The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
1a. Plot:
The life of Lupe de Cazaril seems to be going from bad to worse. A younger son of minor landowning nobility, he has made a career as an officer in the army of Chalion, a small landlocked kingdom at the heart of the Ibran Peninsula. Betrayed after a long siege, instead of being ransomed with his fellow officers, he was sold as a galley slave. He expected to die on the galleys but after a year was rescued and made his way back to the province of Boacia, where he did his military training in his youth.
The Dowager Provincara of Boacia takes pity on Cazaril, and offers him a job as the Secretary/Tutor to her headstrong granddaughter, Issele. Cazaril’s hopes of a life of rural obscurity are shattered when Iselle and her brother Teidez are summoned to the court of the Roya of Chalion, their half-brother Oricio di Chalion.
Teidez is to be heir to the Royacy and whilst younger than his sister, is seen as a major player in the politics of of the Ibran peninsula. His older sister Iselle on the other hand is regarded as a mere pawn. Cazaril becomes entangled in a deadly curse hanging over the royal house of Chalion and comes face to face with the authors of his misfortunes, the powerful di Jironal brothers.
At Court, Iselle, proves that she is more than a simple pawn, as she transverses the dangerous chessboard to becomes a Queen.
b. Background Information:
Chalion is based firmly on the balkanized mediaeval Spain prior to Ferdinand and Isabella. However,
as can be seen by the map drawn by the fan artist Bo Johansson, the geography is very different. Chalion is part of the Ibran peninsular, which is the shape of Spain and Portugaul, but attached to what we would call North America, where Florida should be. As can be seen from the map on the left, various changes have been made to the Gulf of Mexico to accommodate the story. All the Americas have been spun through 180 degrees north to south and east to west., whilst Saharan North Africa has being slapped into the Caribbean, creating the Roknari Archipelago.
Instead a single god, this world has five deities, the Father of Winter, Mother of Summer, Son of Autumn, Daughter of Spring and The Bastard. These gods cannot interfere directly with the affairs of man, they must work through hands and eyes of the faithful. However, the Roknari who are equivalent of mediaeval Moorish Muslims believe that the Bastard is merely a demon and worshipping him as a god is deeply offensive to the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter.
In the World of Chalion, only one sort of magic works. This is Death Magic, where a Supplicant believes that his case is so strong that he or she is willing to sacrifice their life to the Bastard and that the Bastard will reward the sacrifice by taking the life of whoever has wronged the Supplicant. Performing the ritual of Death Magic is strictly forbidden by law. This filters out any bogus attempts and helps to prove that the Supplicant was performing an act of divine justice and not petty revenge.
2. Thoughts:
I am not a great fan of the Fantasy genre, in fact with the exception of David Eddings and Terry Pratchett, the genre bores me rigid. Orcs and magic, swords and sorcery just are not my cup of tea. Which is why, despite the fact that Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors, it has taken me so long to discover her fantasy novels. I really should have known that The Curse of Chalion was not going to be the average magic driven, pseudo mediaeval sub tolkienesque quest, because her SF novels transcend the macho military space opera genre. In The Curse of Chalion, we see a rich and layered society that is rational where magic is an extension of religious faith and is kept to a minimum. The politics of Chalion and neighbouring Ibra provide the engine that drives this plot.

Cover Artwork Copyright: Voyager ©2003
This is a novel all about faith. Faith in yourself, faith in your god and faith in your purpose. This may make the novel sound as dull as ditch-water, but this is very far from being the case. The allegory for faith used throughout the novel is that you cannot fill a goblet through its stem, you have to turn it over and fill it through the top. That once you have faith in something and demonstrate your faith in it, then you can fill yourself with that faith to overflowing, and there is nothing you cannot then achieve. The characters really come alive as they discover their purpose in life and the faith that will help them achieve that purpose. Cazaril believes that his life is effectively over, but it is not until he sees the full measure of the corruption at the heart of Chalion and has faith in himself that he becomes active in changing the situation. Iselle thinks of herself as a mere pawn in the Affairs of State, but it is not until her eyes are openned to the World through education that she believes that she too can make a difference to Chalion and the whole of the Ibran Peninsular. When Umegat, a priest of the Bastard sees his life work destroyed, the resultant loss of faith almost destroys him. Faith seen in The Curse of Chalion transcends mere religious belief, merely going through the motions and following all the prescribed religious rituals is not enough. Faith in what you are doing and what you actually believe in has to be so strong that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of others, as can be seen in the use of Death Magic. This point is driven home when Cazaril describes a scene where at the height of the siege of Gotoroget, he throws away the symbol that binds him to the Son of Autumn and says to the Gods that he will do whatever they want of him if his people are saved from the horrors they are enduring. Shortly there after, the siege is lifted, and Cazaril begins the life changing journey chronicled in this novel.
I have a habit of reading novels and then casting them as feature films, so that I have an actorial avatar to hang my image of the character upon. This was not necessary with The Curse of Chalion, as all the characters sprung fully formed from the page. The opening paragraph describes a rural scene in early spring vividly, and sets the atmosphere so well that I was hooked from page one. The rest of the writing is just as visual and is a pleasure to read out loud, either for its own sake, or for an enraptured audience.
3. Stars:
5 out of 5
At 8am on Friday, 5th February, 2010:
Weight: 18St 0.4lb (114.5Kg)






