WTF did I just read?!?! So many problems with this award-winning text for CHILDREN! Spoilers below:

Corlath - king of the folk native to the desert - kidnaps a young girl named Harry, because the magic told him to. Harry adjusts to life with her kidnappers, eventually becoming a female warrior for the tribe. She disobeys her kidnapper's orders, rides to her people (colonizers of the land) and petitions that they unite to fight The Bad Guys. Harry realizes that she loves her kidnapper. They get married and have four children. The end.

The sexism. The colonialism. The racism. The Orientalism.... I feel like there aren't enough characters in this text box to adequately address the issues with this book.

I'm on the fence about this book :) It had some major flaws, mostly that it was so focused on the main story that it lacked some depth. The character gets abducted and becomes this warrior with little passing thought to what she's actually experiencing. She goes with the flow but doesn't really stop to question that flow. It's actually really weird. The Hillfolk appear to be a highly romanticized and idealized version of the Ottoman Turks, with the Outlanders appearing to be basically English, including a reference to St. George. But everybody eventually loves each other and all problems are resolved and they all live happily ever after.

The other side of the fence? I got really caught up in the story whenever I could ignore how it glossed over many important things. During the battle scene towards the end I found myself gripping my book very tightly. And the 10 year old inside me picked up a sword and was screaming a battle cry as I fought by Harry's side. Given the way this book didn't look at the downside of things, it's no real surprise that the ending was a whole series of happily-ever-afters. It went on for awhile and was quite sappy. Yet I found myself with tears in my eyes at one point and a smile on my face as I closed the book.

In short - it was shallow but enjoyable and I wish I had discovered it when I was a kid :)

This book is amazing. Definitely McKinley's best work.

i am here only for the cats

The main character, Harry, was such a Mary Sue that I couldn't finish it. McKinley did a horrible job with Harry's character development. Getting kidnapped by people from a culture she has NO CLUE about and being perfectly content with that, becoming a master swordswoman in under 6 weeks, and just generally accepting everything that happens to her with unnatural calm. For God's sake she marries and apparently loves a man at the end of the book for no logical reason. She also has some rare, magical power that makes her super fabulous at everything she does. Good lord, I'd almost prefer beating my head with a stick. I read 2/3rds of it then jumped to the last two chapters hoping - HOPING - for an unhappy ending, or at least some sort of real challenge to Harry's moral fiber. What ends up happening is Harry gliding through all her problems without any sort of character development and no internal struggles.

The real summary of the novel:
Be happy, land of Damar, some nobody outsider who happens to come from a people who conquered you and with no skills of her own is your true savior.

Too bad too, the universe the book is set in is pretty sweet. Just a waste of imagination.

Two stars for the interesting background setting and decent grammar.

I'm surprised that I only heard of The Blue Sword in recent years (thanks Tadiana!) as my younger self would have LOVED this book. I was only two when it was first published but when I read a lot of fantasy in middle school (The Chronicles of Prydain are still some of my favorite books!) this would have fit perfectly in with the others. The Blue Sword has all the makings of a great fantasy read - a distant land, a young heroine, wonderful animals and mystifying magic - and even though it was a little slow at times, it still was a good read.

This book is currently on sale for $1.99!

I remember reading this book when I was young and all I remember from this book are

1) the heroine spent the entire beginning of the book bitching about how much she hated orange juice

and

2) I had to throw my copy out after I spilled soda all over it

"(T)he truth (is) not always its own excuse".

—The Blue Sword, P. 184

"It seems to me further that it is very odd that fate should lay so careful a trail and spend so little time preparing the one that must follow it."

—Harry Crewe, The Blue Sword, P. 184

Robin McKinley certainly knows her way when it comes to writing high fantasy.
Cut from the same epic cloth as novels by such writers as J.R.R. Tolkien, Susan Cooper, Peter Dickinson, and Sylvia Louise Engdahl, The Blue Sword is a finely crafted novel of suspenseful fantasy and adventure. Robin McKinley allows the reader many perspectives as the events unfold, in particular the dual vantage point that is afforded to Harry, who sees the imminent attack of the distrusted Northerners through her eyes as both a Damarian and a homelander.
As in all of her stories, the imaginative powers of Robin McKinley clearly show themselves as something beyond remarkable, as the products of a great mind in the field of contemporary young adult literature. Her grasp of the language is as enchanting as the effect of the magical sword Gonturan itself, and she wields the power of her words with tremendous skill and feeling.
Any readers that found themselves taken by The Hero and the Crown (a prequel to The Blue Sword) will also enjoy this earlier (though set in later times) book. It is a fine, solid read, and a satisfying celebration of young adult and fantasy literature.

"Friends you will have need of, for in you two worlds meet. There is no one on both sides with you, so you must learn to take your own counsel; and not to fear what is strange, if you know it also to be true."

—Luthe, The Blue Sword, P. 164

3.5/5; 4 stars; January 2025

I read this book so long ago that couldn’t remember it well and, as I’m culling my library of physical books, wanted to know if I should keep it.

I liked the story and the sense of Harry’s fated mission. The horses and the King’s Riders and tribe were interesting. I didn’t ‘love’ the story because it was a bit lean on character development and that tends be what matters most to me in a story.

I don’t get it. I just don’t. Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable fantasy novels of our age, but I am unable to see why. I suppose the best way I can describe The Blue Sword is to tell you that it is similar to a camp-fire story – entertaining, filled with action and heroes, a rather under-developed romance, and ultimately, a story that needs to be told again and again with more and more details filled in every time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that while I loved the world-building in this story, much of it felt like a mere outline which McKinley had forgotten to go back and develop in many parts. Thus, while I most certainly liked this novel, I by no means loved it and nor do I see exactly what is so remarkable about it.

I suppose it all really comes down to the writing style and execution of this story, not to mention the characters. Harry Crewe, our enigmatic heroine, is kidnapped from her foster home and taken to the Hills where the Damarians, mysterious hill-folk that can perform magic, reside. It is a dangerous time for her nation as the Northerners, an inhuman race, plan to attack and the hill-people of Damar whose numbers have steadily dwindled for years, are in grave danger. Thus, their king, Corlath, looks to the Outlanders for aid and, when receiving none, feels a strange pull towards Harry, who seems to have an affinity for the magic of the Hills as well. It is then that Harry realizes her true destiny as the savior of these people and along with the legendary Blue Sword, sets out to meet her fate.

The Blue Sword sounds interesting enough and I suppose it is, but it took awhile to get into. I felt as if the writing style was deliberately distant and slow-moving and it took awhile to become accustomed to it. In fact, I’m still not sure if I quite am. McKinley tends to describe many aspects of Damarian life such as customs of the hill-folk, the beautiful horses they ride, and even the setting of her lands, but she fails to make the reader connect with anything much beyond that. Not only does her writing wander a bit, she also shifts between using the Damarian and Outlander names for certain things which becomes cumbersome and irritating after awhile. Yet, I found the biggest downfall to be in the characters themselves.

While I loved the strong themes of woman empowerment in this story, I never felt a connection with Harry in the least. Not only is she vastly different from other characters, she is incredibly mature – so mature that she does not question the reasons for her kidnapping as she begins to innately understand them, but nor does she question any of the other actions in this story. Furthermore, while we are told about Harry’s conflicting emotions concerning the Damarians and the Outlander heritage she has grown up with, it is hard to sympathize or feel for her due to the narration. Thus, I was quite annoyed with Harry for her utter placidness and inability to take action until the last part of the novel. Yet, while I enjoyed the battle scenes in the end, I never felt as if I could pinpoint or understand Harry’s growth – it was all very sudden and hard to truly see. Furthermore, the friendships she made were never elaborated on and became strong with a simple smile, which leads the reader to believe that there are missing pages from their copy of the book. So really, Harry was not the only under-developed character in this tale.

That being said, I still did like reading The Blue Sword. It had many technical flaws in its writing and narration and while I could not connect with the characters and don’t feel as if I know Corlath, the enigmatic Damarian king who later becomes Harry’s husband, I think the setting and political intrigue of this novel is remarkable. Yet, I firmly believe that in the hands of a different author, The Blue Sword could have been the fantastic tale other readers gush over. For all my enjoyment of this story, I don’t think I will be reading much more of Robin McKinley in the future, not matter how wonderful her storytelling is proclaimed.

You can read this review and more on my blog, Ivy Book Bindings.

I know I read this as a child and loved it...now to re-read.

As a child I always wanted to be Harry. Too tall and with too crooked a nose to be beautiful, but with a chestnut warhorse, a magic sword, a pet leopard and the ability to make handsome foreign kings fall hopelessly in love with me even before I'd saved the world by dropping a mountain on the heads of some demons. Part of me still does want to be laprun minta and damalur-sol, and The Blue Sword remains one of my ultimate comfort books.

But underneath the rollicking adventure story is a critique of the casual assumptions of colonialism, and the damage that cultural imperialism in particular can do to indigenous cultures. Harry's discomfort at being caught between two worlds (the world of her upbringing, and her chosen world of her Damarian lineage) is beautifully drawn. And even if the book at times falls prey to a touch of orientalism (Corlath is a cookie-cutter exotic desert prince - all passion and arrogance as he steals across the desert to kidnap Harry and take her back to his tent) it's still a wonderful and joyous read.

I hope my nieces find role models as awesome as Harry and who stay with them as long as she has done for me.