A marvelous story, different from you typically fantasy

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	• Riddle of Stars Patricia A McKillip Doubleday, 1979 - 604 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews
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highly recommended

The Riddle-Master Trilogy

Reading McKillip's great fantasy trilogy "Riddle of Stars" is like trying to solve the riddle of someone else's partially-glimpsed dream. You enter a rich world of metaphor, sometimes baffling but always beautiful. A standard hero's quest is overgrown with fabulous beasts, children of stone, and death-dealing harps.

In the first book, "The Riddle-Master of Hed" Land-Ruler Morgon of Hed wins a bride and a crown in a riddling contest with a ghost. He wipes the cow manure off of his boots and sets sail from his tiny island kingdom, unsure as to whether his beautiful, red-haired prize has any interest in marrying a farmer-king. In pursuit of an answer, Morgon detours to the College of Riddle-Masters at Caithnard, where he was once a student and where his bride's brother still resides. His companion for the journey is Deth, the thousand-year-old High One's harpist.

Morgon and Deth are shipwrecked, and once Morgon regains his memory he discovers that he has unknown, shape-changing enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy him. As he flees through the kingdoms of his world, he is befriended by the various land-rulers and is gifted with a harp and a sword that are decorated with three stars--identical to the birthmark of stars on his forehead. He also learns how to change his own shape into beasts and trees.

Finally Morgon makes his way to Erlenstar Mountain with Deth, the harpist, hoping that the High One will solve the riddle of his stars and defend him against his implacable enemies.

The heir of sea and fire referred to in the title of the second book in the trilogy is Raederle, Morgon of Hed's betrothed. She struggles against her shape-changer heritage, but gradually begins to tap into its power in order to protect Morgon. "Heir of Sea and Fire" begins in the spring of the year "following the strange disappearance of the Prince of Hed, who had, with the High One's harpist, vanished like a mist in Isig Pass..."

Raederle has reason to believe Morgon dead, since the land-rule of Hed has passed to Morgon's brother, Eliard. Or was land-rule ripped from Morgon while he was still alive? In a key passage, Raederle asks the High One's harpist, "What piece of knowledge did the Founder expect to find beneath the knowledge of when the barley would begin to sprout or what trees in his orchard had a disease eating secretly at their hearts?"

The importance of the question lies in the inability of the harpist to answer it.

There are some great visuals in "Heir of Sea and Fire," especially in the sequence where Raederle calls up the dead of An and bargains with them to protect the man who is journeying across their land. I really feared for her life because of the bargain she made with the dead Kings, even though I've read a million fantasies and the heroine never dies--at least not until the end of the trilogy.

In the final book of the "Riddle of Stars" trilogy, "Harpist in the Wind," the Star-bearer (Morgon of Hed) and Raederle of An, united at last, continue their search for their true identities. This book won the Locus Award in 1980 and I feel 'award-winning' is the least amount of praise one can apply to this trilogy. McKillip 'dreams awake' when she spins her fantasies, and that's how it feels to read them.

Love, family ties, and even magical bonds to the land play an important part in these novels, as they do in many other great fantasy epics such as 'Lord of the Rings' and Norton's Witchworld trilogy concerning the triplets Kemoc, Kyllan, and Kaththea. Vengeance, which was a prominent theme in "Heir of Sea and Fire" slows to a cold drizzle in "Harpist in the Wind" and in one case dries up completely.

Revenge might indeed be a 'dish best tasted cold' but if it gets too cold, the hero could end up feeling sorry for his erstwhile enemy or even forgiving him, as does Morgon. His gradual change from innocent farmer-prince, to vengeful shape-changer, to the Star-bearer spins out the most challenging riddle of this trilogy. Who is the Star-bearer? What is his true purpose?

"Stars, children with faces of stone, the fiery, broken shards of a bowl he had smashed in Astrin's hut, dead cities, a dark-haired shape-changer, a harpist, all resolved under his probing into answerless riddles"--at least in the beginning of "Harpist in the Wind."

There are scenes of high astonishment and magic in 'Harpist,' most especially in Morgon's discovery of wizards other than the evil Ghisteslwchlohm who are still alive, most prominently Yrth, the creator of Morgon's three-starred harp. Or is this another of the riddles the Star-bearer must solve? What is the relationship between Deth, the High One's harpist who betrayed Morgon to Ghisteslwchlohm, and Yrth, a great wizard who had once been called the Harpist of the magical city of Lungold?

At trilogy's end, all riddles are answered and the Star-bearer comes into his heritage, although his friends and loved ones (and the reader) seem to realize who he is long before he does. Such is usually the case with heroes.

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The best piece of sf/fantasy rivalling Dune

This is not the place to tell you the actual storyline.I wouldn't want to ruin the experience for you. That said I read this book in the late '80s in high school. I read this book, the trilogy actually, so often that when I was graduating the school librarian gave me the school's copy. During those 5 years I had read it at least once per month I guess they figured life wouldn't be the same for me without it. Read it, you won't be disappointed. The writing is excellent the plot flawless... you can't put it down. Spare yourself the stress and anxiety and purchase all three parts at once.But what ever you do, read it and be prepared to fall in love with a world and people you could not have imagined.There are attempts at such greatness out there but theY all fail in comparison. The only exception being the Dune books by Frank Herbert which are in a category all of their own.

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A marvelous story, different from you typically fantasy

A wonderful book, enjoyable world, and engaging characters.

Worth every minute spent reading it (and for my wife, re-reading it)

Also known as the 'Riddle-Master' trilogy

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Riddle it out

Usually when an author is compared to Tolkien, it means that there are lots of swords, sorcery, countries clashing and a dark lord, but that the spirit of the master of fantasy is missing. This is one trilogy that almost lives up to the words -- a majestic, magical adventure that spans all of McKillip's richly invented world.

"Riddle-Master of Hed" opens with the discovery of a jeweled crown under Prince Morgan's bed -- a sign that he outriddled a king who had never been defeated before. Along with the crown, he wins the right to marry his pal's sister, Raederle, the second-most beautiful woman in the continent of An. But Morgan is stopped on his way by a shipwreck and news of something dark and sinister creeping into the lands. Strange shapeshifting creatures are entering the lands, the wizards have vanished from the land, and somehow the three stars on Morgan's brow are connected to their presence and how to stop them. He heads off to Erlenstar Mountain, to find the High One -- and finds more than he bargained for...

"Heir of Sea And Fire" very slowly resolves the cliffhanger ending of "Riddle-Master," focusing instead on Princess Raederle. The land-rule -- a sort of sixth sense given to kings -- of Hed has passed to Morgan's brother, meaning that apparently Morgan is dead -- but Raederle and her father don't believe it's true. She sets off with a few faithful friends, and encounters the semi-sinister harpist Deth, the shapechangers, armies of the dead rampaging through her father's lands -- and disturbing news about her and her heritage.

"Harpist in the Wind" continues from the end of "Heir," with Morgan and Raederle planning what to do next. Strange rebel armies -- of both the living and the dead -- are massing in Ymris, and Morgan is taking the dead armies to Hed in an attempt to protect it. Then he and Raederle set off to find the High One and wring some answers out of him -- only he may not be what they expect. As Morgan grows in power and gains knowledge about all of An, he strips bare the secrets of the High One, the shocking identity of the shapechangers, and begins a new age for the lands...

There was never a less cliched author than Patricia McKillip -- the scope, majesty and richness of her invented world rival the best of the genre. Her plot twists and turns inside the lush, dreamlike prose that she's so good at, making a snowstorm as eerie as a magical showdown that can redefine an entire world's magic.

Her plot can be seen in two ways, as the growth of a naive young prince into a wise paragon of power, and also about the shifting of a land from one era into another. The Four Portions of An are a detailed, real-seeming fantasy world, and her princes, wizards, ghosts, and harpists are wise, sometimes sinister, mysterious and full of power.

Morgan is an excellent hero, who is not arrogant or desirous of the power that he is gaining. As confused by his own destiny as by the events around him, he spends much of the first book resisting his fate. Raederle is an excellent counterpart to Morgan, afraid of her heritage and fiercely determined to follow him wherever he goes. They are not a perfect couple: they bicker and argue occasionally, but they do not allow divisions to sit and fester. Deth is the ultimate ambiguous character, keeping you guessing until the end about what the heck is going on with him.

There are no elves, dwarves, fairies, gnomes, or similar fantastical creatures in this book. It came to me with a bit of a shock at the end that aside from the shapechangers, there were only humans in this -- humans who can learn magic, who make mistakes and who have to search for the truth instead of having it handed to them on a plate. The magic is startlingly eerie, subtle and pervasive rather than being flashy. Similarly, the shapechangers' menace isn't overdone -- much of their creepiness results from the question of what they are, and why they are doing what they do.

The complexity and depth of McKillip's early trilogy is still striking today. Her rich invented world and haunting, complex tale of magic, wizards and riddles make "Riddle of Stars" (now republished as "The Riddlemaster Trilogy") a modern fantasy classic.

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The riddle-master of Hed - Heir of Sea and Fire - Harpist in the wind

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