Penric's Mission
core novella 2016 World of the Five Gods
Record
| First published | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.34 (7,034 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 139 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781596068445 |
| Internal chronology | 7 |
Synopsis
In the third Penric and Desdemona novella, Penric is dispatched undercover to the neighboring realm of Cedonia on a delicate mission to secretly recruit the exiled general Adelis Arisaydia to a cause opposed to the current Cedonian regime. His cover is blown, and he is thrown into a supposedly escape-proof dungeon to await judgment. When Adelis himself is captured and blinded by his enemies, Penric must rely on Desdemona's chaotic and unpredictable magic to find some way out of captivity for them both, working against a strict deadline and testing the limits of what his demon-granted sorcery can actually accomplish.
Where it sits
- Universe: World of the Five Gods
- Series: Penric & Desdemona core; position 3 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 3 of 16: previous Penric and the Shaman (2016) · next Mira's Last Dance (2017)
- Internal chronology, within World of the Five Gods: position 7 of 19: previous Masquerade in Lodi (2020) · next Mira's Last Dance (2017)
Sources
← World of the Five Gods dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.