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A review by mostlyshanti
The Riddle by Alison Croggon
4.0
The Riddle is long and good and deceptive. But I actually quite enjoyed it! Seeing the world that Alison Croggon has created was pretty cool. I loved the adventure, the fact that it never got repetitive, and all the emotional scenes that were so well written.
This pretends to be a translation (but isn't) and it's really all about the adventure. Rather like Star Wars movies, The Riddle operates on a series of fight/chase scenes punctuated by emotionally fraught moments. But it's not as repetitive as Star Wars. Anyway, I liked all the different places we saw in this novel--Thorold was so cool, and I liked the Rite of Renewal. The scene crossing the pass broke my heart. Then there were the dogs and the Jussacks and the Winterking and wolves and basically the excitement never stopped. That adventure-- and of course all the magic it contains-- made The Riddle so fun to read. I could really root for Maerad throughout her trials and tribulations.
With MASSIVE fantasy series like this one, it can be easy just to expect what's coming. But I never quite knew what was going to happen next and that was why I kept reading. The different settings, which were described pretty well, made it more interesting also. I just didn't get bored, and that must be a good thing, right?
There's also so much emotional stuff in this book. So Cadvan died. For the first hundred pages I kept expecting him to come back, because his death was so sudden; there was no finality. But then I decided he was really dead, so the end actually surprised me. the emotion of Maerad falling in love with the Winterking felt sort of artificial, but added a very interesting element to the story. But the deaths, unlike in most fantasy books, felt really powerful and real, not just thoughtless or for 'shock value' which I really appreciated.
The Riddle is beautiful fantasy, filled with adventure, yearning for more, wonderful writing and characterisation, without ever being repetitive. I really enjoyed it.
This pretends to be a translation (but isn't) and it's really all about the adventure. Rather like Star Wars movies, The Riddle operates on a series of fight/chase scenes punctuated by emotionally fraught moments. But it's not as repetitive as Star Wars. Anyway, I liked all the different places we saw in this novel--Thorold was so cool, and I liked the Rite of Renewal. The scene crossing the pass broke my heart. Then there were the dogs and the Jussacks and the Winterking and wolves and basically the excitement never stopped. That adventure-- and of course all the magic it contains-- made The Riddle so fun to read. I could really root for Maerad throughout her trials and tribulations.
With MASSIVE fantasy series like this one, it can be easy just to expect what's coming. But I never quite knew what was going to happen next and that was why I kept reading. The different settings, which were described pretty well, made it more interesting also. I just didn't get bored, and that must be a good thing, right?
There's also so much emotional stuff in this book.
"Love is no protection against being wounded.Do we then seek to dominate what we love, to make it bend to our will, to stop hurting us, even though to do so is to betray love? And that is only where the difficulty begins.
"'You shall have to find someone to kiss.'(good advice for all YA heroines tbh)
'I don't want to kiss anyone'...
'There are plenty who want to kiss you.... You'll just have to work out how to stop them.'"
"And the earth loved the sky and the sky loved the earth"(this is just a section of a beautifully written founding myth)
But now, instead of quailing before her future, a part of Maerad leapt to meet it
with exhilaration, a bittersweet gladness that they were beginning at last."
" Her grieving love welled through the pure, haunting notes, filling the desolate mountainside with inconsolable yearning for all she had lost."
" I live and I do not die. The wind lives, the snow lives, the ice lives, the mountain lives. Rock and ice have their own voices, their own lives, their own breath, their own pulse. Do you deny them that?"I just loved how evocative all these conversations and scenes in the ice palace were.
The Riddle is beautiful fantasy, filled with adventure, yearning for more, wonderful writing and characterisation, without ever being repetitive. I really enjoyed it.