The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy.

The Short of It

Plot: All the wizards left behind were riddles, and the only one who might be able to solve them is the biggest riddle of all. 

Page Count: 578 (Full Trilogy)

Award: Harpist in the Wind (Book 3): 1980 Locus Fantasy

Worth a read: Yes
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: Fantasy Babble: Minimal.
Review: It's an epic fantasy trilogy. It's a good one. Kinda loved it. Heroes and villains are complex, magic is interesting and coherent. Excellent characters. Cool development of powers, though it is far more power sprint than power crawl. Pacing can be odd; a few long pauses followed by frenetic scenes. Very well written. A satisfying read.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

This is a review of all three books in the trilogy, even though only the third won an award. They are all quite short - the full collection, released in 1999, is under 600 pages. This is not a Hainish Cycle of loosely connected works or even a Lord of the Rings where each book has a satisfying arc within the broader story; they are really just sections of one work. If you decide to read the first, you're signing up to read all three.

It's worth it to do so. There are some fantastic characters here; the main characters to some degree, though the side characters truly shine. They bring personality and flair, as well as stories and powers. Speaking of such: magic. There is a lot of it, and it works in all sorts of different ways. But it never feels like a get-out-of-jail-free-card or a cheap trick; even when it is unexpected it is consistent with the world.

The world is a character as well. There is a sense of history; this world has seen a lot, over the centuries, and much of it is seamlessly incorporated into the story. Descriptions of scenery and people are detailed and loving; you can feel the land being sculpted. It's worth noting here that the quality of writing improves dramatically between the first and third book.

It's very hard to address the plot without spoiling anything, so I will leave it as such: it is engaging, it goes all sorts of different directions, and it stays fun. The posing of riddles - which are really just questions, if we're being brutally honest - is a bit of a direct way of offering us unanswered questions to keep the reader invested. That said, it works, and when answers raised more questions, off to the races we went.

This is an example of superb execution of archetypal fantasy. Is Morgon a farmer (also a prince, but of an agrarian land) who heeds a call to adventure to find out more about himself? Sure. Is there a promised love? Well, there must be. Are their wise mentors? Like, a lot of 'em. Do some characters have names that are one or more of the following: spelled in ridiculous ways for no reason, explicitly state something about them, effectively impossible to pronounce, or chock full of odd titles? I mean, sure. Of course. But it's just so well done, and with enough flair that it stays interesting. Sure, it checks all the boxes. The Riddle-Master Trilogy still offers a rich and distinct world and a surprising complexity in characters to separate it from the chaff.

If you'd like to give it a read, the following link will bring you to an omnibus of all three. If you use it, I'll get a few cents at no extra cost to you!

This is the Master-Link!

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

Not only did I enjoy this, my enjoyment grew the further I progressed. A large part of this is the massive leap in writing quality. Early in The Riddle-Master of Hed (the first book) you get sentences like this one:

The uncertainty ended in him like a song's ending.

...which is rather clunky. It makes sense, of course, but comparing one thing ending to the end of another thing feels silly. And then you get some top notch writing in Harpist in the Wind (book three) which shows how far McKillip progressed. Whether it is Morgon speaking to his brother after bringing the ghosts of dead kings to protect his land:

Will you open your eyes and see me instead of the wraith of some memory you have of me?  

Or the simple descriptions of the land:

Light glanced across the land, out of silver veins of rivers, and lakes dropped like small coin on the green earth.

The writing becomes lyrical - fitting, given the importance and power of song throughout. This is a rare trilogy that starts decent and becomes excellent. With the exception of the name Ghisteslwchlohm. I believe that is the onomatopoeic description of a cactus scraping against a banister before tumbling down a staircase and exploding. Why? Why give us a name so chock full of random letters that both Polish and Welsh can take a day off? 

Moving on, I do want to give a bit of time to the ways that powers function here. I love shapeshifting in general. McKillip's version of it is a fun take; you must truly understand a thing to become it. I've seen versions of this, but I don't think I've encountered people accepting stillness and becoming trees, which is just fantastic. 

I do appreciate that the story begins after he has already won a crown (and the hand of his beloved) in a riddle contest. We don't waste our time with learning of riddles, we don't wander around the riddling school; we get the essentials from conversations but we start with that all behind us. It's a good way of establishing Morgon as clever; the proof is there, in his hands. Usually the clever character is not also the one who ascends to God-King power levels. I guess no one told McKillip that, though. Broader magic does get a bit out of hand; the short length of this as a total work lends itself to astronomical power gains. It takes very little time to go from "Morgon was pretty darn good at answering riddles" to "Morgon can become anything that has a name, read minds, and play music that can shatter weapons. Did I mention that he is effectively immortal? And that he can control animals?"

I had an absolute blast reading these.

I hope you enjoyed them as well, Stranger.
And don't forget to read a book!