{"id":39152,"date":"2021-05-06T06:30:54","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T18:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39152"},"modified":"2021-05-02T21:42:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T09:42:51","slug":"spending-time-with-the-best-of-book-friends-i-revisit-the-riddlemaster-of-hed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/05\/06\/spending-time-with-the-best-of-book-friends-i-revisit-the-riddlemaster-of-hed\/","title":{"rendered":"Spending Time With The Best of Book Friends \u2013 I Revisit \u201cThe Riddlemaster of Hed\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last Monday<\/a>, I mentioned\u00a0 \u201cLoving the way the poems and books I heart always stay with me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And I know I\u2019ve spoken in the past about the way books can be like old friends. You know, the sort where you can just be yourself, put your feet up, and relax into being companionable\u2026 (Yep, I am<\/em> talking about books, but ’tis just as true of people. \ud83d\ude09 )<\/p>\n

Another circumstance that directs me back to tried-and-true book friends is because, being in the endgame of WALL #4 (working title: The Chaos Gate<\/em>), I am currently eschewing exploring new epic fantasies. I definitely want to keep the epic focus on the work-in-progress!<\/p>\n

When it comes to the tried-and-true, I know I\u2019ve mentioned Patrica McKillip\u2019s The Riddlemaster of Hed<\/em> in very positive terms on more than one occasion. A more recent \u201cvery good friend\u201d is Martha Wells\u2019 Murderbot series, which I\u2019m happy to reread pretty much at any time. (And if you haven\u2019t read either of these series, hie thee and read — how\u2019s that for a recommendation?!) \ud83d\ude00 )<\/p>\n

It was, however, The Riddlemaster of Hed <\/em>that I picked up last week and began enjoying all over again. Knowing the entire three books very well by now, I felt a deep appreciation for the way Patricia McKillip sets up the story arc from the very beginning — although when reading for the first time, it may appear one is just getting worldbuilding and character \u2018texture.\u2019<\/p>\n

(No, I\u2019m not going to give detail or explain further, because that would definitely<\/em> be MAJOR spoiler territory.)<\/p>\n

There are plenty of gorgeous words, too. I particularly noted the following passage early on in my rereading:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sky darkened slowly as he and the harpist took the long road back to the city; on the rough horns of the bay the warning fires had been lit; tiny lights from homes and taverns made random stars against the well of darkness. The tide boomed and slapped against the cliffs, and an evening wind stirred, strengthened, blowing the scent of salt and night. The trade-ship stirred restlessly in the deep water as they boarded; a loosed sail cupped the wind, taut and ghostly under the moon. Morgon, standing at the stern, watched the lights of the harbor ripple across the water and vanish.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s amazingly evocative and atmospheric writing. It\u2019s also setting up the next action sequence at one level, while simultaneously \u201clulling\u201d the reader at another. Do I appreciate the author\u2019s craft? Yes, I do. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Yet even with the most enduring of best friends, there can be the occasional wry moment. Part of the initial setup is the close family relationship between the protagonist, Morgon, and his brother (Eliard) and young sister (Tristan.) The book was also first published in 1976, forty five years ago now — and I did smile a little over the passage where, with visiting traders coming, Morgon tells Tristan that:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I simply want you to clear the tables, lay the cloths, reset them, fill pitchers of milk and wine, have them fix platters of meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables in the kitchen, braid your hair, put your shoes on, and get the mud off the floor. The traders are coming.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Even in the mid \u201870s, known now as the decade the women\u2019s movement really took hold, I suspect some authorial irony in writing that passage, with all the domestic work falling to Tristan’s lot. I also suspect that it would struggle to withstand beta reader and editorial review these days. Nonetheless, despite the gendered division of labour in Hed, the author also does a great job of establishing a close and believable family relationship between the siblings that is (also) integral to the rest of the story.<\/p>\n

\"\"And as I\u2019ve mentioned in other posts, when it comes to the second book in particular (Heir of Sea and Fire<\/em>), and the character of Raederle of An, the Riddlemaster<\/em> storyline doesn\u2019t stay in that traditional space. In fact it was one of the first epic fantasies I encountered that not only introduced empowered and engaging female characters, but also included a major female point-of-view character in the series.<\/p>\n

Besides, we are none of us without character flaws, so when it comes to friends, whether old or new, book or human, a little give and take over is probably what ensures the friendship endures. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, I mentioned\u00a0 \u201cLoving the way the poems and books I heart always stay with me.\u201d And I know I\u2019ve spoken in the past about the way books can be like old friends. You know, the sort where you can just be yourself, put your feet up, and relax into being companionable\u2026 (Yep, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,30,14,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing","category-epicfantasy","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39152"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39157,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39152\/revisions\/39157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}