The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley ~ 1982. This edition: Firebird (Penguin Putnam), 2002. Softcover. ISBN: 0-14-130975-X. 272 pages.
Orphaned misfit tomboy rather unwillingly travels to a new home, finds herself, falls in love and is fallen in love with, saves a kingdom. There we have it in a nutshell.
Embellishments include a rather good invented world based recognizably on colonial Great Britain and one of its more troublesome hot-place colonies, wonderfully psychic horses, stellar swordplay (our heroine is a natural, of course), giant domesticated cheetah-like cats (I want one!), not-quite-human bad guys, and a fair bit of magic.
Also a strong silent type who just happens to be a king, and who does he fall for?
Yup. You guessed it.
Okay, this sounds a bit dismissive, and I don’t mean it to be, because this is a very decent example of its genre, a fast-moving bildungsroman incorporating a truly generous number of fantasy-fiction tropes, with undoubted inspiration from those who went this way before, most obviously perhaps our old friend J.R.R. Tolkien.
Here’s the back cover blurb from my Firebird edition, which hits all the high points:
Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Free Hillfolk. When Corlath, the Hillfolk King, sees her for the first time, he is shaken—for he can tell that she is something more than she appears to be. He will soon realize what Harry has never guessed: She is to become Harimad-sol, King’s Rider, and carry the Blue Sword, Gonturan, which no woman has wielded since the legendary Lady Aerin, generations past…
Damar is well imagined, and I am happy to report that McKinley develops it in much more detail in another, even better novel, the prequel to The Blue Sword (though published after it, in 1984): The Hero and the Crown. Lots more girl power. And horses. And there also be dragons.
Also in several short stories contained in the 1994 collect The Knot in the Grain.
Good stuff.
The Blue Sword picked up a seriously decent award early on, being designated a Newbery Honor Book in 1983 (The Hero and the Crown subsequently won the Newbery Medal in 1985), and a couple of ALA citations, one for Notable Book, and another for Best Book for Young Adults.
This was McKinley’s second published novel, after 1978’s Beauty, and in common with a lot of her early work it is for the most part nice and tight and well-edited; sadly the same cannot be said for some of her later efforts, which suffer from over embellishment and goosey-loosey plot structure. (Sunshine, you’re the gorgeously vampirish exception. Shadows, I’m looking right at you.)
My rating: a good strong 8/10, because I’ve read it quite a number of time over the years (though I was out of the target YA age group when it was first published, and so missed reading it in my teen years) and I still like it a lot, crowded with predictable fantasy stereotype as it is.
Undemanding and engaging escape reading, as so many of the better “youth” novels are. Picking out those familiar fantasy-lit motifs and seeing how the author makes them her own can be a lot of fun.
Leaves & Pages 
I do love Robin McKinley… Although I completely agree with you about a lot of her later stuff. Shadows has been sitting on my TBR for a while and I’ve started it a couple of times but never got any further. I think Sunshine, Beauty and Spindle’s End are probably my favourites but perhaps its time for a return to Damar? Certainly her last four or five novels have inspired me not at all.
I wonder if she ever can return to Damar? Perhaps that particular boat has sailed… Though I would welcome another Damarian tale, if it could be written in her older style. I agree with you regarding her last few novels – they seem rather out of hand and over written, as if too many not-quite-developed (or maybe OVER developed?) ideas were just tossed out there and rambled on about. I have had to return to McKinley’s earlier books to restore my faith in her and remind myself how much I liked her stuff when I was reading it for the very first time. I don’t want to see any author remaining static; their work should grow and develop into all sorts of experimental areas, but sadly what seems to so often happen once a writer hits consistent bestsellerism is that the stringent editing (by self and by a real, strict outside editor) falls away.
Yes, every time I have read one of her newer books I have wondered if it was me- am I now to old for her target audience and am no longer ‘getting’ her books. But I don’t think that’s the case. Sadly I think that magic sparkle that made her books special has disappeared. Like you I return to her older books. They will always be treasured favourites I hope, but I approach her new books with uncertainty rather than excitement.
Nope, I don’t think it’s “just you”. Back when I had teen readers in the family they responded the same – they independently volunteered that McKinley’s stuff was sliding downhill for them, too. I automatically purchased everything she put out because we all liked it, and we have almost all of her books now, but the earlier ones get all the lasting love.
I expect I’ll keep buying them as they come out as well… But absolutely on my shelves you can tell which ones are well loved. The new ones are all far more pristine
Yes, beware the pristine cover and unrumpled page! 😉
I luuuurved this book when I was a teen (and i was the perfect age when it came out). I know McKinley kind of dismissed it later as her idea of the perfect life when she was ten, but it is still pretty perfect at any age for light escapist reading, as you say. Hero and the Crown does have more substance.
But the later books … it’s like she had a brain transplant or something. Or got famous and editors didn’t dare to touch her stuff any more. I can’t read it.
The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown are really special – I don’t think the author should dismiss them. There’s a ton of appeal for readers of all ages in there, fantastic world-building and some really grand protagonists.
Some of the later ones got downright goofy. I think Dragonhaven marked the final turning point for me – it was okayish but it went off into some rather weird territory which felt self indulgent. A strong editor would have cleaned it up a lot. In my opinion. 😉
I never quite got the hang of this book! My sister was always a huge fan of it, but I loved Beauty the best of all Robin McKinley’s books, and The Blue Sword just somehow never did it for me. Do you think it’s the kind of thing where you have to read it at a certain age?
Well, I dunno…that’s a good question. Though I have to say that both my husband and I both started on McKinley when we were in our forties and were picking up “youth” books for our pre-teen children. We both liked Blue Sword and Hero. I think Hero is the better book myself, but I like any of the Damar settings, including those stories in A Knot in the Grain.
I kind of endured Harry – she was pretty annoying at times – but I really loved Aerin.
There is something appealing about that world. Reminds me personally of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, though without the dwarves, elves, hobbits, etc. Which I loved in those books. I was a huge Tolkien fan from when I was maybe 10 years old or so and my mother got me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy for Christmas. I read them three times, all in order, starting again as soon as I came to the end of the fourth book. So maybe that prepped me to like McKinley’s version of an alternate world?
Which one did you read first, Beauty or Blue Sword? Because that might have swayed your preference. Maybe? Or just something clicked with one versus the other for some esoteric reason. I guess there aren’t “rules”! 🙂