Once Upon A Time II – Fantasy Category
Apr 6th, 2008 by heidi
The Riddle-Master trilogy is one that’s been on my list to read for years because it simply is classic fantasy writing. I’m not sure entirely why I’ve never picked it up until now but suspect that it was at least in part due to the fact that the protagonist of the first novel is male and I have generally tended to prefer female protagonists.
In the introduction written for this single volume that includes all three novels in the trilogy, Patricia McKillip explains quite clearly that her discovery of Tolkien’s fantasy novels was a revelation and that she borrows (and transforms) a few of his themes, such as the telling of riddles. I was concerned that this would be yet another high elf; greedy dwarf; hulking troll; fallen Man tale but was pleasantly surprised to find that while some names and themes are echoes of Tolkien, the heart of the story is completely different.
My biggest challenge in appreciating these novels was the writing style. I know that I’ve read at least one other McKillip novel but it was a very long time ago and I no longer remember whether the style was similar. Almost the entire story seems to be told in speeches between two or more people conversing about whatever happens to be going on at the time. It’s quite possibly just my own personal preference but I found this difficult to follow – I tend to prefer description over conversation.
Also, one of my pet quibbles about fantasy names is that if they’re TOO different from familiar names and there are too many of them, I’m prone to losing track of who’s being discussed and why, especially since, in this instance, McKillip doesn’t flesh out many of the secondary characters. The wizards ended up blurring together, the various land-rulers and their heirs blurred together, and I found myself almost skimming rather than reading (and as a result missing out on important information).
I thought the books were good but my greatest struggle was the writing style rather than the story. I can certainly understand why they’re classics…and also why they’re 70s fantasy rather than noughties fantasy. I’d recommend reading them and suspect that others may appreciate the style far more than I did. Either way, the writing IS good, even if it wasn’t entirely to my taste, and the story certainly holds together…although I figured out the twist at the end by the middle of the third book!
Patricia A. McKillip is one of my favorite fantasy authors, in part because I read this series as an adolescent and was swept away by it. I have read several of her more recent books and absolutely love her writing style and yet my memory of this earlier stuff is not the same. Someday I’ll have to go back and read this to see just how much her style has evolved over the decades since this series was written.