There are many out there who think The Hero and the Crown the better book, but I read The Blue Sword first and Harry is my one true love. That's part of it. I always liked the romance line better in The Blue Sword. And there's something remarkable in that, because for most of this book the two are separated. Yet I believe in their match unquestionably. Alanna was my first girl with a sword and magic, Harry was the first one I felt was like me.

Re-read 6/26/17: See below, plus the audiobook version was really good despite a couple of odd mispronunciations by the reader. There is so much I didn't get about the relationship between Harry and Corlath (from the initial abduction on) when I was young that I appreciate better now.

Read 6/23/13: Back when I was twelve or thirteen and tearing through the YA shelves at the library, I picked this book up and immediately set it aside because the first paragraph seemed boring. I did that at least six times before, something having changed inside my head, I finally decided to read it. It is still my favorite book by Robin McKinley and a wonderful adventure story, initial maunderings about orange juice aside. (I am now old enough to appreciate McKinley's writing, but between this and Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster series I wonder at the things that used to be designated as YA.)

I wonder, too, that Harry's character as a relatively unfeminine, tall, horse-loving young woman doesn't put me off; these days (as I am now old and crotchety) I have little use for stories about girls Oppressed By Society who have complete disdain for the womanly arts. I think it's because Harry, for all her unfeminine ways, is still very much a woman and still responds to her surroundings as such--just not the way most of her peers would. In Damar, surrounded by "natives," she finds many other women who behave the way she wants to and are still feminine. I think, despite what McKinley says, that Harry's journey into this foreign country would have been a homecoming even had she not had blood ties to it.

I love Harry's relationship with Corlath, and not just the romantic one; they are each troubled by the other from the moment their eyes meet and she doesn't look away. She is his equal, and more, which makes their romance sweeter and more solid than if it had based on love at first sight, though you could argue that it *was* based on that. The characterization is all around good work, really. If I have a problem with the book, it's that I don't know how I feel about the wrapping-up McKinley does in the last chapter. I enjoy it, but I feel it may be sloppy, which is disquieting, so I tell that part of my brain to shut up and I go on enjoying it.

This is one of the books I make my kids read. They, too, have trouble getting past the orange juice, but they, too, love it when they're finished.

Finding a home

When I was growing up my father's job kept my family moving. Mom and Dad eventually settled down, but just when they did I became an itinerant academic, moving to study and work at various research institutions. I was a 27 year old grad student at Stanford when I first read The Blue Sword and the longest I had ever lived in one place was six years. (Understand, I am not complaining -- I was and am a Happy Nomad.) There's a peculiar type of homesickness experienced by rootless people. One usually thinks of homesickness as being away from and missing a very specific place -- the place one calls home. But I had no place to call home. And yet I sometimes felt homesick -- I felt the lack of a home -- all the more because there was no home where I longed to be.

In the first few chapters of The Blue Sword I immediately recognized this feeling of rootless homesickness in Angharad (Harry) Crewe, the hero of the book. As the book begins Harry has just come from the Homeland (a thinly disguised England) to join her bother in Damar because the death of her parents left her without a home. I immediately fell in love with Harry. She is brave and clever and funny.

For me The Blue Sword is about Harry finding a home in Damar.

There is also, of course, a much more detailed story, involving a war and kelar (which is what they call magic in Damar) and -- you guessed it -- a blue sword. (Point of order -- the sword is not literally blue, being made of metal, as swords typically are. It bears a blue gem on the hilt.) It's a good, exciting story.

Because of The Blue Sword, McKinley became (and remains) one of my favorite authors. I have reread The Blue Sword many times, most recently in 2011.

Blog review.

This was a palate-cleanser after my previous read. The story was decent enough, but everything just "happened"; there was no struggle. It seemed like the bare bones of a story, as though the author forgot to include the sort of details that would have made it come alive. I won't be continuing the series.