I met The Riddlemaster of Hed in the fall of 1978, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, during my grad studies in biology. The author, Patricia McKillip, I’d encountered in an undergrad course in fantasy; her book, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, was by far my favorite from that reading list, so I’d kept my eye out for more. I pounced on the mass market, the one pictured above, at the university bookstore. The Heir of Sea and Fire was there too, but it would take another year before I’d have the finale, Harpist in the Wind, in my hands. The books follow Morgon, the Prince of Hed, a humble little country, on his quest to discover the meaning of the stars embedded in his forehead and what happened to his parents, killed at sea. He is a riddlemaster, a scholar trained to use the hints and partial revelations of history to uncover the truth. His first success in a battle of riddles and wits wins him a dead king’s crown and the hand of Raederle, herself descended from shapechanging sorcerers. As Morgon and Raederle, helped by the High One’s Harpist, chase their personal mysteries, the answers disturb those long buried underground, renewing a war from the beginnings of time. To keep the peace and safe their world, they will need to solve the most terrifying riddle of all: why?
What was awesome about McKillip’s story? It marked the first time I refused to read the new one, in my hands, without rereading the previous book(s) first, a habit I’ve continued to this day, with any story I love this much. It’s not because I forget details as years pass. I don’t, not really. I think it’s to put off the moment I finish the new one. To linger, longer, in worlds I’ve grown to value, before the moment when yes, it’s done and I must leave again.
This is me as a reader: sentimental, passionate. possessive. Eager to share; at the same time, timid, because what if you don’t love what I do, as I do? It can’t diminish the work I love—not to me—but I’ll admit to disappointment. It makes me more timid, less eager, next time I try.
Had I discovered fandom, those long years ago, I might have plunged in with glee, safe among my people, able to load friends up with books dear to my heart. But in 1978, I knew no one who read what I did.
Or who wrote.
Oh yes. I wrote back then. Science fiction. Twenty-three novels underway, just for me. (It would be another decade before I considered sharing those, and even then I’d had some encouragement or they’d likely still be in a drawer.)
I didn’t write fantasy, though I loved reading it. Until The Riddlemaster of Hed, I simply didn’t see where I’d, well, fit. I knew what I liked, loved, loathed. (I’d yet to learn I didn’t have to finish every book I started. Trust me, you don’t, and it’s liberating).
Every couple of years, I’d reread The Riddlemaster of Hed, as enchanted as I’d been the first time, gleaning more every time, because McKillip is like that. She scatters gems like this in her work:
The sky was clear before dawn; the stars, huge, cold, gave him light. In the distance tiny lights from farmhouses winked alive, golden eyes in the darkness. The fields of the city gave way to a plain where huge stones rose originless as wizards around him.
Everything, every word matters. McKillip’s simplicity is deceptive. There isn’t a phrase or paragraph that doesn’t inform the story and world, yet never is she overt. Her skill with words is, and was, breathtaking.
Back then, McKillip’s words convinced me I’d probably never write fantasy. I love words used well. I love elegance paired with subtlety. The fantasy that matters most to me has a vocabulary of its own, a deep, unique cadence. Impossible, delicious, yet ordinary words. I’d no problem “talking” science fiction and far future and odd biology. Finding my voice in fantasy?
Not happening.
Or so I thought, then.
There was something else awesome, and refreshing, about The Riddlemaster of Hed. There are families. Morgon of Hed, the titular character, has a sister and brother. Raederle has a brother and a father—who is occasionally a crow. There are friendships and loves and histories galore, present and past, all completely credible, many deeply moving, and some pivotal.
When Morgon’s younger sister Tristan asks him for cloth and needles and shoes, he responds with:
“What…do you think grows in our fields?”
“I know what grows in our fields. I also know what I’ve been sweeping around under your bed for six months. I think you should either wear it or sell it. The dust is so thick on it you can’t even see the colors of the jewels.”
Morgon, you see, won a riddle contest with a dead king and brought home his crown. Then tucked it under his bed, because Hed isn’t a place for crowns, being small and pastoral. There are pigs.
He also unknowingly “won” something else. Raederle.
“…I don’t understand.”
“The King made a vow at her birth to give her only to the man who took the crown of Aum from Peven.”
“…What a stupid thing for him to do, promising Raederle to any man with enough brains…”
Another awesome thing about McKillip? Her protagonists are sensible, kind, respectful people. They may, like Raederle and Morgon, have incredible abilities, but that isn’t what draws you to them. It’s that they care. For one another, but also for the land. It’s a theme throughout the story. Leaders are literally connected to the land they rule. I won’t spoil the story for you, but must share this:
Morgon has asked a ruler for her knowledge, to learn the power of her land-law.
Some thought was growing behind her eyes. Standing so quietly, still gripping him, she could not speak. He felt as if he were changing shape in front of her into something as ancient as the world around which riddles and legends and the colors of night and dawn clung like priceless, forgotten treasures.
Shape changing. The wind. Stone, destiny, and the unuttered secrets of the past. Deth, the High One’s Harpist and Morgon’s guide, changes his shape profoundly during the story, yet never changes at all. Morgon and Raederle journey apart and together, finding their own path and purpose. It’s an astonishing, invigorating, lovely read.
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A Dragon for William
You’re probably wondering how I ever dared write fantasy of my own, having a work like this for my standard.
It was the sour milk.
Tristen stops her brothers’ scuffle over the crown by dumping sour milk meant for the pigs over their heads. The juxtaposition of mystery, magic, and ordinary.
I hadn’t read anything to give me the same joy since I was much younger, when wardrobes could be doorways, toys came alive, and tiny people might live inside flowers. Thinking about it now, another factor making McKillip’s work strike a chord as that I’d entered the time of life when family urgently matters. The loss of those dear to me. Starting our own, with the staggering revelation of how much love a heart could hold. How could I not resonate to the jaw-dropping wonder of the secrets informing the Riddlemaster’s world, when they were told within such a real family, living life.
That, I realized, was the kind of fantasy I wanted to write. On Sept 30, 2002, I started what would become A Turn of Light. Notes. Thoughts. Mutterings to myself. Details of family. Ponderings of deep, wild magic. It took me years to find the voice, build the cadence, create the vocabulary I needed. I’m still, by the way, working on those, but along the way I’ve written three fantasy novels I love, and will write more.
The Riddlemaster of Hed has let me.
Thank you, Patricia McKillip. That was awesome.
Julie E. Czerneda is the author of the Species Imperative trilogy, the Night’s Edge fantasy duology, and the Stratification novels. She is a multiple Aurora Award winner, and was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. Her latest work, A Dragon for William, publishes December 3rd with DAW.
The Riddlemaster books are wonderful. I still re-read them from time to time, decades after I first encountered them on the library shelves. (Yes, I have my own copies now.)
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is the book I most frequently give as a gift; the Riddlemaster trilogy is my favorite. Causes more ‘dust in the eye’ per 1000 words than any other books I’ve read. Audiobooks are just as good.
Hi
I also started with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and then encountered the Riddle Master discovering book two at a small town drugstore before finally finding all three books. I have since continued to read Patricia McKillip’s books and reread the Riddle Master Trilogy several times. They remain with LOTR and the Hobbit my favourite fantasy books. What I loved about Riddle Master was the world building and the fact that the magic was totally different than most fantasy. It seemed more organic and contained. Instead of dwarves, elves and goblins you made a series of lands where both the magic and the nature of the ruling dynasties was slightly different but all understandable to each other. Even the background myths were different, instead of chronologies of kings you had riddles about harpists, talking pigs and doomed kings and as we moved through story Morgan will encounter a number of the characters from the riddles themselves.
Thanks for sharing your memories of these wonderful books.
Guy
I was looking at these on my shelves the other day and thinking about re-reading them. Thanks for sharing your memories of them.
McKillip is a wonderful writer. I think my first was also Forgotten Beasts, which I loved for the different magic and the animals. From that I went and read the few others she had out at that time, and still am very fond of Throme of the Erril of Sherril. When Riddle Master crossed my path on the hardcover new releases table I picked it up immediately, hoping for something set in Sybil’s world, since hers also had riddles. I didn’t get that, but Morgon and Raederle, Rood, Duac, Deth, Har, Danann Isig, The Morgul… they and their world was fascinating. #3 has it right, the worldbuilding was so refreshingly different, even back then it still stands out. I’ve liked most of what she’s had published since, although her latest, Kingfisher still puzzles me.
May favourite thing about this post is how you described my reading experience with these novels with such exactness. The need to reread when the new book came out, the deep heart-deep excitement of them. I, too, reread them every now and then, and they’re just as perfect every time.
I’ve read a few of McKillip’s books and short stories, but never quite got around to Riddlemaster. Time to address that. :)
My junior high school librarian handed me The Riddle-Master of Hed (it had just come out, and I was the first person to check it out) and told me I’d like it. She was wrong – I loved it.
They were the first three hard-cover books I ever bought with my own money. I wrote Patricia McKillip care of her publisher asking about the second book (title unknown to me at the time) when I finished the first – I still use her reply as my bookmark in the book. And my reply from the publisher about the third book is in Heir of Sea and Fire. IIRC, those were my first (and so far, only) snail-mail letters to authors or publishers.
I still go back and re-read the trilogy occasionally.
Thanks so much for talking about this series. One of the favorite reading experiences of my life – it should be mentioned often. I still reread them today, and still find something new in the beautiful writing every time. Beautiful writing, wonderful characters, amazing story; it has it all. (Although readers today will never experience that book 1 cliffhanger that I felt like just about killed me, way back when.)
A lot of good thoughts when I think of these books. Thanks for sharing your memories too.
I love love love these books. What to me was most remarkable is that it is just as rich as the longest epic fantasy but Ms. McKillip is able to invoke this with so few words. Each sentence is a chapter, rich, evocative, full of meaning and nuance, I have reread many times and will do so again. I cry every time. Glad to know there are those who hold the same love for this work.
I was 9 when I picked up The Riddlemaster of Hed to read on an upcoming plane ride. Changed my life. 4+ decades later, I can still envision scenes (including the rose bush and the sour milk!) It helps remind me that it’s not necessary to choose between love and power, because when you do it right, you can have both.
And yes, the trilogy is why I own a folk harp.
Oh, and since my husband and I each had a copy of the Sci Fi book club omnibus, I donated mine to the elementary school my son had gone to.
: )
i was very proud of myself back in the day, for figuring out Deth’s secret halfway through Heir.
I lovelovelove this series. I remember reading the first book while I was in high school, finishing it at 2 AM on a school night and screaming in frustration when it hit me that there wasn’t any more to read at that moment, and then hearing my mom stirring out of bed! I turned off my bed light and dove under the covers about as fast I could so I wouldn’t be found reading that late on a school night! :-)
And Morgon and Raederle, with their aching and mature love, are simply the best.
In Heir of Sea and Fire three princesses set out to find and rescue a prince. Morgon’s kid sister, his promised wife and a good friend who wants to protect Morgon because she’s not sure he can protect himself. I just loved that.
Don’t stop here. McKillip’s other, later work–THE BOOK OF ATRIX WOLFE, OMBRIA IN SHADOW, SONG FOR THE BASILISK, THE BARDS OF BONE PLAIN, THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD, and many more, including gems a’plenty in her short story collections–are fabulous.
I read the series when it first came out 40+ years ago. I’m going to have to go and do a re-read.
I love Fantastic Beasts and the Riddle Master series. I have reread the latter books more than any others.
I do have some nitpicks – It drives me crazy to read, “Her face vague,” as a description of someone mysterious.
Kingfisher: “she…had vague gray eyes”
Forgotten beasts “His eyes were vague with struggling…”
“…he eyes vague as though..”
“She stared vaguely…”
Riddle Master, regarding The Pig Woman, ” The vagueness dropped from her face like a mask, “
The Morgol of Herun, ” at the brief, vague touch of the gold eyes”
Morgon doing magic, ” for a moment his eyes were vague, “
etc
During my third to maybe seventh rereads, I had trouble with Morgon’s tantrums. He would smash a bowl or something. For example,
“Morgon reached methodically for the sword Bere had been sketching by the fire, swung it in a wide, blazing half-circle, smashed it in a snap of blue sparks against the stone wall. It gave a deep, flawless, bell-like protest before he dropped it, and he said bitterly, hunched over his stinging hands, “You could answer my questions.””
Later, it bothered me how so many people loved Morgon and Deth and Yrth. Maybe I am slow but it took a few more reads for me to recall they were basically gods and perhaps people loved them because they had to, rather than from friendship or the like.
—
and yet, I love those books and the beautiful descriptions.
Anyway, I saw the books on sale at a used book store a week ago and they caused me to want to reread them again.
Riddle master was a glorious find in the used book store down the street from my house. I don’t know who in my neighborhood had the amazing taste in Fantasy and Sci-Fi but I wish I could shake their hand. It’s been many years since I read the series and snippets and pieces, the magic of the far step, the humble surroundings of Morgan’s family. It just wanders the back of my head popping and coming to light at the oddest moments. After Tolkien McKillip was some of the earliest exposure to adult reading I had.
I bought the trilogy in hardcover, as the books came out. For my money, they are McKillip’s high water mark. I’ve never liked anything else of hers as much.
When Harpist came out, I told a friend the book wrapped up the story. She was relived. “So we’re not going to have another Princes of Amber debacle? Wonderful!”