Outside of a Dog: Bujold, Lois McMaster: (203) The Hallowed Hunt

David Tate

David Tate wrote on August 2, 2005 at 12:47 PM:

Again, I agree with pretty much everything you say. The opening scenes lacked an effective ‘hook’, and the characters of Ingrey and Ijada never quite lived up to their potential. I especially agree about the scene-stealing—the bit players were FAR more compelling than the primaries, to the extent of warping reader expectations about who would turn out to be important.

Also, it seemed to me that there was a fundamental flaw in the plotting. I don’t want to spoil the book, but I thought that the center-of-mass character’s actions were not best-chosen to accomplish his goals, and that he’d probably have pulled it off if he had stayed in character and kept to manipulation and misinformation until the last minute.

I enjoyed the book, but I rate it well below the other two overall.

Kate

Kate wrote on August 2, 2005 at 12:55 PM:

David: the complexity of Hallowed Hunt means that I’m not at all sure about the relative effectiveness of center-of-mass character’s options; also, you know, stark raving mad and all. Sadly, I’m not particularly motivated to go back and figure it out.

Alex Cohen

Alex Cohen wrote on August 6, 2005 at 1:22 PM:

An additional flaw stemming from the lovingly-painted secondary characters is that while we’re supposed to sympathize with Ingrey’s dilemma of not knowing who to trust, it’s immediately apparent that Bujold likes these particular characters and that they will be good guys. So there’s not a lot of tension in the middle section of the book where Ingrey is supposed to be navigating difficult political waters.

I thought that the c-o-m character was interesting, but his end goal seemed pretty banal, and it became undesirable only by author’s fiat so there would be a conflict.