Penric's Demon

This novella is a pleasant fantasy tale that serves to introduce Penric and his world: he meets his demon and starts getting accustomed to her presence. There isn't time for much else to happen, but the process is in itself quite interesting and amusing; and it's nice to revisit after you've read the sequels. The later novellas in this series have plots that become gradually more complex, but I particularly enjoy the details of this one, even though the overall story is quite simple.

The world seems at first to be the standard fantasy setting: a fictionalized version of our world, with invented geography, peoples, and languages, and a vaguely mediæval level of technology.

The fantasy elements of this world—the gods, demons, and magic—are approximately familiar from other fantasy stories, but the details are novel and seem carefully worked out. So this is after all Bujold's own world, distinct from all others, and there are things to be learned about it.

Characterization is quite good throughout. There's a varied cast of characters (especially in the later stories), and the characters are likeable when they're intended to be.

I've reread this a lot, not because the story is particularly fascinating, but simply because it's so pleasant and amusing to read, and the little details are well conceived.