The Blue Sword

[qos]

Thank-you, queenofhalves and the other folks who recommended that I read The Blue Sword. I finally got around to it this weekend, and enjoyed it a great deal. Harry is very much my kind of heroine: kidnapped into adventure and discovering that she has unguessed-at talents, tremendous leadership potential, physical and moral courage, and the ability to become a bridge between worlds. My only dissatisfaction was that the portrayal of the love element of her relationship with Corlath wasn't a bit better developed. The ending didn't exactly jar, but it seemed more a result of genre expectations than what McKinley showed between them in the story. (Or maybe I was just reading too fast and doing so with more than the usual number of distractions?)

Comments

[saskia139.livejournal.com]

It did kind of jar with me, too, that all of a sudden Harry was All About The Babies. But it remains one of my favorite books, and Mathin is a wonderful character, don't you think?

[qos.livejournal.com]

The baby bit didn't jar me, but that was probably because my own writing lately has been dealing a lot with the topic of kingship, and the duty of the sovereign to produce heirs. Especially when his/her house has been reduced down to one or two members, as Corlath's had. Also, even though Harry was definitely an action heroine, I also took it for granted that she was a woman of her time, in which bearing children was seen as an inevitable part of woman's function.

And yes, Mathin is a wonderful character -- and Jack too. In their own ways they too resonated strongly with my internal mythos.