Rating: 
Summary: approach with caution
Review: The hero whines a lot, suffers inexplicably over things that don't seem too troublesome, and is loved unreservedly by every good guy in the book. The heroine is annoying, wanting to be present at all times and tagging along even when not supposed to -- this is supposed to make her a "strong" female character rather than the pest and burden she really would be? The young McKillip hasn't yet learned how to shape a story, develop characters, or create suspense; the story is choppy, episodic, and at times inexplicable. There is much -- way too much -- description of emotion, but no creation of emotion in the reader. I'm being a little brutal, but this is an immature work that will appeal mostly to teens and to those who haven't read much adult fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: I agree, the best of the genre
Review: When I first attempted to read this trilogy I got about 30 pages into it and put it down. The brother and sister argueing down on the farm just didn't draw me in. But luckily for me, I decided to give it another chance a few days later.
I have never read anything like it. After the first 30-40 pages the first book is like being on a ride of "wonder." Everything you see is fascinating and although you want to know the "secrets" you really don't want to get to the end.
The change of perspective in the second book is the most creative technique I've seen in fantasy writing. Once again at first I was almost put off, but loved the first book so much that I pressed right on and quickly became enamored of the second story teller.
The third book and payoff sometimes can be a let down after a great buildup. Not in this story. It builds to a great cresendo and delivers a mighty payoff that in no way disappoints.
Great writing Ms. McKillip! Thanks for a wonderful journey that I've enjoyed several times over the years and probably will reread again soon.
Rating:
Summary: Also known as the "Riddle of Stars" trilogy
Review: Reading McKillip's great Riddle-Master trilogy is like trying to solve the riddle of someone else's partially-glimpsed dream. You enter a rich world of metaphor, sometimes baffling but always beautiful. A standard hero's quest is overgrown with fabulous beasts, children of stone, and death-dealing harps.
In the first book, "The Riddle-Master of Hed" Land-Ruler Morgon of Hed wins a bride and a crown in a riddling contest with a ghost. He wipes the cow manure off of his boots and sets sail from his tiny island kingdom, unsure as to whether his beautiful, red-haired prize has any interest in marrying a farmer-king. In pursuit of an answer, Morgon detours to the College of Riddle-Masters at Caithnard, where he was once a student and where his bride's brother still resides. His companion for the journey is Deth, the thousand-year-old High One's harpist.
Morgon and Deth are shipwrecked, and once Morgon regains his memory he discovers that he has unknown, shape-changing enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy him. As he flees through the kingdoms of his world, he is befriended by the various land-rulers and is gifted with a harp and a sword that are decorated with three stars--identical to the birthmark of stars on his forehead. He also learns how to change his own shape into beasts and trees.
Finally Morgon makes his way to Erlenstar Mountain with Deth, the harpist, hoping that the High One will solve the riddle of his stars and defend him against his implacable enemies.
The heir of sea and fire referred to in the title of the second book in the trilogy is Raederle, Morgon of Hed's betrothed. She struggles against her shape-changer heritage, but gradually begins to tap into its power in order to protect Morgon. "Heir of Sea and Fire" begins in the spring of the year "following the strange disappearance of the Prince of Hed, who had, with the High One's harpist, vanished like a mist in Isig Pass..."
Raederle has reason to believe Morgon dead, since the land-rule of Hed has passed to Morgon's brother, Eliard. Or was land-rule ripped from Morgon while he was still alive? In a key passage, Raederle asks the High One's harpist, "What piece of knowledge did the Founder expect to find beneath the knowledge of when the barley would begin to sprout or what trees in his orchard had a disease eating secretly at their hearts?"
The importance of the question lies in the inability of the harpist to answer it.
There are some great visuals in "Heir of Sea and Fire," especially in the sequence where Raederle calls up the dead of An and bargains with them to protect the man who is journeying across their land. I really feared for her life because of the bargain she made with the dead Kings, even though I've read a million fantasies and the heroine never dies--at least not until the end of the trilogy.
In the final book of the trilogy, "Harpist in the Wind," the Star-bearer (Morgon of Hed) and Raederle of An, united at last, continue their search for their true identities. This book won the Locus Award in 1980 and I feel 'award-winning' is the least amount of praise one can apply to this trilogy. McKillip 'dreams awake' when she spins her fantasies, and that's how it feels to read them.
Love, family ties, and even magical bonds to the land play an important part in these novels, as they do in many other great fantasy epics such as 'Lord of the Rings' and Norton's Witchworld trilogy concerning the triplets Kemoc, Kyllan, and Kaththea. Vengeance, which was a prominent theme in "Heir of Sea and Fire" slows to a cold drizzle in "Harpist in the Wind" and in one case dries up completely.
Revenge might indeed be a 'dish best tasted cold' but if it gets too cold, the hero could end up feeling sorry for his erstwhile enemy or even forgiving him, as does Morgon. His gradual change from innocent farmer-prince, to vengeful shape-changer, to the Star-bearer spins out the most challenging riddle of this trilogy. Who is the Star-bearer? What is his true purpose?
"Stars, children with faces of stone, the fiery, broken shards of a bowl he had smashed in Astrin's hut, dead cities, a dark-haired shape-changer, a harpist, all resolved under his probing into answerless riddles"--at least in the beginning of "Harpist in the Wind."
There are scenes of high astonishment and magic in 'Harpist,' most especially in Morgon's discovery of wizards other than the evil Ghisteslwchlohm who are still alive, most prominently Yrth, the creator of Morgon's three-starred harp. Or is this another of the riddles the Star-bearer must solve? What is the relationship between Deth, the High One's harpist who betrayed Morgon to Ghisteslwchlohm, and Yrth, a great wizard who had once been called the Harpist of the magical city of Lungold?
At trilogy's end, all riddles are answered and the Star-bearer comes into his heritage, although his friends and loved ones (and the reader) seem to realize who he is long before he does. Such is usually the case with heroes.
Rating:
Summary: Should be a fantasy classic
Review: I just want to add the perspective of a not-hard-core fantasy reader-- I just like good stories, be it an oldie like The Brothers Karamazov or a new great like The Life of Pi. And this is one of my all-time favorite stories. It really is worthy of the "classic" label-- it is masterful storytelling, utterly creative, and seems more real than 'real-life' fiction. What matters most to me are characters who are real and story that speaks into my own life-- Riddle Master has both. It has none of the cheesiness or worn-out qualities of some of those fat, best-selling fantasies with 39 sequels that you can buy at airports. This story is deep, and stays with you for life. If you can make it through the second chapter, I don't think you'll find this story hard to get into at all.
Regardless of what many others have said, without a doubt I can say this is McKillip's strongest work. While her writing is always compelling, many of her 'more mature works' lack the depth and complexity of this one. I definitely enjoyed The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Song for the Basilisk, and Winter Rose, but they all left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied, due to the somewhat tidy endings and incomplete characters. They are enjoyable, well-written stories that you forget in a year. Not so with Riddle Master.
It definitely IS high time that those cheesy 70s mass-market paperback covers (that probably kept would-be appreciative readers away) were replaced with this one-volume reprint. I'm not the only one to initially judge a book by its cover. Take the opportunity to experience this beautiful story without having to brave the 3 annoying comic-book paintings, produced by those cover-artists who never read the books. I'm buying a new volume and giving the old ones to someone who doesn't care about aesthetics!
Rating:
Summary: One of Patricia McKillip's Best
Review: I have to admit that the "Riddle Master of Hed" is the very first fantasy book I ever read, and even though there are a ton of new stories out there I still love to read this one. I was excited to see they had all been put into one complete trilogy. This is definitely a story that could easily be made into a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: This is the finest of all of Patricia McKillip's works. Unlike the others, the characters have great depth and the story is original.
This book is a collection of three shorter novels, which are now almost completley unavailable. The follow the story of Morgan of Hed, the ruler of a simple land of farmers, who finds that his fate leads him to leave his land. He endures perils for reasons he does not understand, and finds friendship amoung the rulers of other lands. Most of the books follow his journeys and the journeys of his lover, Raerderle.
One of the most memorable elements of the books is the concept of riddles. These are stories of things that happened long ago which have acute meaning for the present time. Morgan's plight is echoed in the riddles which appear throughout the book, and some of the riddles are truly beautiful in their own right.
Some have commented that this work is not entirely mature. Although this is true to a limited extent (occasionally a line of dialogue sounds unnatural), it is not a large enough problem to distract readers from the beauty of the whole work. It is appropriate for ages 12 and up, and wonderful for adults as well as children.
Rating:
Summary: doesn't hold up
Review: I first read this series in grade school. I remember it as being some of the first fantasy I ever read and a favorite. I picked it up again this summer after reading some other Patricia McKillip stories. I wish I hadn't.
It just doesn't hold up over time. After reading J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, and many other great fantasy writers, the flaws are far too obvious to ignore. It feels like a bad attempt at a first novel by a naive teenager. There are words in here that do not exist in any dictionary and phrases that made me cringe. She mentions secondary characters several times with seeming importance to the story without further developing them or explaining their importance. These books could have been so much better if only the writing skills matched the premise. The descriptions of events and travel are good, but take so long to read with so many errors and unimaginative phrases that it becomes a struggle to finish (much like Tolkien's descriptions).
Take a pass on this book. Children might like it, but there's much better fantasy out there. (And I don't mean Harry Potter!)
Rating:
Summary: Pride of Place on My Bookshelf
Review: The Riddlemaster of Hed was the first of Patricia McKillip's books that I read. I was drawn in by the disarming simplicity of words combined with such lyricism, such beauty, such honesty, that at the end of the three books in the series I could not pick up another book for days. I reread the series once, sometimes twice a year, and am still left with a sense of awe when I finish. There is no other trilogy that I would recommend so highly as this one.
Rating:
Summary: my childhood innocence
Review: I just wanted to give it 5 stars to support its rating and offset some of the bad reviews (hee hee). Well, ok, I'll try to help out those wondering if they should buy this book.
The plot: the farmer Prince of Hed with a birth mark of three stars on his forehead leaves his country to marry his betrothed, Raederle (which I think is the name of an Irish princess, so my Irish friend Caerhball told me). Anyway, our hero's journey is cut short by an ambush, and he is forced to "answer the unanswered riddles": who or what are the cold and cruel shape changers chasing him? Who really is the harpist that travels with him? What are the stars on his head? To answer these questions, the Prince of Hed goes on a journey to ask the High One, the ruler of all of the lands.
And it goes on from there.
It's a trilogy full of raw emotions, darkness, silence, and dreamlike poetry. This story is not new to me. I'm 23 years old now, and it was 11 years ago when I first picked up the Heir of Sea and Fire (the second part of this trilogy), which pulled me into the fantasy genre. It's a part of who I am--it's like wherever I go, I take all of the seriousness, maturity, and innocence embodied in this trilogy with me, because it has helped shaped who I am today. Thus, it's neither a typical story nor story-telling.
It attracts only certain types of people--people lusting after color and richness and people appreciating not just the end of a story, but the process of getting there as well. If you're up for the challenge, read it.
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