Legacy (2007 novel)

infobox Book |
name = Legacy


image_caption = Cover of first edition (hardbound)
author = Lois McMaster Bujold
cover_artist = Julie Bell
country = United States
language = English
series = The Sharing Knife, Vol. 2
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Eos (HarperCollins)
release_date = July, 2007
media_type = Print Hardbound & Paperback & Audiobook
pages = 377 pp (first edition, hardbound)
isbn = ISBN-10 0-0611-3905-X
preceded_by = Beguilement
followed_by = Passage

"The Sharing Knife: Legacy" is a fantasy novel by Lois McMaster Bujold, published in 2007.

Plot synopsis

Legacy is the immediate sequel to Beguilement in the Sharing Knife series. It follows the fraught pairing of Farmer's daughter Fawn and Lakewalker maverick Dag to his clan's home camp at Hickory Lake, where they find the expected prejudices against miscegenation between Farmers and Lakewalkers. Fawn carries her heroine role through by thinking out a way to revive him, along with several other Lakewalkers who have been entranced in the mud-man-making process left behind after Dag has carried his hero role through by killing an extremely advanced malice.

Neither achievement carries enough weight with Dag's brother and mother to make them relent in their efforts to break this pairing. These two carry the role of villains, but drawn so that the reasons for their awkward quirks are clear. The intricate swirl of weak and strong characters portrayed in this small community should be familiar to any observer of the human condition.

Lakewalker customs are as open to asinine purposes as are our laws. The Dag-and-Fawn combination raises enough awkward precendents that they are about to be voted into exile when Dag subverts the process, stating that he intends to leave his home community in any case. Dag and Fawn then take as many mobile assets as they can and set out in chosen exile towards the southeast. There, Dag guesses he may be able to confirm his ideas about the near kinship of Farmers to Lakewalkers, and to find ways to combine their efforts toward the eradication of malices. These themes will presumably unfold in the next pair of books.