Book Review: 'The Riddle-Master of Hed'
Every Fall, here at the PorPor Books Blog I focus for a good six weeks or so on horror literature, to coincide with Halloween. After reading a steady diet of the grim and gruesome, I'm in the mood for lighter fare, thus, I'll settle down with some fantasy fiction. And so it was that I read 'The Riddle-Master of Hed,' one of a number of fantasy works for adults and children authored by Patricia McKillip (1948 - 2022).
'The Riddle-Master of Hed' first was published in 1976 by Atheneum; this mass market paperback edition was issued by Del Rey / Ballantine in March, 1979, and features cover art by Darrell Sweet.
This was one of the more prominent fantasy trilogies issued in the 1970s, standing alongside Katherine Kurtz's 'Deryni' novels and Stephen R. Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' trilogy as foundations of the fantasy genre as it is today. 'Riddle-Master' was followed by 'Heir of Sea and Fire' (1977), and 'Harpist in the Wind' (1979). 'Riddle of Stars,' an omnibus edition of all the novels, was published by the Science Fiction Book Club / Nelson Doubleday in October, 1979.
Early in the novel we learn that Morgon has won an ancient and mystical artifact, the crown of the Kings of Aum, by successfully contesting a riddle contest with the ghost of Peven, a former king of Aum. Given that many have tried and failed (at the cost of their lives) to win the crown, when news of the feat spreads through the mainland, Morgon is obliged to travel there and make himself known to astonished wizards, scribes, and kings.
What seems to the unassuming Morgon to be a pleasant, if tedious, undertaking quickly takes on darker tones: an ancient evil has resurfaced in the world, and for reasons no one quite understands, it has focused its malevolence on the simple farmer from Hed. When shapeshifters, disguised as allies, try to murder him, Morgon realizes that retreating to Hed offers no safety. Instead, hoping to discover why he's being targeted, Morgon must travel north to Erlenstar Mountain and the redoubt of the High One, the most powerful mage in the world. Accompanying him will be the harpist Deth, the High One's herald and a man accustomed to journeying through the wilder places of the earth.
All manner of perils await Morgon and Deth in their travels, for their opponents have no intention of letting them arrive at Erlenstar Mountain. And with the shapeshifters loose, failure to distinguish friend from foe can be lethal.........
For those with patience, 'Riddle-Master' is a contemplative, and gradually rewarding, novel. It assuredly is not 'epic' fantasy: there are no clashes of massed armies of orcs and elves, no Dark Lord and his machinations, no dragons, no dungeons, and no treasure hoards. Plot is subordinate to characterization and setting, with the latter aspect taking on lyrical tones in the hands of author McKillip:
They spent one more night in Ymris, then crossed the worn hills and turned eastward, skirting the low mountains, beyond which lay the plains and tors of Herun. The autumn rains began again, monotonous, persistent, and they rode silently through the wilderness between the lands, hunched into voluminous hooded cloaks, their harps trussed in leather, tucked beneath them. They slept in what dry places they could find in shallow caves of rock, beneath thick groves of trees, their fires wavering reluctantly in wind and rain.
The narrative relies heavily (too heavily, in fact) on lengthy dialogue passages, often as a vehicle to impart plot developments. Action sequences are rare and almost perfunctory, and their aftermath is given more attention (in terms of the emotional and psychological impact on the participants) than the incident itself.
As for protagonist Morgon, he is not a very imposing, or even a likable, character. He is, rather, a passive individual, prone to bemoaning his misfortune as a plaything of powerful forces arising from the past. Morgon's passivity becomes tedious, for he spends one chapter with severe amnesia, relying for survival on the kindness of a hermit. He spends much of another chapter lying in bed, trying to recover from an illness and vulnerable to shapeshifters. In yet another chapter, he again is abed, when he's the target of a murder attempt. Playing melancholy tunes on his harp, and considering the unfairness of it all, is the one thing he's good at.
Morgan is, in colloquial expression, a Soy Boy..........
As the opening volume of the trilogy, 'Riddle-Master' necessarily has an open-ended denouement, but I found it effective nonetheless, and encouraging enough for me to proceed with the second volume, 'Heir of Sea and Fire.'
