Darksight Dare

A Penric & Desdemona Novella

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Penric takes a chance …

Two intractable problems are brought to the door of sorcerer Learned Penric of Vilnoc and his Temple demon Desdemona. Cinar Camurat, a mutilated Cedonian cavalry captain, has traveled two thousand sea miles to Penric for aid. Iva of Bita, a secret hedge sorceress, lies dying in her Orban hill village, and wants no aid at all.

Penric and Desdemona know well the hazards of medicine and magic, but their greatest puzzle may lodge in the tangle of hopes and fears in human and demonic hearts.

©2026 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2026 Blackstone Publishing

The training of a reluctant sorcerer

What might happen if a demon went into a motivated but ignorant man who didn't really want to be a sorcerer. This one is well thought out. No violence, just an interesting what if. I really enjoyed the thought process.

the overall story moves forward

Nice to see another addition to Penric's story. Liked his solution to the problem. Looking forward to the next installment

Another great Penric & Desdemona Story

Here, we have a soldier whose eyes were destroyed by an enemy that mutilates its opponents after capture. Since that soldier's commander had previously had his blindness cured by Penric, he travels a very long distance in hopes that Penric can repeat that healing. But some injuries are not healable, even by a sorcerer healer.

Penric, however, comes up with a partial solution. But the solution has its own issues.

As usual with Bujold's work, there is very strong character work with sympathetic characters. Since this is a novella, that does come at the cost of a simpler plot than in full-length novels, but the story works well in that format.

Also as usual, this book and the series get a very strong recommendation from me.

Great writing, whiny ungrateful new character

I enjoy every book Bujold writes. This one was fine, but not her best. I couldn’t get past how whiny and ungrateful this Cinar guy was.

There was never even a glimpse of why the general cared about him enough to send him to Penric, but presumably he had some redeeming character trait.

Not that you’d know it, by his endless complaining about every single thing. When his brother dropped everything in his life to care for him on the long dangerous journey, Cinar thought sour thoughts about being beholden to him. Even when he begged for and got a miracle, he was churlish about how he didn’t do it all by himself.

He didn’t even bother to care about the other person involved, gave a single insincere social nicety and then launched into demanding what he wanted. Penric actually cared, but Cinar didn’t think about anyone but himself until the very end… by which time I kind of hoped Rina would come along and take over.

Compassion and thoughtfulness

As a long time fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's writings, I have always been struck by her great skill at characterization and her ability to craft an engrossing and adventurous tale while having her characters adhere to a personal code of responsibility and respect for others. This story is no different and, as always, is creative and very entertaining. I can only hope there will be more installments of Penric and Desdemona's adventures.