Lately, I’ve done a lot of interviews, which is just what happens when you have a book come out. (Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three: released into the wild on 26 January 2016 — just for those who might not know!)

And it’s great — I very much appreciate the time interviewers and podcasters put in. Nonetheless, when the interviews start coming thick and fast, sometimes the questions and answers blur into each other just a bit — not unlike colours running. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely try and answer each question fresh. It’s just that sometimes I can’t ec-zackerly remember who, precisely, asked me what.

So although I know that someone (or possibly several someones) have asked me about some of my favourite and or most defining reading experiences, I can’t point you to exactly which interview or where. But I do know (or I think I know!) that I have said, in at least one interview, that one of my favourite Fantasy series is Patricia McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy. (The Riddlemaster of Hed is also the title of the first book, which may be why I always apply the same handle to the series, correct or not.) 

I really love the series and highly recommend it, for a number of reasons. Awesome storytelling, for starters. Beautiful and inspiring use of language for another. Interesting and intriguing characters, as well — and a fascinating world and magic system.

I know what you’re thinking about now, i.e there’s no need to go on, the case is not only made, but made well. All entirely true, thanks to the books. All I am doing is enumerating their manifest virtues.

However, there is one more reason that I love this series — and that’s the hero, Morgon of Hed. What I love about Morgon the most is that he is  a hero that stands for the values of peace, and by extension civil society, rather than one that lauds military and militaristic behaviour. At one point in the series, a Morgon driven almost to breaking point by the forces ranged against him is checked by a single, and in his case devastating sentence: “They* were promised a man of peace.”

Morgon’s stubborn, dogged, adherence to those values is inspiring — and also relatively unusual in a Fantasy milieu where we often focus on those who either embrace or readily resort to violence.

A story for a more innocent age, some might say. In fact, I believe it is a story that very much ‘speaks’ to us today — in the spirit of Augustine of Hippo who said, nearly 2000 years ago, “that as we are…so are the times.”

As Morgon is, in The Riddlemaster of Hed, so too are his times. Food for thought, perhaps — but also a might fine yarn, very well told.

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* You'll have to read the books to find out who "they" are.