I Made a List, Part 2

When I wrote my book list for Shepherd, it made me so nostalgic that I went down to my library and snagged the paperbacks off the shelf. I’ve since been re-reading them. Well, how do these fantasy classics hold up? I’ll comment in order of their publication.

Witch World, by Andre Norton (1963) is an old-school SF epic. By today’s standards, the prose is a bit stiff. This causes the fighting and other derring-do, and the budding romances, to feel somewhat muffled. However, the basic struggle against gender roles and other prejudice still rings true.

Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey (1968), introduces her famous world of Pern, where humans and dragons share a psychic bond of “impression.” That includes the dragons’ mating, which also draws their riders into sexual activity that is right at the edge of consent. This might be problematic for contemporary readers. McCaffrey’s work frequently got frisky by the standards of the era. If she was writing today, I think she’d fit right in with urban fantasy, where there’s a lot of sex and some of it is quite kinky.

The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. LeGuin (1971). Without reservation, this book holds up to any current fantasy. The language is poetic, yet sparse and direct. There’s a sense of history and grandeur in the desolate landscape around the tombs. Yet LeGuin also draws a sympathetic portrait of a young woman stumbling forward as she tries to escape magical and emotional bonds. Arha and Ged both save each other from the powers of darkness. In this reading, it seemed to me she was infatuated with Ged, who kindly did not take advantage of her vulnerable state.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia McKillip (1974), is one of my all-time favorites and also holds up almost 40 years later. Who wouldn’t love to have a menagerie of legendary beasts? McKillip’s prose is also poetic, but more flowery and emotional than LeGuin’s. You can almost miss the family drama, tormented love, and political intrigue. Sybel becomes intent on revenge and backs one side in a war, but in the end her magical animals prevent the violence that all the humans seem to crave. That’s something I’ve come to value in my own written work.

The last book in my list is Barbara Hambly’s Ladies of Mandrigyn (1984). I haven’t re-read that one yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Perhaps that will come up in a future post.

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