A Fan's Playground

I don't know how many years it's been since I last read this book but it all came back to me, instantly familiar. This is a collection of four short-to-medium-length stories; two are retellings of specific fairy tales and two are inspired by fairy tales.

1. The Stolen Princess - One of the two longer ones. The opening and worldbuilding and scene setting for this story are so so familiar to me, like going to meet an old friend. But I don't really love the actual story McKinley is telling here. The moment we go to the other country, it feels to me like it all falls apart, like McKinley is too caught up in how a story like this "ought" to go to think about what she is writing.

2. The Princess and the Frog - A short but good retelling of the fairy tale, I really like this one!

3. The Hunting of the Hind - All the stories in this book are extremely heterosexual but this one is the worst of the bunch. Come on, there's way more basis for Sellena/Korah than for the two het ships that the narrative apparently intends! And anything about how a woman is SO PRETERNATURALLY BEAUTIFUL that all men who see her fall desperately in love with her is, uh, not my favourite trope (and very heterosexual). Also, the confrontation scene is super anticlimactic.

4. The Twelve Dancing Princesses - An extended retelling in which we discover exactly zero about what any of the princesses think about anything that happens. I mean, the story is more interested in establishing a connection between the soldier and the king than between the soldier and any of the princesses! And there's much focus on the deep sadness of the poor poor king who IMPRISONS HIS DAUGHTERS. Yikes.

In conclusion, I still somehow love this book despite.....only liking one of the stories in it.......... Childhood nostalgia is a powerful force. And McKinley is very good at setting a mood even if I want to argue with just so many of her narrative choices.

Robin McKinley has written two books set in the fantasy land of Damar, and this is one of them. Apparently she always intended to write more, but has never quite gotten around to it.

Of the two extant Damar books, I always liked The Blue Sword better, I think because it feels more grounded in some sort of reality instead of being mythic. (...not that "grounded" is a thing that can really be used to describe the feel of any McKinley books. She's great at including details that seem like they OUGHT to be grounding, and yet her books always feel dreamy and distant. It's weird.)

So I've reread The Blue Sword a lot more often, and tbh I think this may only be the second or third time I've ever read The Hero and the Crown. ("Only", they say. There are some people who never reread books! Apparently. Baffling.)

I felt that this book has a bit of a slow start to it, possibly because it starts with the ridiculous cliche of clumsy outcast king's daughter with red hair who wants to be a warrior. Eventually we get beyond the cliches into actually interesting territory but it takes a bit. (Though - it's possible this was less of a cliche when this book was written? It is more than three decades old at this point!)

( Read more... )

The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley

This book was one of my earliest introductions to Robin McKinley, and my copy is old and yellowing and the pages are falling out, and I love it a lot. I always tried to love its companion (The Hero and the Crown) but never quite could. These books are very dreamy and distant in feel, and The Blue Sword manages to be just real enough for me to be attached to it, but The Hero and the Crown doesn't.

Though I do love it, it's not a perfect book, and there's some things about it that frustrate me.

( spoilers follow! )