Review: Penric's Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold

[x_los]

Lois McMaster Bujold’s novella Penric’s Demon is essentially a Venom AU. It was published two years before the film was released, so any influence must have come via the comic, if indeed such a direct connection exists. Tonally, the book isn’t quite what I imagined Bujold would be like, given her reputation. That may just be because this is a side project rather than an entry in Bujold’s most popular, ‘Heyer-in-space’ series. It’s a good, listenable length (and my first proper borrow via the library’s audiobook service), but the prose could be a bit springier, or more arresting. The pacing could similarly be better.

There’s a rather fun moment when the host sleepily tries to jack off. The demon, which has always been hosted by women before now, is like ‘oo, let’s see it, go on then, this should be interesting—;

Penric: … the mood has left me. For some unaccountable reason.

It’s oddly self-consciously het, for ‘basically a Venom AU’. THE DEMON WHO ABSORBS THE SOULS OF PEOPLE IT SPENDS TIME IN IS DEFINITELY A GIRL, DON'T GET IT TWISTED—

‘And how will that go after this host dies, the demon absorbs his ladly essence and then passes on to some other host?’ 
‘Shhhh.‘ 

And what does the composite spirit of ten women, a lioness and a doe enjoy looking at? That’s right, MEN!! (Human.)’ Buddy, you’re telling me that not a one of these women was a gayist? A shrimp fried this rice? Not credible.

They’re in a pretty ‘sexwork is standard’ culture. A former host, whose personality is now embodied within the essentially-Trill-demon, was a courtesan in life. She makes a comment that if they need money, Penric is hot. They can go to the bathhouse and get some fast cash. Is that like, a soft gay joke? It doesn’t read cruel, but it does read like—the humour of the remark would derive from the threat of sex work, and potentially of specifically queer sex work (or am I supposed to believe his bathhouse services would just be on offer for female clients?). I’m told Bujold elsewhere toys with sex and gender questions a lot, but never actually crosses the line in-text, in strange ways. It's interesting that False Colours, written by a raging Tory about 50 years earlier and set in 1780ish, does not sound any *less* gay than Bujold is willing to go.

I kind of wonder how the marriage plot logics of Penric/Demon are going to be carried out sexually in later books. I’m not introducing that element at all—the novella’s quite interested in this framing. Would they seek proxies, or carry this out via masturbation? It seems unlikely that they’d mutually cultivate a relationship with a third (presumably female) party, which is very much another way this story could go in a different writer’s hands. (And if they’re using essentially proxies, 'poly' is not really necessarily the word for it: the two of them would Experience Sex via non-relationship partners, while the Relationship would only consist of them.) The demon doesn't seem interested in sex with people in women’s bodies, and Penric doesn’t seem interested in sex with people in men’s, so who knows how these Jack Spratt and Wife fuckers are going to roll with this one.

My point being, this is an odd level of anxiety about the prospect of queerness, if halfway through the first book I’ve ever read of hers, I found this element jarringly present.

After I finished the book, I found myself unable to really describe Penric in a meaningful way (despite the close POV throughout the novella). The climactic betrayal was executed by Penric’s flatmate of one week, so there was no great reservoir of feeling for Bujold to draw on there. The more I thought about the story after finishing, the more it struck me that no one in the whole book gives much evidence of having a strong relationship they care about with anyone, or even deeply-held goals, exactly. We’re not just speaking of a character and a POV, here: the book isn’t structured by any ambient meaningful relationships. They don’t crop up in the background, even. No one is close friends with anyone, no one really likes her little sister, no one is noticeably into their spouse. Hard Aro World. I can’t wave that away as a POV character thing, because it’s quite materially impactful. Since no one in this book really cares about anyone or anything, I’m at a loss as to what resonances my investment in the text is supposed to derrive from.

Comments

[kiezh]

I bounced off the Penric series and stopped reading them after the first... two, I guess? They felt very bloodless and uninspiring to me, and I used to consider LMB my favorite author and eagerly await every new release.

In my opinion, the last great book she wrote was Paladin of Souls in 2003 (sequel to Curse of Chalion, also excellent), and everything after that was a huge drop in quality and intensity. She famously used to use "what's the worst thing I can do to this character?" as a plot generator, and then at some point she (IMO, YMMV, etc.) stopped making her characters struggle for things they desperately wanted, and everything went flat. Makes me sad.

You're right that she's not good at queerness and shies away from obvious (to a queer fanfic fan) possibilities, despite her fascination with a lot of adjacent topics about intimacy and identity.

"Heyer-in-space" is a mind-bogglingly weird description of the Vorkosigan Saga. I am baffled and assume some fannish-osmosis game of telephone happened there. There's... one comedy-of-manners book where she acknowledges Heyer, among others, as an influence? But that's very much a style departure from the military/political space opera before it, and romance is generally a subplot that serves plot/theme, rather than the plot existing to frame a romance. (I'm not saying romance is in any way lower or lesser than plot-focused sf - I read way too much romantic fanfic for that! But I feel like a reader going into Vorkosigan books wanting Regency romance in space would be very disappointed by how much they are NOT romance genre and have different priorities.)

[x_los]

Mm, at some point I'll look more at her earlier work, then. Some writers do have fallow periods, for sure.

That's so interesting, re the description not ringing true at all, because I've been told it a LOT!