McKinley: Recommendations, rants, and ramblings...

My recommendations...

Morgan Llewelyn: Bard.
A *very* good book, about the early Celtic bard Amergin.

Joan Aiken..hm...If she was the one who wrote, "The Wolves of Willoughby (sp?)
Chase", I recommend it. It is a children's book, but a very good one.

Elizabeth Moon: The Deed of Paksennarrion
Not a great classic, but a fun read, especially if you like a slightly more
realistic view of the mercenary life.

Joan D. Vinge: The entire Psion series. (Psion, Catspaw, and Dreamfall.)
Very, *very* good. I loved them all.

Mercedes Lackey: The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy (Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise,
Magic's Price)
I haven't read these in a while, but I remember finding them very well done.
For the open-minded.

If you want to read a little about Thomas the Rhymer, the story is in the
background of Patricia Wrede's "Snow White, Rose Red". Of course, if you read
it and that's why you want more info, I suppose this doesn't help you much...

And, just to complete the random qualities of this message, somone had asked
earlier about how to 'rank' Yolen, LeGuin, and McKillip.

Jane Yolen is, in my opinion, far and away the best of the three. There's
certain misty, beautifully poetic quality that Robin has, and I think Jane
comes closer to that than any other author I've read so far. This is not to
say that she copies Robin; simply that she writes very well indeed. And Briar
Rose is one of the most powerful books I've ever read.

Next, I'd put Patricia McKillip. She writes with a lot of poetry, too, but I
thought she tends to get a bit too involved in that, which makes it very self-
conscious. Like, her writing is beautiful and she knows it, which makes it
somehow fake sometimes. But the, um, Harpist in the Wind series was very good
nonetheless.

And as for LeGuin...A Wizard of Earthsea I recall as being fairly good...I
read another of hers, though (the name of which I cannot for the life of me
remember..) and I absolutely hated it. Can't say exactly why; just that the
book, whatever it was, seemed to me to be utterly devoid of that magic quality
that makes the words themselves sparkle.

Anyways....there's my opinion, for the little it's worth.

Fare thee well,
Alisma
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Received on Tue Jun 9 04:24:48 1998