Penric’s Demon

Lois McMaster Bujold
Completed 1/5/2026, Reviewed 1/5/2026
3 stars

I liked this first in a long series of novellas by the author of the Vorkosigan series and the World of the Five Gods: Chalion series.  This series takes place in the latter’s universe.  Everything about it reminds me about Bujold’s prior prose and universe building.  It’s well-written and extremely detailed.  However, in this first volume, I felt that it was almost all world-building and very little plot.  While that was great for character development of Penric and his demon Desdemona, it lacked the punch to keep me engrossed. 

Penric is a nineteen-year-old who is on a journey to meet the young woman he’s betrothed to.  Along the way, he stops at what looks like a carriage accident.  Instead, he finds an older woman barely hanging on to life lying alongside the road with her entourage unsure of what to do.  He approaches her, hoping to offer help.  As she dies, a demon transfers itself from her to Penric.  Knocked out, he’s rushed to the next town only to find that the demon is from the 5th god, the Bastard, who is known mostly for disruption and chaos.  While recuperating and as the demon herself recuperates from the transfer, they start to learn about each other and the powers that Penric will obtain from her.  This leads to a plot by several people who believe that they are better qualified to be the vessel of the demon than Penric and the only way to transfer the demon again is to kill him.  

My biggest issue as I mentioned above is that most of the book is about Penric waiting around for some sort of instructions for getting the demon out or learning to live with it.  He’s barred from looking at the books he needs, particularly the ones written by the dead woman who it turned out was a sorceress herself.  They contain many things she learned over her life housing the demon within her.  However, he establishes a rather naïve rapport with the demon, calling it Desdemona after finding out she is actually comprised of about twelve demons.  Des is touched by Penric and becomes protective of him in return for his care for her/them.  It all sounds interesting in a few lines, but spread over many pages, it felt very slow paced.  

After a while, you feel like something has to happen before the end, and it does.  It’s somewhat exciting, but felt like an obligatory add-on to keep the reader engaged.  Despite feeling meh about Bujold’s decision to make this simply a discovery story, I kinda liked it.  I’ve very interested in the rest of the series.  I’m reading the first two in the series for a third book club I belong to.  It’s just me and a good friend reading SF and Fantasy series that may or may not have been started in on-line book club.  So I’ll probably get to the next couple of volumes in the near future.  I’m glad I am, because Penric is actually the first male main character I’ve liked by Bujold.  I did think he sounded younger than nineteen in his naïveté, but overall, he seems like a good kid.  I give this book three stars out of five.