A favorite reread. Need my comfort books these days!

An amazing book - one feels so sad when it ends.

The Blue Sword may not be as epic in scope as many fantasy classics, but its world-building is every bit as accomplished. To me it was a very delightful experience to join the strong adolescent heroine, Angharad "Harry" Crewe, for her quest into the desert. For reasons initially unknown to her she is welcomed into the ranks of the Damarian Hillfolk lead by their king, a wise man called Corlath, with whom she develops a special relationship. As she learns about the ways of her new people, she gains an understanding of her own magical powers.

Three forces are about to clash about the supremacy over Damar. Harry's people are the Homelanders who only rather recently began to colonize the region, much to the dismay of the Hillfolk. However, through his magical insights Corlath is aware of an upcoming attack of the demonic tribes of the North and he is willing to share his intelligence with the new settlers and to suggest an alliance. The diplomacies come to an unsatisfying conclusion and the Hillfolk are prepared to oppose the superior numbers on their own, if necessary.

Naturally, Harry plays a crucial role in this conflict. Initially, she is a recently orphaned young woman who is living in the comforts of an estate near a military outpost where her brother is stationed. Fate (with a capital "F", or in their own name: "kelar") urges Corlath to kidnap her and to make her one of their own. She had a taste for the desert all along, and it's easy to root for a character that excited about her newly found adventurous life.

I loved her learning process throughout the story. Through her well-meaning teacher, an elderly Rider of the King, Harry is taught how to to speak their tongue, to fight, to ride horses like the Hillfolk, to eat with her hands, to wear her hood, or to lace her boots. She learns about their traditions, legends, and customs, like the meaning of their waist scarf. After she proved herself in the Laprun tournament, she herself becomes a King's Rider and thenceforth they call her Harmiad-Sol.

In fact, Harry's whole social environment—among the Homelanders as well as among the Hillfolk—is good-natured and assistant, which is one reason why the novel is so uplifting to read. Following a strict good vs. evil dichotomy, the invaders from the North are depicted as not quite human, with deformed heads, split tongues, pointy teeth, and shrill laughter. Their leader, Thurra, is said to be a powerful wizard who rides a vigorous white horse and who himself has red dots instead of eyes. He is the ruthless opponent that Harry has to oppose in face-to-face combat before her arc comes to an end.

Not only the mortals are on her side. From the very beginning she is followed by the legendary Aerin the Dragonslayer who wielded the eponymous Blue Sword (or Gonturan) in an encounter with the North centuries past. When need is the greatest, she grants Harry immense powers and it's just awesome when the evil hordes are defeated by her literally earth-shattering use of magic that forever changes the geography of the desert.

It's not all about fierce battles and times of deprivation, though. In terms of the depiction of gender, McKinley doesn't only one-sidedly break with traditional genre tropes. Harry is one among at least a few women who are holding their own just as well as the male warriors. Yet, when eventually they arrive in the venerable palace, she is happy to take a bath and wear comfortable robes, and in an earlier moment of exhaustion she breaks into tears. Maybe the mutual declaration of love in the aftermath of battle was a bit too YA for my liking, but otherwise I appreciated her multifaceted personality.

I generally liked the atmosphere during the downtimes. It's sweet how she is joined by the cat, how the befriends peers, how she cares for her horse. Actually, her charger acts almost as a character of its own and it didn't take me long to get attached to the animal. Of the additional cast Colonel Jack Dedham was easily my favorite. The military commander of the Homelanders functions as the sweet-tempered uncle figure to which Harry looks up. It's such a thrill when they are finally reunited, right after she literally walked through the gates of the Istan fortress. Now that's an entrance!

I cannot tell why The Blue Sword isn't more popular. I'm sure it will remain among my favorites of epic fantasy in the years to come. I would be grateful if someone could recommend other works of Robin McKinley's that I should read next!

Rating: 4/5

This another one that I loved when it came out and haven't reread for a long time. Consequently, I remembered the big beats but not a few of the twists toward the end. Likewise, I'd forgotten the many elements that made this compelling. I found it grabbed me by the throat and I couldn't put it down — what a great read!

To quote another review, this is "a near-perfect short fantasy novel" and "an original work fantasy lovers shouldn't overlook."

Has come up so many times in SFFBC and elsewhere that I guess I ought to try it. (And give it a fair chance; don't dnf too early!)
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I wish that I'd read the prequel (not sequel!) first. This would have made so much more sense, and I'd have been able to immerse myself in it better, and therefore enjoy it more. Oh well.
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Ok, finally read it. It was a Newbery Honor book. Which means it was originally marketed to youth. Hmm... I can see it being good for either teens or adults, or even precocious tweens. Very little romance (no teen angst). Definitely interesting world-building.

But still a relatively ordinary fantasy. Definitely a Chosen One trope, and in fact Harry does talk about fate or the magic or whatever is controlling her, even "riding" her, and she makes very few choices of her own will, and seldom succeeds on her own merits. And imo it didn't really get interesting until, I dunno, about 3/4 through, maybe when Harry finally started insisting that she be told some of wtf was going on. I'm just not seeing what makes it so beloved or worthy of the Newbery consideration.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this story.

McKinley writes well, but I found the book quite slow at times, especially the beginning where she is setting the stage for Harry's kidnapping by Colrath, the king of the Hillpeople. Strangely, Colrath cannot figure out what has compelled him to perpetrate this heinous act. However, Harry seems to adapt well to her changed circumstances and eventually thrives following adoption by her new comrades. Not only does she join the battle against the non-human Northerners, but gathers a loyal group of allies from many different backgrounds to help create a second, pivotal battleground in the gruesome war. Happily, the book's pace does accelerate along with Harry's emergence as a gifted leader.

P.S. I was disappointed to learn that the Newberry Award winning second book is actually a prequel.

I had a hard time reading this for purely physical reason: my copy of THE BLUE SWORD is very probably 30 years old, and the fragile yellowed pages are losing their tenuous grip on the broken spine. I was afraid it would fall apart in my hands, and thus was weirdly careful with not only the book but the reading of it. I believe I'll seek out Robin McKinley at the nearest possible opportunity, ask her to sign my beloved and battered book, and retire it with honors alongside my equally ancient and beaten-up signed copy of DRAGONSONG.

The truth is, had discussion about HERO in my last Recent Reads post not pointed it out to me, it probably never would have occurred to me how passive a character Harry is. She is (in essence) The Chosen One, just as Garion is, and throughout the book, the story impels her forward rather than her own choices driving the story forward. The major break from that is of course her departure from Corlath's army, but with how it's written, even that is arguably her kelar forcing her rather than her own will.

It doesn't matter. Not to me, anyway. THE BLUE SWORD is very close to my heart, because it's one of the very first books--possibly the first book--I read with an awareness of genre, with an awareness that I was reading A Fantasy Novel. I first read it when I was ten, the year after it came out, as one of the books for Battle of the Books, and it utterly swept me away. I was in love with Harry, I was in love with Corlath, I was, dear God, in love with Tsornin.

And I still am. I was right, in re-reading HERO: Aerin is the stronger heroine, and HERO probably the stronger book. And indeed, upon re-read I discover that Harry's big magic scene at the end of THE BLUE SWORD is acid-trippy as well, though not as mind-numbingly weird as Aerin's. As an adult, it's easier to admire Aerin's stubbornness and the trials and tribulations she goes through to achieve her happy ending, and to appreciate that Harry essentially gets it all handed to her on a platter.

But when you're ten and you're caught up as Harry was, stranger in a strange land, but a land that speaks to you, and you are taken away to be important in that world...well. Yes. It's ultimate wish-fulfillment, and McKinley has said as much about that book, but it's okay. And I think that will never go away, so I think THE BLUE SWORD retains its place of preference in my heart. After all, a little wish fulfillment never hurt anybody. :)

But *God* I wish there were more Damar books. I know she doesn't write sequels, I've known all her reason for twenty years, I respect them, I'm not pleading with her to write more, but *oh* how I wish there were more.

I'm actually rounding this up from what I expect would be a 3.5 star rating. The heroic story was great, with an excellent story of a newcomer to an exotic culture who adapts, then excels, complete with training montage and heroic battle. But this is on top of a really problematic setting that makes me reluctant to recommend it to people.

Angharad "Harry" Crewe's father passes away and she is sent from "Homeland" to her brother in colonial Daria on the borders of the northern desert power of ancient Damar . Harry feels a strange attraction to this land and really doesn't miss her country of origin at all. The king of the hill tribes of Damar visits the Homelanders to ask for help against a horde of demonic peoples from the north but is rebuffed. During the visit the king, Corlath encounters Harry, and for reasons unknown even to him, ends up kidnapping her and taking her back to his homeland where her heroic story begins.

It gets all the stars for me because this is a female hero main character whose strength is with her sword and her performance as an elite warrior. This was in the early eighties, when even now, that is still rare.

As a pure adventure tale this is great, but it's pretty clear that the setting parallels actual places and the history of those places is nowhere near as rosy as it is presented here. Homeland is England, Daria is India, Damar is Afghanistan and the northern demonic horde are clearly Russians (especially given what was going on in the world as this book was being written around 1980-82). The colonials live in Daria and are very well-established there, but there is not a single named Darian character, living or dead, in the entire book. They're completely irrelevant, and not even acknowledged by Corlath's people. This is an adventure story, and there's clearly no room to go into the Homeland colonial state, but even the basics aren't there, and knowing anything about the real-world versions of these places, that's really jarring. And before you dismiss that I'm reading in stuff from the real world that's not in the text, just reflect on the term "idealized colonial power", because that's what you're seeing with this setting.

Also lots of love. So much love. I loved Aerin's story, and I think The Hero and the Crown is very complete, but I would happily read more books about Harry and Corlath, I really, really would!

Sigh. I was disappointed. I am the kind of person this book is aimed to - I'm a horse nerd and I love fantasy - and it fell so flat. It was an okay book, but it lacked any depth, in either characterization or world building. It was British colonialist Arabia dressed up as a fantasy - Walter Farley with less substance and more magic. The plot and characters had potential, but it just wasn't executed.

Added at the bottom: the perfect song for this book. Seriously, if it's ever made into a movie, this song should be in the trailer.



The description on this book's GR page is not my favorite synopsis. I think my little well-loved paperback says it better:

This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin.
And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle.
And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies...

Because easy as it is to think this book is just about Corlath and Harry, it's really not. The kelar is a driving force, enough that I see it as a third main character. It pulses through this book much as it pulses in the blood of our two protagonists, moving the story to its will, arranging events to suit its needs without much care for mortal feelings or objections.

Therefore, while I understand how some might object to the fact that this story begins with Harry being kidnapped by Corlath, in a way they were both kidnapped. Corlath himself is a prisoner, in a way, of the wild unpredictable magic he carries - there's a reason, after all, that they call it the king's madness. He no more wants to take her than she wants to be taken, but the kelar needs her to be Damarian, so neither of them have a choice.

Now, given that she's compelled and aided by something that powerful, Harry's entry into a new culture is remarkably easy, and this would be a problem if not for the fact that the point of this book is something entirely different. It's a great adventure story, of course, but it's not about the adventure story. It's about Harry finding her place in the world - a classic coming-of-age. From the first line of the first chapter, we know she doesn't fit where she is. She is discontent, restless, hiding it under a mask of polite manners. One might suspect, then, that once she's been accepted by the Hillfolk, she will be content, but that is not the case. One of the things I love about this book is that Harry's critical decision, her defining moment, is when she chooses not to give up the part of her that is 'Outlander'. Because she reconciles two different parts of herself, instead of denying one or the other, she is capable of achieving her goals. It takes courage to do that, and courage is Harry's defining trait. She is, even when taken captive, determined not to show fear; when she understands that the Hillfolk don't mean her harm but still have no intention of returning her to her people, she approaches new experiences with determination and a generally good attitude.

One of the things that keeps me coming back to this book and its companion, The Hero and the Crown, is the land of Damar itself. I think it's even more vivid in this book than in the other, even though THATC showed it in its prime. There, it seemed like a fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy kingdom. Here, seen in decline and through the eyes of a foreigner, it is astonishing and beautiful. This is where the strength of the Damarian people and the richness of their culture really shines, because this is where we see them in duress. They are proud, they are strong, they are noble and good-hearted and graceful. Their beautiful horses appealed to me when I was young and in that horse-crazy phase every girl goes through, but now what calls to me is their sophistication. Even though they don't have 'modern' conveniences and seem like savages to the Homelanders (who are, by the way, wonderfully British), they are not uncivilized in the least. There is a wonderful nuance in how McKinley presents this: instead of going the 'presumed savages are actually more advanced/special/sophisticated than the invaders' route, she makes them cultural equals in different ways. Both civilizations have distinct advantages and disadvantages, and neither is presented as right or wrong. While this book does somewhat deal with imperialism, it doesn't moralize, and the Homelanders are never villains simply because it's recognized that they are people too.


And then there's the relationship between Corlath and Harry. Corlath, when we first see him, seems like an intimidating and powerful sort, and he kind of is. But he's just as lost and confused, in different ways, as Harry is - just as unsure how to deal with the situation they find themselves in. He is not an unkind man, just an unsure one.

Some of my favorite moments in this book are his, including this one:
'Long after Harry had cried herself to sleep again, the Hill-king lay awake, facing the grief he had caused and could not comfort.'

Or this:
'He would help this girl now, as much as he might, stranger and thief as he might be to her. He would do what he could.'

Their reunion, of course, tops the list. Poor Corlath seems to have been so lost without her, and she so unsure of her reception - that moment when she slides down from Sungold and hugs him is just gorgeous. And then we get this intricate, gorgeous declaration of love from Harry:

"My king, I would far rather you kept my sash as you have kept it for me in faith while I was gone away from you, and gave me your sash to wear in its place. For my honor, and more than my honor, has been yours for months past, but I saw no more clearly than did you till I had parted from you, and knew then what it would cost me if I could not return. And more, I knew what it would cost me if I returned to be only a king's Rider."

The two of them together are a matched pair of lost souls who aren't lost at all when they're together, and it's beautiful.


Oh, I'm rambling, as I rather knew I would. The bottom line is: if you haven't read this book, you've done yourself a disservice and should rectify the problem immediately.

Now, since Luthe reminded me that I need to, I'm going to go re-read The Hero And The Crown.


Addition: Desert Rose by Sting could have been written about this story.