A review by outcolder
The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip

3.0

I like fantasy worlds that have the ruins of ancient lost civilizations, I mean, it’s a familiar enough trope, but I dig it. There is an even cornier thing here but I don’t want to spoil it, I’ll just say that the same thing happens sometimes in spy thrillers, and it’s another thing I like. The magic isn’t easy, and as the main character learns it, it feels very meditative and cool, another positive. I was worried the shape-changing stuff would bother me, but it was actually also really cool, especially the turning into trees. Still, the logic of it all seemed fuzzy, the “riddles” are more like pub quiz trivia and the main character is solving mysteries without much detective work... I just felt like it could have been so much better. I guess at the time she wrote it, publishers and readers were different than today, I think if she had written it a decade later it would have been twice as long and with more dead friends. Still, really solid fantasy; I will read the rest of the series... hoping it gets weirder, looking forward to important female characters in the next volume.