So I haven’t read The Hallowed Hunt yet, but I will probably this summer. But otherwise, I don’t find the World of the Five Gods to be particularly funny. But luckily this book was funny, and it reminded me of how funny a lot of the Vorkosigan Saga is. Even the more serious books like Memory or Barryar have their moments, but the outright comedies like Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance and A Civil Campaign are not only funny, but constructed like comedies, where the stakes can be real but ultimately work out.
This book had that same feel. Bridging off the discussions of demonic possession in Paladin of Souls, this book deals more expressly with a perspective where as the reader you are privy to the internal goings on of something connected with a demon.
I said in the title of the post that this reminds me of the movie Split but as if we had the knowledge of what’s going on in James McAvoy’s head. In addition, this reminds me of the symbiotic relationship of the trill in Star Trek.
The kind of back and forth between Penric and his demon/demons is an interesting exploration. Ultimately that’s what this feels like, an exploration in the world. I don’t think that Bujold is going to expand the world out like she did with Vorkosigan, but this is fun.
For me I always wanted to have the super worms from Futurama, and maybe this is the closest I will come to having that experience.