It was wildly popular, with many manuscript and printed copies. Two of the fifteenth century manuscripts were fully glossed, by two different people, while the events were still contemporaneous, so we can know without supposition what was meant.

Sometimes motivations from that long ago are incomprehensible. This is comprehensible, but jawdroppingly weird.

Later in life Gonzalo took to training condottieri and conquistadors. He died old and in great honor.

alcalde (mayor)
azotar (to lash)
asesino (assassin)
alfil (chessman)
hasta (until)
ojalá (hopefully) (Literally "O Allah," as in "would to God.")
aciete (olive oil)
almohada (pillow)
azúcar (sugar)
rehén (hostage)
adobe (adobe)
café (coffee)
alcázar (fortress)

Pretty much any Spanish word beginning with al- and a whole bunch beginning with a- are of Arabic origin.

FWIW, El Gran Capitán spoke Arabic as well as Spanish.

Thanks for posting this kind of thing, Jim.

It was theatre as ritual (and as-you-know-Bob, theatre has its roots in ritual) -- that which is done in symbolic representation becomes done in reality.

Change that last one to "and that he was born in Kenya" and it sounds all too modern a list....

The contemporary slang usage of "drama" also seems to be quite appropriate.

I haven't cosplayed in nearly 30 years, but if I ever did I would be Ista.

The Curse of Chalion has the most irresistible opening I've ever read. I picked it up at the bookstore and I was GONE before I got to the end of the second page.

I like The Curse of Chalion.

I love Paladin of Souls. It was good the first time through. It deepens on rereading, at least for me, and I've developed an abiding respect and fondness for Ista.

I also liked The Hallowed Hunt least on first reading but found that it deepened on rereading (which I almost didn't do, as it didn't really call to me). Ingrey is in some ways a counterpart of Ista; both books are stories of people breaking free of the constraints imposed on them by their societies and their well-meaning relatives, although the specific constraints are very different. Ingrey is such a closed-down character; his very life has depended for so long on being private and controlled, and his breaking free comes in a series of small and subtle steps. It's unfortunate that this leaves him subject to being upstaged by the supporting characters, who are uncommonly vivid. Bujold is good at secondary characters, but they really shine here.

But they are all solid, well-written fantasies, and I too found myself hearing echoes of Curse while reading Jim's summation of the Farce of Avila . . .

When she went home with the marriage annulled, Castile didn't give those lands back.

Poor Blanche wound up as a prisoner in Navarre for the rest of her life.

27: Xopher, me too. I loved that bit.

When political theory evolved to the point that power transferred instantly from dead king to live one with no transition period, the effigies fell out of use.

He was also accused of capricious taxation and profligate spending. Determining exactly what Enrique did or didn't do can be a bit of a puzzle. Isabel, who followed him, had motivation to make sure that his daughter Juana was not the legitimate heir, and she owned the chroniclers. Figuring out Enrique's reign is rather like using Holinshed's Chronicles as a source on the later Plantagenets.

Your major chronicler of the Queen's party was Alonso de Palencia, who described himself as a humble "seeker of the truth," but has been more accurately described as "subtle and poisonous."

Speaking of Alonsoes, Alonso (or Alfonso) Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, had been the president of the Castillian delegation at the Council of Basle (formed to deal with the Hussite problem), a council which had attempted to depose the Pope.

-------------

You won't find a lot of Moorish names in Spain after the Reconquista. Anyone with an Arabic-sounding name ... changed it.

But then, I also read the books as theological allegories, each with its own virtue - Courage, Forgiveness, and Mercy, in order. On another board, when I brought this up, LMB's response was "Huh. You don't always see stuff close up, but it can be seen further out." Another poster objected to my using Christian virtues, and then we were off, with LMB bringing up the nine-hour video version of the Mahabharata as evidence that the idea of theological virtues is not exclusively Christian.

But yes, Curse of Chalion broke my brain in a very good way when I first read it. Naq gur Jvsr bs Ongu in Paladin broke it all over again.

The Jvsr bs Ongu really, really amused me.

IIUC she had intended to write one for each of the Five Gods, but either didn't have stories to tell for the Mother and Father or the series wasn't popular enough.

LMB was just Guest of Honor at Baycon, and the podcast "Sword and Laser" interviewed her. One of the audience questions was whether she was going to do more in that world; her answer boiled down to "I haven't got a story yet." It's currently the top entry at swordandlaser.com, and you can go directly to the mp3 at this link.

The Daughter's book? Can't see it. Make your case.

[Done. -- Prostt Cumot, Duty Gnome]

The Bastard is important to the story, yes, but the Daughter even more so.

As for CoC being the Daughter's book: Herself has stated it, on her mailing list, I think. Naq gur "ubyr" gung gur fbhyf naq gur qrzba jrag guebhtu jnf abg znqr ol nal tbq. Vg jnf znqr ol Pnm'f fbhy. Gur cbvag vf znqr gung gur tbqf npghnyyl pna'g nssrpg gur jbeyq bs znggre - gurl pna bayl jbex guebhtu crbcyr. Gung'f jul Pnm arrqrq uvf guerr qrnguf, "sbe gur cenpgvpr".

You should definitely re-read. This discussion is making me want to do so (again)!

I don't think it is. That line is frequently quoted and I think LMB started it, but it's not what I see. Her approach is: "What's the worst thing that this person could survive -- and learn from?"

That's a quite general principle of making a story. There's a variation in Lester Dent's guide to writing pulp fiction. The story is structured as a series of problems for the hero to overcome, and they're never easy.

Yeah, that series is essentially everything I know about the history Jim is discussing here. Its like readinga discussion of Roman history and all you know about it is from seeing a couple Shakespeare plays covering the same span of time.

Paladin of Souls took me longer to get into, but caught me after a bit.

I really like The Hallowed Hunt as well. It wasn't what I was expecting after TCoC and PoS, , but I liked Ingrey right from the start, which helped. I see that in Jo Walton's review over on the Tor site she says she never did really like him, and she thinks she would have enjoyed the book more if she had - so maybe that's a big factor in whether or not people like this book - if they like Ingrey and Ijada and care about them, then they like the book more.

[A comma with a space to either side. Odd spacing is a typical feature of mad-lib spam. -- Ludgens Borso, Duty Gnome]

Gur gurbybtl va gur obbx (naq frevrf) pyrneyl fgngrf gung gur Onfgneq rkvfgf gb onynapr gur Zbgure/Sngure/Fba/Qnhtugre naq gung nyy zntvp/qrzbaf naq zntvp yvxr guvatf ner bjarq/znavchyngrq ol gur Onfgneq. Vg'f vf nyfb pyrneyl fgngrq gung gur Onfgneq vf gur tbq bs ynfg erfbeg, nzbat bgure guvatf, urapr gur fhpprffshy qrngu phefr gung Pnm qvfpbiref va gur ortvaavat. Gur snpg gung gur obbx ortvaf ba gur rir bs Qnhtugre'f Qnl naq gung nyy gur tbbq guvatf gung unccra gb Pnm bevtvangr sebz n qvfpvcyr bs/orybirq bs gur Qnhtugre naq gung Pnm cenlf gb gur qnhtugre ba frireny bppnfvbaf chgf uvz naq gur obbx fdhneryl va Qnhtugre'f grzcyr.

Xopher Halftongue @ 43
and several other characters are His creatures too.

Gur bayl punenpgre jub pynvzrq npdhnvagnapr jvgu be qribgvba gb gur Onfgneq jnf gur Onfgneq'f npbylgr. Ur jnf nyfb gur bar jub rkcynvarq gb Pnmnevy gung ur tnir bss gur pbybef oyhr (sbe gur Qnhtugre) naq juvgr (sbe gur Onfgneq) sbe gubfr jvgu gur Fvtug gb frr gur tbqf-gbhpurq. Rirelbar ryfr jnf pynvzrq ol rvgure gur Sngure, Zbgure be Fba. Lrf, vg jnf gur Onfgneq'f qrzbaf gung Pnm jnf pneelvat nebhaq va uvf oryyl, ohg vg jnf gur Qnhtugre'f (naq Pnm'f) jvyy gung xrcg gubfr qrzbaf sebz rfpncvat. Cyhf, jura Pnm qvrq, ur jnf gnxra hc ol gur qnhtugre naq fubja ure svryq bs sybjref.

Can't remember if I read it on a Bujold site or if it was something Pat Wrede wrote or both, but the germ for Hallowed Hunt appears to have come from a book on Wrede's desk that Bujold borrowed before Wrede got around to reading it. It was called Mad German Kings or title to that effect--and I don't think they were talking about Ludwig II.

That is an interesting response. (I know, "interesting" is a wave-off word...) The thematic point of the Five Gods series is a theistic universe in which humans *have* free will -- as opposed to the shallow rendering of generic-imitation fantasy, where the gods are vastly powerful (if not all-powerful) but still leave the plot resolution up to human beings because of genre convention.

Real-life theists have spent some time grappling with the question too, of course. Answers such as "you wouldn't understand how it works" (ineffability) and "actually, you don't have free will" (Calvinism) are rarely regarded as satisfying. Nor has a-theism become all that popular, although I'm sure I'm not the only one on this thread who leans that way.

The idea Bujold works through is a rarely-struck middle note in which the gods can *only* meddle, and then only if people consent.

The Farce is presented in Episode 2 of that series.

The first thing that struck me about the show was the thick Castillian accents of the actors. Then I facepalmed, because of course....

Yes, for much of the book it was a little unclear to me just who was Caz's patron, given the presence of both white (Bastard) and blue (Daughter), and that his primary theological adviser ends up being a saint of the Bastard. The major positive events in the book, though, are almost all Daughter based, and it's very clear at the end that he's the Daughter's; the white was because of the event with the demon. He not only sees the Daughter and Her garden, he flat-out says that he's going to Her garden when he dies. Though it confused me for a bit, because he called her the Lady, making me wonder if he was talking about the Mother. I'd love to see a Mother book, not just because hey! Chalion!, but because I think it would be fascinating to see how and if she resolves the potential ambiguity about the word "Lady".

As for the free will thing, that's specifically addressed in the book: the saint of the Bastard (whom I'm not naming because a) spelling and b) spoilers) muses on all the hundreds of "Caz's" that may have been nudged to start on the path that Caz eventually took, and how the rest of these theoretical Caz's all, at some point, said "no". Or at least didn't say "yes". The gods can clearly influence events, but the reaction to those events is up to the human involved, and they can do almost (but not quite) nothing without direct human aid. This preserves at least some free will both for the gods and for the humans.

It's a fascinating theology, really. I really like the take on the Saints. And how the religious establishment doesn't understand them at all.

[Yeah. Specifically, an exclamation point followed by a comma. Odd punctuation doesn't get on the list by accident: Each example is taken from actual spam that's hit us, and not just once. To quote in full a mad-lib spam that arrived just 48 minutes ago that tripped this very filter: hi!,I love your writing very much! proportion we communicate extra approximately your post on AOL? I require an expert in this area to unravel my problem. Maybe that's you! Taking a look ahead to peer you. -- Morix Cuisoonar, Duty Gnome]

Yep, and I remember thinking "WTF is this accomplishing" when I saw it. I kept wishing for a "slow down 30%" button while watching the series, but over time, I found both the unfamiliar accents and the unfamiliar ways of speaking ("vuestra magistad") got easier to understand. And fundamentally, soap operas are just *better* with swords and poisoning and Vatican politics.

And that explains the only soap opera I ever followed—I, Claudius. (You have to take the Vatican part of your formula anachronistically, but geographically it works.)

That first sentence calls irresistibly to mind Harold Hill's line about horse-race gamblin': "Not a wholesome trotting race, no, but a race where they set down right on a horse." ("Make your blood boil? Well, I should say!")

Uh-oh, now I'm earwormed by:

"Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He sees,
Yours are the feet with which He walks,
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world...."

(To a god): "You want something. The god's tongues can grow quite honeyed when they want something. When I wanted something--when I prayed on my face, arms outflung, in tears and abject terror--for _years_--where were You then? Where were the gods the night [redacted] died?"

(from the god) "The Son of Autumn dispatched many men in answer to your prayers, sweet [redacted]. They turned aside upon their roads, and did not arrive. For He could not bend their wills, nor their steps. And so they scattered to the winds as leaves do."

And then the god twists the knife, telling the character that someone else has been praying, in equally dark despair, and the character is, or can be, the answer to that prayer. "Will you turn aside? As [redacted]'s deliverance did? At the last, with so few steps left to travel?"

The gods may not be able to force people to do things, but the evidence suggests they manipulate really, really well.

(On a side note, I think that Granny Weatherwax would have absolutely no use for him under any circumstances, but that Nanny Ogg would see him as something she could work with or on. Depending on her stock of potatoes and sharpened sticks, because her cooking is never going to interfere with the Rincewind Prime Directive of get back to the Library where he's safe.)

And whatever you've got, he'll always win, because he's got the whole world in his hand.

He's got the ones and the zeroes ^x, in his hands ^x.

I have a sense memory of having heard Bujold read it. I think maybe at a MileHiCon in 2000 or '01. "Poor guy. All he wants is a rest, and he has the misfortune to wander into my brain."

She says that, but she doesn't mean it, IMO. Because ISTM the worst thing she could do to Miles is to divide his loyalty to Barrayar and his loyalty to Gregor. Which could also be the worst thing she could do to Gregor: making his lifelong fear (or at least since he learned some disturbing things about his father) come true.

Mad Emperor Gregor.

(Several paragraphs of elaboration cut, since this is somewhat off-topic in the first place. Suffice it to say that this has plenty of potential to be horrible to everyone involved.)

I actually kind of want to read it, but it would be much more horrible than anything Miles has gone through so far.

Rincewind's not Fate's pawn - he's the Lady's pawn (which is to say Luck's pawn) in her games with Fate; that is, he's the wild card, the chance factor, in the works.

I had thought that Holytree was based on Irminsul, but some quick googling turns up a Wikipedia page claiming that the Royal Frankish Annals state that it was Charlemagne who destroyed the original (?) Irminsul, so I guess we get two references for the price of one.

Although there doesn't seem to be as much religious difference between Audar and the Wealdings as there was between Charlemagne and the Saxons -- more like worshipping the same gods in different ways, not that that has historically been much less of a reason for humans to make war on each other than actually separate religions have been.

Thanks for catching that--it's been several years since I read the book and I misremembered who the player was. (When it comes to the rest of the universe, Rincewind is always the one being played.)

Then I read the cover-flap blurb and got such an overwhelming "Oh, God, not another stupid Wheel of Time retread" feel from it that I RETURNED THE BOOK and couldn't force myself to read it for another six months, until all my other Bujold-loving friends pestered me to trust her.

Worst. Blurb. Ever.

See, that was your mistake right there. If you're already familiar with the author, or have some other reason to believe the book's worth reading, there's nothing left for the blurb to do: at best it will do nothing, at worst it will put you off. Save it for some day after you've read the book, when you're feeling curious about how badly wrong it is.

My Bujold blurb experience was on the front cover of her first book:
"Trapped in an endless war without victory or glory, and only one thing left worth fighting for...

SHARDS OF HONOR"

Didn't sound at all like my kind of thing, put me off her for literally years. I didn't find out about her till she started publishing in Analog (which I subscribed to at the time) in the early nineties.

The text on the back cover is written by someone at the publishing house, not by some author asked for a blurb, right? So why would they not have bothered reading the book? I mean, at the point you're publishing the thing, I imagine there are multiple editors/proofreaders who have read through the book pretty carefully--is there some reason why none of them can write something minimally sensible to put on the cover?