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The Hallowed Hunt | 
 enlarge | Author: Lois Mcmaster Bujold
Publisher: Eos
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 191042
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 3.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060574747
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060574741
ASIN: 0060574747
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New book. WE USE PRIORITY AIRMAIL ONLY for books from the USA. UK & European delivery is 7-10 days. Over 2,000,000 books sold to Amazon customers
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 best to make your own mind up April 5, 2007
Paul Tapner (poole dorset england)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Multiple award winning science fiction writer lois mcmaster bujold brings us another in a series of fantasy novels she is currently writing. In this story a troubled lord is sent to escort a beautiful lady who has been arrested for murder back to a city where she will face judgement.
I thoroughly enjoyed paladin of souls, the previous volume in this series - although they do pretty much stand on their own and you don't have to have read any of the others to get into this one - because the characters were well drawn and original and you cared what happened to them. The characters in this volume failed to engage me, as they felt rather cliched. It also suffers from a lack of action, and the whole characters being bonded with animals thing - the main character having such a bond with a wolf - felt like something I'd read in too many other books.
Whilst still a fairly decent read this isn't up to the standard of her previous work as a result. But since the reviews here seem to be split down the middle I would say that if you've enjoyed her past work this is worth picking up and reading, and thus making up your own mind about. If you haven't, then start with the curse of chalion, the first in the series, and work on from there.
As a result, you won't need to give me an unhelpful vote just because you don't like what I've said, will you?
 Brilliant - better than the last two February 4, 2007
Castlelioness (Sussex, UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is a wonderful example of how a fantasy book should be. It is a beautiful combination of magic, mystery, romance and political intrigue with a bit of horror thrown in as well.
The story centres around Ingrey kin Wolfcliff (NOT Wilfcliff as the back cover stupidly proclaims!), a lord sent to escort the body of a prince to its rightful burial place in the capital city of Easthome. He soon discovers that the events which caused the prince's death are far from simple and involved dangerous ancient magic which has been forbidden for centuries. Ingrey comes to sympathize with Prince Boleso's killer, Lady Ijada, and they both end up realising that their experiences with this dark, necromantic magic have only just begun...
Overall, this book combines the complex politics from The Curse of Chalion and the necromantic spirit-magic from Paladin of Souls. In my opinion, this helps to make it the best book of the series. The use of language shows off the author's talent beautifully; both the descriptive prose and the dialogue are, in my opinion, exceptional. I particularly enjoyed reading the tense conversations between Ingrey and the various possible enemies he deals with.
As with its predecessors, The Hallowed Hunt has a very well written and original main character. Ingrey is an engaging character because he manages to get through the tangle of perilous situations that his calculating foes have trapped him in, mostly using nothing more than his sharp intelligence and his dry sense of humour. I have found that too many heroes in fantasy are either really smug and annoying (e.g. Richard Cypher), or seem to only get through trouble through luck or coincidence, but this doesn't happen with Ingrey.
One of the main things I found interesting about this book was the fact that many of the characters often had more horrific fates than death to fear. This helped to give Ingrey and Ijada's story a real sense of threat and desperation which meant that I genuinely feared for them all the way through. In fact, at times I thought that, if it wasn't for the light relief provided by the brilliant cast of secondary characters, the sinister spirit-magic elements could have made this book too dark to be enjoyable.
There is only one very small negative point I can make about this book (apart from the previously mentioned typing error!); I've read way too many fantasy novels involving wolves, and leopards (this may sound like a random animal to appear in so many books but I have read of were-leopards, daemon leopards and giant talking snow leopards recently! What is wrong with other big cats!) and both of these animals feature strongly in it. Of course, this will not bother you if you have not read as many of these books as I have, but I was slightly disappointed that the author chose to use such cliché fantasy animals.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy written with subtlety and intelligence. Reading the previous books would definitely help your understanding of this book, but is not essential.
Beautiful December 16, 2006
Magpie (Kendal, UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Based on previous reviewer's comments I wasn't going to buy this third instalment in the Chalion Series. I'm so glad I went with my instincts though. Yes this is different from The Curse of Chalion & Paladin of Souls but it's like comparing classical greek and ancient britain - different but equally beautiful.
Unlike it's two predecessors the romance isn't denied by it's protagonists -there is a clear attraction between the main hero & heroine although he does try and ignore their attraction because he is her warden escorting her to her probable death.
This novel is still set within the larger world of Chalion & Paladin but is no longer based around Chalion-Ibra and instead moves to a land on the other side of Darthaca. At the start of this novel the five gods are relatively new to the inhabitants of the land (by relatively I mean only a couple of centuries) they introduction was via a bloody battle where the Hallowed King (the leader of fighters who are imbued with the spirits of animals) was slain, but not slain. However with his apparent defeat the practice of taking the within a person the spirit of an animal was stopped and those that, like the protagonists of this novel, find themselves the bearer of such gifts come under severe disapproval and harsh methods of control by the (in my opinion - misguided) divines of the five gods.
This book was full of wonderful concepts such as poet-prince with his gift of the (quite mad) ice-bear to the Bastard Temple & the pregnant Temple-Sorcerer who is a catalyst for chaos thanks to her demon possession. The Bastard again is featured and I get the impression that the authour is as fond of this god as most of her readers are! and we are finally introduced to the Son who has been largely passed over in previous books.
The final scene on the ancient battlefield of Holytree (so named because volunteer matyrs would hang themselves from branches to take the prayers of their people to the gods personally) is both exciting and full of pathos.
Please do not dismiss this book, it is on its own term alone irrespective of being part of a fantastic series, a wonderful read, and is one I return to with pleasure.
Disappointing August 7, 2006
bluecougar25 (Liverpool, UK)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
As a long-standing Vorkosigan fan I was thrilled with the absolute skill Bujold brought to the fantasy side of things with Curse of Chalion, which is beautifully crafted with convincing characters, a great new world to explore and some very intriguing aspects to the five god system of religion. Paladin of Souls wasn't quite up to that standard, but the unusual heroine (50 plus widowed ladies seldom get such active roles) kept it fresh.
Hallowed Hunt is a good read, and explores more of the relationship between the gods and their chosen.. victims, I think is a good word, and focusses more on the idea of demon posession which we met in Paladin. Compared to the other two it seemed lacking however, the characters and plot didn't engage quite so much: the viking-style character with his huge white bear is a genius invention, and I did like the very pregnant saint, but the protagonist and his quest and his lady love failed to become important to me. Enjoyable, yes, but Hallowed Hunt has fallen into the category of "sequel" rather too easily. If the other two books hadn't been so outstanding, this might have got a higher rating; as it is, read, enjoy, but don't expect it to become a firm favourite to revisit with glee.
A reading ride March 4, 2006
Philip (Montana)
3 out of 23 found this review helpful
The Hallowed Hunt is a beautiful and fast-paced fantasy and sci-fi story filled with action, adventure and mystery. Like Heart Stroke,Triple Agent double Cross, Irresistible Forces, Usurper and Others, The Shadow of Saganami, the reader gets thrilled until the last page.
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