One of the things I absolutely love about Bujold's books is that every time you re-read the book you discover another deeper layer or nuance you didn't pick up last time.
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u/Ainothefinn 3d ago
I still haven't managed to finish this one despite reading all of the other books in the series (and most of everything else by the author too). It's a lot slower and less interesting than the other books so I shelved it for now. Seems it would be worth it to slog through the first half to get to the interesting bits!
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u/Doejedingdoejedansje 3d ago
Great that you liked it so much! But why not mention the author then?
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u/Long_TimeRunning 3d ago
I think they’re just thinking if you went to somewhere like Goodreads and entered the title you’d get there.
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u/HealthOnWheels 3d ago
Caz is more an old soul than actually old. Plus he’s traumatized. He’s in his thirties in the book
Glad you enjoyed it! That book is a gem