Mira's Last Dance
core novella 2017 World of the Five Gods
Record
| First published | 2017 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.23 (6,431 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 110 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781596068544 |
| Internal chronology | 8 |
Synopsis
Continuing directly from the events of the earlier novella Penric's Fox, this story follows the sorcerer Penric as he leads a small band of fugitives away from pursuing Imperial Cedonian forces. With him are Adelis Arisaydia, a disgraced general recently blinded, and his sister Nikys, who has grown close to Penric during their ordeal. Stripped of safe conduct and hunted as traitors, the group must slip through hostile territory toward the town of Sosie and on to the neutral duchy of Orbas, where Adelis hopes to find refuge. To move unnoticed past checkpoints and trackers, Penric turns to his centuries-old chaos demon Desdemona, adopting the persona and memories of Mira, one of Desdemona's earlier riders and a retired courtesan, so the party can travel disguised while danger presses close behind them.
Where it sits
- Universe: World of the Five Gods
- Series: Penric & Desdemona core; position 4 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 4 of 16: previous Penric's Mission (2016) · next Penric's Fox (2017)
- Internal chronology, within World of the Five Gods: position 8 of 19: previous Penric's Mission (2016) · next The Prisoner of Limnos (2017)
Sources
← World of the Five Gods dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.