⇒ PDF Harpist in the Wind Patricia A McKillip 9780283985829 Books

Harpist in the Wind Patricia A McKillip 9780283985829 Books

Download As PDF : Harpist in the Wind Patricia A McKillip 9780283985829 Books

Harpist in the Wind Patricia A McKillip 9780283985829 Books

This is a great classic story and one that is worth reading. McKillip's writing is just so beautiful and haunting that you have to read it to understand. It might be an older series of books, but its creativity really stands up.


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Harpist in the Wind Patricia A McKillip 9780283985829 Books Reviews

Patricia McKillip wraps up her Riddlemaster trilogy in a manner that other current fantasy authors have yet to match. If the second book of a series tends to be the weakest, the last is the most likely to disappoint. Here, the trilogy gets even more amazing.
In the aftermath of Heir of Sea and Fire, Raederle and Morgan have been reunited in Anuin, where the dead are still roaming around, Deth has vanished, and Raederle is afraid to marry Morgan because of her fears of her own strange ancestry. Morgan brings a shipful of wraiths to his home of Hed, and confronts the family who sees that he is no longer as he once was.
And the lands of An are teetering on the edge of war, with shapechangers creeping through the land and the sinister Ghisteslwchlohm somehow at the middle of it. "There are men in it who have already died, who are still fighting, with their bodies possessed by nothing human." So Morgan and Raederle must go on the ultimate mission -- a mission that will take them to the heart and history of their world, the secret of the shape-changers and what they are, and what Morgan's secret destiny is...
McKillip doesn't falter for a moment in this book, the third of the series; she's never written doorstopper epics, but her books are some of the most outstanding fantasy in print. Her writing evolved even over the course of the trilogy, becoming more introspective and more spellbinding in its descriptions. She gives you only a hint of how something looks, but every sense about how it feels and how it is perceived by the characters.
Morgan and Raederle have both grown from the beginnings of their initial books. Morgan is now a more tormented, multidimensional person than the guy who hid a crown under his bed and got sour milk dumped on his head. He feels the weight of An on his shoulders, and experiences equal determination and fear. Raederle has also changed, since finding out about her mixed heritage and why she has her mysterious powers. In a way, this knowledge about her past balances out with Morgan's knowledge about his future destiny. She's not the usual fantasy girlfriend whose sole purpose is to provide the hero with some romance, but a strong and independent female character who acts as a vital part of the storyline.
The supporting characters are also amazing Deth is his usual ambiguous self, where you can't be sure if he's working for or against Morgan. Rood is still delightful, but transformed into a more serious character. And we see more of Raederle's quirky father Mathom, Morgan's sister Tristan and brother Eliard, and various other faces from the past two books.
This is one of the few fantasy stories where you simply can't guess what is ahead. Questions and hints laid out in the previous two books are followed up on, and pretty much no threads are left dangling. You won't guess beforehand what Morgan's destiny is or what the shapechangers were, or even how they can be dealt with. You won't know what Deth's plans are until he reveals them, or whether he's a villain or a hero. As in real life, the answers are not laid on the table for everyone to see; what you see is not necessarily what is real, and what the hero thinks about a person is not necessarily what is true.
Unlike most fantasies, this book is not padded for extra length, given an enormous cast of characters or an overly complicated system of kingdoms and hierarchies. There are no stereotypical elements like elves, dwarves, gray-bearded wizards, or Dark Lords; only shapechangers and human beings. McKillip's magic is not the slam-bang-whizz-sparks-of-light type, but a subtle, strange, powerful kind.
The climax to one of the best fantasy stories since Lord of the Rings, and one of the best out there. A must-read.
The conclusion of the Riddle-Master series finds Morgon and Raederle struggling to find the mysterious High One and the reason for the war that has spread across the realm. The quest begins simply enough as they head for the ancient wizard’s city of Lungold. This book, like the other two, has almost all of its action take place on the way to destinations instead of at them. Morgon and his bride-to-be struggle on the journey and have their characters developed. They fall into traps, escape, get to Lungold, where they fall into a trap, escape, head to another destination, fall into a trap, escape…I think you get the idea. The main riddles of the book, if not the series, are who is the High One, who are the Earth Masters, and what does one have to do with the other? These questions have needed to be answered for a long time, and when they finally are, it almost really doesn’t matter.

Patricia McKillip’s writing is quite good. She describes details and emotions with a power to draw the reader into imagery. The effect is such that – like the illusion that the wizards of this book so often create – there is an illusion that this story has more of a plot than it actually does. Thankfully, in the final third of Harpist, the main plot is finally revealed, and yet when it is, there’s not really any more to it than what one kind of expects. The motivations behind the final reveal and what all the characters are fighting about are basically left to the idea that power corrupts. It’s vague, but at least the writing was nice.

There are moments of real emotion in the book. Raederle’s character is continually the touchstone for any strength this series has found. I have read many reviews that claim that this is that reader’s all time favorite series. My only conclusion is that they have connected with these characters in their brief moments of genuine insight. Each of them, especially Deth the harpist, have the potential to be major fantasy characters, but at the end of the day, plot helps flesh characters out, and these books were lacking in it. Florid prose does not a series make.

The Riddle-Master Trilogy had many good ideas and characters – even though their fullness didn’t quite pan out. There was enough here that I would be willing to try more from this author. If you read this series, you may not be disappointed, but there’s also plenty of other fantasy out there you should hit first.

5.5 stars out of 10
The Riddle-Master trilogy has always suffered from author Patricia A. McKillip keeping us at a distance from its world, and this concluding volume finally collapses under that weight. It isn't a worldbuilding issue per se, since this reality has always felt fully formed to the characters who live in it. But so much of the internal logic of that reality remains unclear to readers that the revelations throughout this novel are dramatically inert. The text is full of things like one immortal character getting revealed to actually be another immortal character, with little explanation about how or why any of that matters. It's a disappointing end to this series, especially after a superb middle novel that transcends those weaknesses so well.
It would be best to start with the first book in this series. Nice ending, but I would love it if the author would continue with more books. Not sure if she's even still alive ) In my opinion the characters are believable and real. The writing is often dream-like with some gaps in the story line, and you often get an "impression". If you like clear cut facts, descriptions and answers, this series is not for you.
This is a great classic story and one that is worth reading. McKillip's writing is just so beautiful and haunting that you have to read it to understand. It might be an older series of books, but its creativity really stands up.