Knot of Shadows
core novella 2021 World of the Five Gods
Record
| First published | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.28 (4,096 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 114 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781645241140 |
| Internal chronology | 13 |
Synopsis
A corpse pulled from the harbor at Vilnoc proves stranger than it first appears once Penric and Desdemona are called to examine it. Rather than a single straightforward death, the body turns out to conceal two separate people: a man killed by rare and forbidden death magic, and a ghost that has taken up residence in his corpse and continues to animate it after death. Penric and Desdemona must untangle how the death magic was used, who is responsible for the killing, and what is to be done about a ghost now unnaturally bound to a body that is no longer truly alive. The investigation draws Penric into questions of magical law and Temple doctrine surrounding death and the soul, as he works to determine the circumstances behind an unusual and troubling crime in his adopted city.
Where it sits
- Universe: World of the Five Gods
- Series: Penric & Desdemona core; position 11 of 16 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Notes
- From the series record (Penric & Desdemona): 16 novellas (2015-2026); publication order diverges from the author's own stated internal chronological order (recorded via internal chronology). Set roughly 150 years after The Hallowed Hunt and roughly 100 years before the Chalion novels. Classified Core Canon (not Expanded) because the novellas are marketed/sold as their own numbered series, are narratively load-bearing rather than side content, and the Hugo voting body treated them as full constituent parts of the universe when awarding the 2018 Hugo Best Series to the whole World of the Five Gods.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Penric & Desdemona: position 11 of 16: previous The Assassins of Thasalon (2021) · next Demon Daughter (2024)
- Internal chronology, within World of the Five Gods: position 13 of 19: previous The Assassins of Thasalon (2021) · next Demon Daughter (2024)
Sources
← World of the Five Gods dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.