The Hound and the Falcon

Gentle reader may recall that one of my favourite fantasy writers is Judith Tarr. Although she has written some fantasy set in original worlds, some of her best work, in my opinion, is in the vein of the historical fantasy, in which she revisits a place and time in our own very real history, and retells it as if some of the myths and legends common to that time and place were also real, and had been a part of the unfolding of history.

Earlier this year I re-read Judith Tarr’s The Hound and the Falcon trilogy, her first published fantasy:

The Isle of Glass
The Golden Horn
The Hounds of God

This series is partly the kind of historical fantasy that Tarr would later excel at, and partly an alternate historical fantasy, in which history did not happen quite as it did in this world. It’s also the first of her works that I read, and hence I remembered it with great fondness, and anticipated re-reading it. And I was not disappointed.

The Hound and the Falcon is set in an Earth where elves exist, and have for a long time had relations of state with the world of man, but are now withdrawing slowly, pushed to the edges of the known world by the advance of the Catholic Church, to which they are anathema. The time corresponds to our own 13th century: there is a Richard on the throne of Anglia, and a crusade brewing. But in this Earth, there are three kingdoms in southern Britannia – Anglia, Gwynedd, and Rhiyana, and the king of Rhiyana is of the Elfkind.

The protagonist of the series is Alf, who we see first as Brother Alfred, a devout monk who, despite having lived in the monastery of St. Ruan for 60 years, and having penned a scholarly religious work that is known throughout Europe, appears to be little more than a beautiful, almost unearthly-looking boy. Alf was a foundling, his past unknown, and he has lived his entire life sheltered by the abbots and monks of St. Ruan, never having to face the question of who – or what – he is. Then, quite suddenly, Alf is thrown into the outer world of politics – both secular and churchly – and is forced to acknowledge his true self and his people in order to survive – and discover himself, and love – in a world where religious wars are raging and the Church wants nothing more than to drive whatever it considers to be heretical and evil from the sight of man and God.

The story of Alf’s search for truth, self and love, set against a turbulent time of fear, distrust, hate and catastrophic religious war, is compelling – and its conclusion leaves the reader with both joy and sorrow.

This is among the best of Tarr's many great works of fantasy.

More of The Sun Sword

Last year, I discovered the writing of Michelle Sagara, who also publishes under the name Michelle West (well, actually, I didn’t discover her, she’s been well-known, and deservedly so, for some time, but you know what I mean).

As Michelle West, Sagara has written a most wonderful fantasy series, six volumes in length, called The Sun Sword. Last year, I read the first two volumes of this series, The Broken Crown and The Uncrowned King, and earlier this year, I read the remaining four books – and am eagerly awaiting her next work, the House Wars trilogy, which will be set in the same universe.

The Shining Court
Sea of Sorrows
The Riven Shield
The Sun Sword

Sagara has written a great epic fantasy, the core of which is, as you might guess, that Sun Sword – or rather, what it represents, a centuries-old struggle between humankind and demonkind for the rulership of the world. But while only one person can wield the Sun Sword – and he must survive a great deal to prove his ability and right to take it up – this is the kind of epic fantasy where there are multiple quests and many heroes (and villains, and those who are not so easy to characterise as one or the other) whose labours and struggles are just as vital to the final outcome as that of the nominal hero (rather like The Lord of the Rings – it’s Frodo’s task to deal with the ring, but he wouldn’t have gotten very far without Sam, or Gandalf, or Aragorn, or Faramir, or even Gollum).

Part of what is so very wonderful for me about this series is that a great many of these other, vital characters are women, and they come from all kinds of backgrounds. Sagara gives us a very close look at three very different human cultures in this series, and one of the things that differentiates the three is the image, role and place of women – one culture is fiercely patriarchal, one is equally fiercely matriarchal, and one is egalitarian. And yet from each of these societies come women who, in their own way, are active and vital agents in the forward action of the story,

And it is a very complicated and complex story, with all sorts of prophecies and goals and possibilities and motivations for each of the players and wonderfully tangled political intricacies and plots going on in both the broader cultures – including that of the demons – and in the various smaller units – clans, houses, tribes, schools, armies, sects – that are a part of these cultures. In short, it’s a very realistic kind of epic fantasy, and that makes it very much the sort of thing I enjoy.

Once and Future King

I know, it’s hard to believe, but I’d never read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series before this year. But, what with the movie coming out and everyone talking about what a mess it had made of the books – plus the fact that I knew they were part of that large body of modern fantasy with Arthurian themes – I finally got around to reading the series.

Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark is Rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree

I should begin with the admission that I’m rather iffy about young adult books. Sometimes I like them a lot, and sometimes I don’t like them at all, and I’ve never really been able to figure out what it is that makes the difference. But these, I liked. And not just because Merlin was hanging about being all archetypically mysterious.

Like many epic fantasies, this series is another take on the battle between good and evil, drawing on both the history and the mythology of Britain to tell the story of the last-born Old One – a young boy named Will Stanton, the seventh son of a seventh son, whose destiny it is to complete, with the aid of both the other remaining Old Ones, including the Merlinesque Merriman Lyon, and three young, and very brave and inquisitive but otherwise quite ordinary children Barney, Jane, and Simon Drew, a sequence of magical tasks that will allow him to stand as the last Merlin at the side of the last Pendragon in the final battle.

Yummy stuff. And fine reading for a few unusually dark and dreary winter’s eves.