The Blue Sword (1982)

Torn between 3 stars, and some parts felt more like two. Topography not my strongest point, a lot of landscape worlding I feel like I have to plow through. Plotwise, it was a little deus ex calibur -- I think I was as surprised by the 'saved by the magical sword ghost of heroine past' as the rest of the characters.

But the ending was satisfying, unlike The Hero and The Crown, which killed me with the Aerin-Luthe angle (cue "A Thousand Years" theme song for them). Relieved The Blue Sword has a neatly tied up and rather happy ending. So I got emotional when they returned to visit her foster parents. And over the cute royal babies. So I forgive the force majeure victory. 4 stars. ( )

Angharad is left an orphan and goes to live in a desert country where she discovers her destiny. Not your ordinary coming of age story. ( )

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley is set in the same world as The Hero and the Crown, which I enjoyed when I read it a couple of years ago. It's been on my wishlist for a really long time, and I decided to give in and buy myself a copy. Unfortunately, I didn't end up enjoying it as much.

The Blue Sword features Angharad "Harry" Crewe, a quasi-British ("Homelander") impoverished noblewoman who finds herself living in a fort town on the edge of the Homelander empire after the death of her parents. Although her life is pretty boring, she realises she has come to love the harsh lands of her new home. She's interested in the native (Damarian/Hillfolk) culture and language, but everyone around her considers it irrelevant as they are considered barbarians, so she doesn't learn much about them.

Then, she catches the eye of the king of the Damarians, and he is compelled by his magic to kidnap her. She turns out to be the key to saving both Damar and her own people from the real barbarians - the Northerners, that are descended from demons.

I can't review this book without spoilers, so my apologies.

*** WARNING: EXTENSIVE SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS ***

I had a pretty hard time with this book for a few different reasons.

THE PROTAGONIST
Generally I love quiet-but-awesome characters, but I was never really able to connect with Harry. She just seemed mostly passive, but stubborn whenever the plot needed her to be. For example, when she's kidnapped, she is a bit scared in the beginning, but doesn't actually react to it that much, even though she has no idea what the Damarians want, and she can't speak their language. She doesn't even have a single thought of escape - it's almost like she's an observer in her own life. But then she gets utterly convinced that she needs to fight for Damar and is incredibly passionate about that. It just doesn't seem like the same person - unless she feels utterly useless at home and is just glad that someone wants her, and is willing to do whatever she needs to do to hold on to that. But that's not a very pleasant or heroic characterisation. In any case, even if Harry is a perfectly likeable person, it didn't show through in the book for me.

THE MARY SUE
In The Inheritance: And Other Stories, Robin Hobb says that in the worst of [fantasy] stories, the magic and the mantle of being a hero is bestowed without effort by or cost to the protagonist. I tend to agree with her, and this is a large part of why I didn't like the story of The Blue Sword. Harry is unremarkable (she's a bit withdrawn and cold) when she's kidnapped, but then reveals herself to have incredibly strong magic, learns the Damarian language to fluency in a couple of weeks, masters the native fighting skills and beats every single warrior in the trials with six weeks of practice, wields a mythical sword that is the most treasured relic of the Damarians, single handedly defeats the enemy by dropping a mountain on them, discovers the long lost healing uses of her magic, marries the king, and commences diplomatic relations between the Homelanders and the Damarians. All in about 200 pages. What does she give up to achieve this? Nothing.

THE CULTURAL DYNAMICS
At first glance, this book seems to be about subverting the colonial idea that the Damarian "natives" were barbaric and uncivilised, by having a protagonist that has "gone native" by fighting for Damar and choosing to settle there and adopt their culture. But the Damarian civilisation regards another one (the Northerners) as similarly barbaric and uncivilised, and that is never questioned, by Harry or anyone else. Instead, everyone agrees that they are utter evil and must be vanquished - we don't even meet a single Northerner in the book, except in battle. This really annoyed me, and I'm even totally ignoring the "native civilisation needs a white coloniser girl to come save them" issue.

I understand that this is a young adult book and isn't as complex as general fantasy, but this is still no excuse. ( )

It's funny, this book followed so many classic formulas that I knew what was going to happen long before it did, and yet I enjoyed reading it. The setting is vivid and unexpected and I look forward to reading The Hero and the Crown to find out more about it. The Hill People are not given the usual "noble savage" treatment, thank goodness, and the heroine is neither a damsel in distress or a brash, bold tomboy. The addition of big cats as companions was a big plus for me. A bit more explanation about the enemy, what they are, and how they came to be, would have been nice. Because there was overall so little detail about the Northerners, the epic battle didn't feel very epic to me.
So, while it's not perfect, this is definitely one I'll be getting my daughter to read when she's old enough. ( )

Clunky. Starts out as Kipling-lite, with a young woman travelling to the far flung outpost of a mighty empire, where she ends up dancing with young officers on station. Then she goes native, almost without noticing. Throughout the second half characters speak at great length, and pompously (occasionally jocularly), about nothing. Even in the direst situations, they never seem to have any urge to get down to business.

What this book does offer is lifestyle porn. First, our heroine lives the Kipling life, then she lives a thrilling nomadic existence in tents and the occasional castle, waited on by many servants. She also learns to ride an excellent horse without a bridle and only the most rudimentary saddle and get to take performance-enhancing drugs before an athletic competition. ( )