Book recommendations for someone who loved The Blue Sword

[maize]

ideas for someone who loved The Blue Sword but didn't love The Hero and the Crown?

[Mothersweets]

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt

and here is a list of little known Hidden Gems: YA Fantasy Novels

Hope this helps 🙂

 

[maize]

2 hours ago, Mothersweets said:

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt

and here is a list of little known Hidden Gems: YA Fantasy Novels

Hope this helps 🙂

 

That hidden gems list has several that I am not familiar with

[moonflower]

cynthia voigt is a great rec, there are more in that universe besides jackaroo, too (although preread for content, some of them have abuse and other violence - not necessarily graphic, but not undisturbing)

there's the Queen's Thief series, of which the 4th, I think (Conspiracy of Kings?) and the 1st would be good.  In the 2nd, spoiler, the female main character-ish cuts off the hand of the male main character and then he marries her so I hesitate to recommend those although the writing is excellent.

[Tanaqui]

To be fair, Gen is a thief and that's a historically normal punishment.

Also, *I* loved The Blue Sword, so gimme a day. How old is this person and are there any content issues?

[maize]

1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

To be fair, Gen is a thief and that's a historically normal punishment.

Also, *I* loved The Blue Sword, so gimme a day. How old is this person and are there any content issues?

15 years old; prefer PG-ish when it comes to sexual content (like, the fact that sexuality is part of being human is OK but nothing graphic or emphasized and this kid isn't much for romance anyway). Normal fantasy sort of violence (people fighting with swords etc.) is fine.

The Blue Sword is an exceptional book.

[moonflower]

2 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

To be fair, Gen is a thief and that's a historically normal punishment.

Also, *I* loved The Blue Sword, so gimme a day. How old is this person and are there any content issues?

 

There are lots of historically normal things that I don't want to normalize for my kids, kwim? Also for me it was partially the juxtaposition of more modern ways of interacting and social roles, esp. gender-related, combined with the violence, combined with the (spoiler) marriagethat weirded me out- they're great books, she's a wonderful writer, but I don't think I want my kids to read those two at least until they're older.  Like, moved out older.

OP I guess you've tried the rest of Robin McKinley - some of them are more The Blue Sword ish than others.  Not Deerskin and while Pegasus is a lovely book, reading her blog I don't think she's ever going to finish the series and it is pretty cliffhangery so you might want to spare yourselves the trouble.

She might like The Tombs of Atuan - not as much swashbuckling or romance but similarly understated and quality writing.  Or maybe UK Le Guin's later more YA series - I think they're like Gifts, Voices, something like that.  

McKillip is good, especially The Riddle-Master of Hed books.  

[moonflower]

Tamsin (Peter Beagle) is good!  Peter Beagle in general is a wonderful writer of course but some of it is a little adult.  Tamsin is not.  

 

Oh, there are some more modern ones based on I think Russian folktales and/or other mythology - Spinning Silver is a little more PG than Uprooted but both are good books.  ETA and The Bear and the Nightingale, that one is good too.

Edited May 28, 2019 by moonflower

[alisoncooks]

I've loved Robin McKinley since I was in 8th grade and read H&tC for Battle of the Books, lol. I've read all of her novels; Spindle's End is pretty good.

Has she read much Diana Wynne Jones?  Howl's Moving Castle (and its 2 sequels) is fun. I *hatehatehated* Fire & Hemlock (from the "gems" list above), but The Dark Lord of Derkholm (and its sequel, #13 on that link) are so clever. 

The Inkheart trilogy - might be a little young but has great world building like McKinley. So does Patricia Wrede (the Frontier Magic trilogy is a favorite of mine).

Jessica Day George: Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow. 

I'd recommend the Obernewtyn books but they do get into mature themes, plus the the later books had limited release in the US. 

[alisoncooks]

Maybe The Girl of Fire & Thorns trilogy? There is some romance woven in the 2nd and 3rd books...

Maybe the 3 sequels to The Giver? (Funny because The Giver is nothing like The Blue Sword - its sequels are set in different "worlds" and there is a magical aspect).

Edited May 28, 2019 by alisoncooks

[Kareni]

I haven't read The Blue Sword, so my suggestion may be off base ~

Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor

Regards,

Kareni

[alisoncooks]

More thoughts: Shannon Hale's Goose Girl (and sequels).

 

The Moorchild (by Eloise McGraw) - a little young but another feeling-out-of-place story, with Irish mythologies.

[Tanaqui]

1 hour ago, moonflower said:

 

There are lots of historically normal things that I don't want to normalize for my kids, kwim? Also for me it was partially the juxtaposition of more modern ways of interacting and social roles, esp. gender-related, combined with the violence, combined with the (spoiler) marriagethat weirded me out- they're great books, she's a wonderful writer, but I don't think I want my kids to read those two at least until they're older.  Like, moved out older

 

And that's a totally valid opinion! I just wanted to give a little bit more context, while still not utterly spoiling it.

Still haven't dug up a list yet - as always, my problem is trimming down, so I'm trying to work on it this time! - but to comment on what others have said:

I love, love, love The Goblin Emperor, and read it three times in a row. The logistics of the guard shifts don't make sense to me, though - that's something that has to be fixed in fanfic, because there has to be at least a third pair.

I've always loved The Moorchild as well, though when I read it with the kids I was careful to point out that people in medieval Europe really believed in changelings and they really did sometimes murder those children they thought were changed.

Dark Lord of Derkholm suffers from DWJ's strange approach to families (she herself had absolutely awful parents, and consequently she never was very good at writing healthy family structures) such that some of the non-human sapient children in the family (the griffins) are considered the parents' children and some (the flying horses) are considered very well-treated livestock. Extremely well-treated, but still. Plus, there's a very strangely handled near-rape scene. I suggest a pre-read.

As for Fire and Hemlock, I love that book with the caveat that Tom is totally inappropriate in his grooming of Polly, and there are a stunning number of men who tell her, as an adult, that they lusted after her when she was twelve... and they were already adults. Ew, ew, ew. They're short little snippets and unimportant to the plot, but still. I mean.

Goose Girl I love (and most of Shannon Hale's works) but the sequels I only like.

The Giver is overrated, imo, and the sequels suffer from Jesus-itis. Except Gathering Blue, which you will pry out of my cold, dead hands.

Spinning Silver is great, except that both those marriages of our protagonists are not going to last, why kid ourselves. (Another issue to be fixed in fanfic.)

[Tanaqui]

(The more I like a book or tv show or movie, the more I want to nitpick it and tear it apart. Of course, I also want to criticize books I hate, so.)

[moonflower]

I didn't like the sequels to The Giver either, as a kid and young adult and 20-something.  I'm still not like 100% convinced about Messenger. But I read Son oh, 5 years or so ago, and while there's definitely religious imagery I think the overall emotional message of the book, her clear love for her son and grief at his loss (and by this I mean both the main character's and Lowry's, of course) is pure and moving.  I was moved, anyway.  But I don't think a 15 year old who has not had children will get as much out of it - DD13 was not hugely impressed.  Gathering Blue was too distressing to me and when I reread it (as each child becomes old enough to read Lowry) I am distressed anew.

 

Thanks for this thread, OP! We are short reading material these days.

[easypeasy]

Oh, how I loved The Blue Sword! 😍 It, along with A Wrinkle in Time I wish I'd found as a young teenager! Instead, I found it as an adult while pre-reading books to find something new for my girls to read. 🙂

Books I'd recommend:

The Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale: The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born. Also by Shannon Hale: The Princess Academy series. Aimed at a slightly younger audience than the Bayern series, iirc, but I read the first in the series and really liked it. My daughters read the entire series as it came out.

https://www.amazon.com/Goose-Girl-Books-Bayern/dp/1681193167/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=goose+girl&qid=1559014720&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Book of a Thousand Days - also by Shannon Hale

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Thousand-Days-Shannon-Hale/dp/1681193159/ref=pd_sim_14_4/132-8570935-0201758?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1681193159&pd_rd_r=2de432d1-80fa-11e9-b4c5-ef907af3647f&pd_rd_w=SNlZu&pd_rd_wg=rxz9J&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=GSHWBNC1PQR6T0S6TXJF&psc=1&refRID=GSHWBNC1PQR6T0S6TXJF

The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer - Cinder is the first one

https://www.amazon.com/Cinder-Marissa-Meyer/dp/1250007208/ref=pd_sim_14_55?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1250007208&pd_rd_r=5fc53600-80fa-11e9-ba98-0ff29dc49ff2&pd_rd_w=JCCHQ&pd_rd_wg=yubm3&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=GT20RFK17F24C18ZKXFZ&psc=1&refRID=GT20RFK17F24C18ZKXFZ

Heartless - also by Marissa Meyer (all of these by her that I've suggested are re-imaginations of fairy tales... I love that kind of thing):

https://www.amazon.com/Heartless-Marissa-Meyer/dp/1250148189/ref=pd_sim_14_9?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1250148189&pd_rd_r=99e854b1-80fa-11e9-8887-9b31b6cb4217&pd_rd_w=C2nQy&pd_rd_wg=AYHDj&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=QYNB8R518QYY71ZNV6G0&psc=1&refRID=QYNB8R518QYY71ZNV6G0

The Graceling series by Kristin Cashore:

https://www.amazon.com/Graceling-Kristin-Cashore/dp/0547258305/ref=pd_sim_14_16?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0547258305&pd_rd_r=fe71f0bd-80fa-11e9-8ec8-f37f2ab7fd5a&pd_rd_w=7aGSv&pd_rd_wg=TTTnz&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=88NJ5H5TEEKJT2E9WRNW&psc=1&refRID=88NJ5H5TEEKJT2E9WRNW

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by easypeasy

[moonflower]

and re: The Two Princesses of Bamarre, we went through a phase when oldest DD was about 10 when we read all of Gail Carson Levine, and can I just say that that one (Two Princesses) is the one that's really stuck with me.  It's light and slightly non-serious in a way that my favorite writers are not, but otherwise is really just excellent.

[maize]

9 hours ago, moonflower said:

I didn't like the sequels to The Giver either, as a kid and young adult and 20-something.  I'm still not like 100% convinced about Messenger. But I read Son oh, 5 years or so ago, and while there's definitely religious imagery I think the overall emotional message of the book, her clear love for her son and grief at his loss (and by this I mean both the main character's and Lowry's, of course) is pure and moving.  I was moved, anyway.  But I don't think a 15 year old who has not had children will get as much out of it - DD13 was not hugely impressed.  Gathering Blue was too distressing to me and when I reread it (as each child becomes old enough to read Lowry) I am distressed anew.

 

Thanks for this thread, OP! We are short reading material these days.

Gathering Blue is the one where a mother forced her child to eat oleander isn't it? I read that when my oldest children were young, not long after two children in the town we lived in died of oleander poisoning. There was oleander growing beside the park we used to play at. 

I found the book very disturbing. The oleander bit is all I remember of it.

Stories with mothers deliberately harming or killing their own children always disturb me.

Edited May 28, 2019 by maize

[Tanaqui]

I think it might be, maize. I can see why that'd be extra upsetting for you, given the real life tragedy in your town.

[moonflower]

Yes, it's the one with seriously depressing parent/child interactions, although I had forgotten the oleander.  

I found both Marissa Meyer and (somewhat less so) Kristin Cashore to be fairly cynical in a way that McKinley is fundamentally non-cynical

[alisoncooks]

As far as Cashore:  I really liked Graceling and loved Fire, but I found Bitterblue to be sooo dark and hopeless. I remember getting to the end and wishing I hadn't read it. (I can tolerate lots as long as it ends happily...but this was one case where I couldn't.)

[Farrar]

I was obsessed with The Blue Sword as a kid. I'll strongly second The Thief series and also Jackaroo. Also all the Kristen Cashore has a similar feel.

Adding... the series that starts with Finnikin of the Rock is great and might fit the bill. Also, Seraphina and Shadow Scale are great and has a similar vibe in places.

[Farrar]

Oh, you know, the other series I was mad obsessed with at the same age as a kid was the Westmark trilogy. And it's not really read anymore, but it's just wonderful. Very different from The Blue Sword, but similarly character driven.

[alisoncooks]

5 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I was obsessed with The Blue Sword as a kid. I'll strongly second The Thief series and also Jackaroo. Also all the Kristen Cashore has a similar feel.

Adding... the series that starts with Finnikin of the Rock is great and might fit the bill. Also, Seraphina and Shadow Scale are great and has a similar vibe in places.

I love the Lumatere Chronicles (Finnikin). It's top ten for me. It does have some mature themes (lots of rape and death). But it leans toward hopeful and redemptive (which allows me to get past the darkness).

[maize]

Thank you for all the recommendations, we are checking some of them out for summer reading :)

[maize]

On 5/27/2019 at 9:18 PM, Tanaqui said:

 

And that's a totally valid opinion! I just wanted to give a little bit more context, while still not utterly spoiling it.

Still haven't dug up a list yet - as always, my problem is trimming down, so I'm trying to work on it this time! - but to comment on what others have said:

I love, love, love The Goblin Emperor, and read it three times in a row. The logistics of the guard shifts don't make sense to me, though - that's something that has to be fixed in fanfic, because there has to be at least a third pair.

I've always loved The Moorchild as well, though when I read it with the kids I was careful to point out that people in medieval Europe really believed in changelings and they really did sometimes murder those children they thought were changed.

Dark Lord of Derkholm suffers from DWJ's strange approach to families (she herself had absolutely awful parents, and consequently she never was very good at writing healthy family structures) such that some of the non-human sapient children in the family (the griffins) are considered the parents' children and some (the flying horses) are considered very well-treated livestock. Extremely well-treated, but still. Plus, there's a very strangely handled near-rape scene. I suggest a pre-read.

As for Fire and Hemlock, I love that book with the caveat that Tom is totally inappropriate in his grooming of Polly, and there are a stunning number of men who tell her, as an adult, that they lusted after her when she was twelve... and they were already adults. Ew, ew, ew. They're short little snippets and unimportant to the plot, but still. I mean.

Goose Girl I love (and most of Shannon Hale's works) but the sequels I only like.

The Giver is overrated, imo, and the sequels suffer from Jesus-itis. Except Gathering Blue, which you will pry out of my cold, dead hands.

Spinning Silver is great, except that both those marriages of our protagonists are not going to last, why kid ourselves. (Another issue to be fixed in fanfic.)

If you think of any more let me know, I'd be very interested in your recommendations.

[alisoncooks]

On 5/27/2019 at 9:52 PM, moonflower said:

Oh, there are some more modern ones based on I think Russian folktales and/or other mythology - Spinning Silver is a little more PG than Uprooted but both are good books.  

I just finished Uprooted (Naomi Novik) and my first thought was that it belongs in this thread. (And it already was mentioned!)

It does have a couple of scenes that are s3xual, but they are very brief.  I really enjoyed this one (I have Spinning Silver ready to read next.)

[Tanaqui]

On 6/10/2019 at 1:02 PM, maize said:

If you think of any more let me know, I'd be very interested in your recommendations.

 

Ironically, I've been swamped with reading. I am determined to get through my kindle backlog sometime this century. I just need to stop putting so many books on pre-order....

Actually, I've got an easy one for you that I bet most people here would like - The Empress of Timbra. I keep downplaying this book whenever I mention it because it's rather standard European-esque fantasy in many ways but the writing is solid and there's no embarrassing plotting issues I feel like apologizing for and no random sex. I'm not opposed to sex in books, I just don't like reading those scenes on the subway, so if it's going to be there I want to be forewarned.

Also, I've read it four times in the past year AND the sequel novella. I should definitely promote that book a heck of a lot more.

Quote

 

I just finished Uprooted (Naomi Novik) and my first thought was that it belongs in this thread. (And it already was mentioned!)

It does have a couple of scenes that are s3xual, but they are very brief.  I really enjoyed this one (I have Spinning Silver ready to read next.) 

 

 

Spinning Silver is a good read, but aside from my doubts about the ending, the author does not know when to stop introducing new viewpoint characters. (Also, as is common for me, I love the voice of one of the antagonists a lot more than any of the protags. Same thing happened in Empress of Timbra, actually - as soon as the Obvious Smarmy Villain is revealed as an Obvious Villain, and our main characters are all "Shock! Horror! You betrayed us for money, not even for your principles or some good reason!" I was just "Yeah, but money IS a good reason, just saying" and I found he suddenly became an actual, relatable person.)

Also, there are no potatoes in medieval Lithuania. All the potatoes in the world are in Peru.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Tanaqui

[maize]

5 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

 

Ironically, I've been swamped with reading. I am determined to get through my kindle backlog sometime this century. I just need to stop putting so many books on pre-order....

Actually, I've got an easy one for you that I bet most people here would like - The Empress of Timbra. I keep downplaying this book whenever I mention it because it's rather standard European-esque fantasy in many ways but the writing is solid and there's no embarrassing plotting issues I feel like apologizing for and no random sex. I'm not opposed to sex in books, I just don't like reading those scenes on the subway, so if it's going to be there I want to be forewarned.

Also, I've read it four times in the past year AND the sequel novella. I should definitely promote that book a heck of a lot more.

 

Spinning Silver is a good read, but aside from my doubts about the ending, the author does not know when to stop introducing new viewpoint characters. (Also, as is common for me, I love the voice of one of the antagonists a lot more than any of the protags. Same thing happened in Empress of Timbra, actually - as soon as the Obvious Smarmy Villain is revealed as an Obvious Villain, and our main characters are all "Shock! Horror! You betrayed us for money, not even for your principles or some good reason!" I was just "Yeah, but money IS a good reason, just saying" and I found he suddenly became an actual, relatable person.)

Also, there are no potatoes in medieval Lithuania. All the potatoes in the world are in Peru.

Thank you! We will check these out.

Things like potatoes in a medieval European setting always make me internally shake my head as well 🙂 fortunately that doesn't ruin a good story.

 

[Wheres Toto]

The Joust series by Mercedes Lackey is good - Ancient Egypt with dragons, very character driven.    I would be careful about her other series, but Joust is very good.

[Tanaqui]

5 hours ago, maize said:

Things like potatoes in a medieval European setting always make me internally shake my head as well 🙂 fortunately that doesn't ruin a good story.

 

I mentally translate all "potatoes" to read "turnips" instead, though I couldn't do it in Spinning Silver because they talk about cutting out the eyes and all that. Thank goodness it's almost always potatoes. I don't have a mental workaround for "tomatoes" or "peppers". "Corn", of course, simply becomes "grain", which is the origin of the word anyway. (Not that there's any corn in this book.)

Edited June 25, 2019 by Tanaqui

[maize]

7 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

 

I mentally translate all "potatoes" to read "turnips" instead, though I couldn't do it in Spinning Silver because they talk about cutting out the eyes and all that. Thank goodness it's almost always potatoes. I don't have a mental workaround for "tomatoes" or "peppers". "Corn", of course, simply becomes "grain", which is the origin of the word anyway. (Not that there's any corn in this book.)

We used to have a children's Bible stories book that illustrated the "corn" of Joseph's dream in Egypt as maize. Inaccurate maize too, the ears were growing out of the top of the stalks.

It's been years but I still laugh every time I remember those "seven fat ears of corn" 😄

[Tanaqui]

I  think I may have had that same book as a child, or one by the same illustrator. (Oddly, for a child raised by atheists, I did have a children's book of Bible stories, with very nice gold edging. I think my father's mother gave it to me and my parents couldn't figure out a way to discreetly remove it. Other picture books got routinely ferried off to school "for the teachers" on space grounds - quite justifiably, in fact! - but you can't do that with Bible stories.)

[Serenade]

On 6/24/2019 at 9:31 PM, alisoncooks said:

I just finished Uprooted (Naomi Novik) and my first thought was that it belongs in this thread. (And it already was mentioned!)

It does have a couple of scenes that are s3xual, but they are very brief.  I really enjoyed this one (I have Spinning Silver ready to read next.)

 

Did you read Spinning Silver yet?  Does it have more or fewer sex scenes than Uprooted?  I was annoyed by the one big sex scene in Uprooted. I thought the same point could have been made in a less graphic manner.  I mean, yeah, it wasn't super terrible, but I felt like I really didn't need to read that...I thought it was unnecessary.  Just another token sex scene...ho hum

Edited July 27, 2019 by Serenade

[Tanaqui]

There is no sex in Spinning Silver. Neither of our ostensibly married main characters wants to do that with her putative husband during the course of the book. There is, however, a lot of people bargaining their way out of sex, or trying to make the servants think they've had sex.

[moonflower]

Confirmed, as someone who is intensely conservative, that there are no sex scenes in Spinning Silver, or really almost any romance at all.  

I also found it jarring in Uprooted and thought for second, wow, I must be really out of touch if this kind of thing is just casually thrown into an otherwise normal-seeming book these days!

[Serenade]

21 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

There is no sex in Spinning Silver. Neither of our ostensibly married main characters wants to do that with her putative husband during the course of the book. There is, however, a lot of people bargaining their way out of sex, or trying to make the servants think they've had sex.

 

Thanks for this information!  I appreciate it. 

8 minutes ago, moonflower said:

Confirmed, as someone who is intensely conservative, that there are no sex scenes in Spinning Silver, or really almost any romance at all.  

I also found it jarring in Uprooted and thought for second, wow, I must be really out of touch if this kind of thing is just casually thrown into an otherwise normal-seeming book these days!

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one.  It was such a small part of the book, really, that I wondered why it was there at all.  I think the same feelings could have been portrayed in a different manner that would have fit better with the rest of the book.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

 

[Tanaqui]

Jumping back in with recs, I've finally read A Natural History of Dragons (and we can knock that off my TBR pile yay!)

No sex, good storyline - a bit slow moving. As an example, near the end of the series the narrator of the "memoirs" gets wiped out in an avalanche and, upon wakening, makes an ENORMOUS world-changing discovery. And then the next several chapters are spent tending the yaks. That is a very typical example of the pace of these books. I liked them quite a bit, but don't expect a fast plot! The pace is best described as "we'll get there when we get there".

And since somebody is bound to ask - there's no sex in the books. The conceit is that she's writing her memoirs to a public that can be seen as a Victorian England analog (except the dominant religion is loosely based on Judaism instead of Christianity), so there's a sort of "fade to black" scene with her first husband and that's about it.

[Serenade]

On 6/25/2019 at 12:52 AM, Tanaqui said:

 

I

Actually, I've got an easy one for you that I bet most people here would like - The Empress of Timbra. I keep downplaying this book whenever I mention it because it's rather standard European-esque fantasy in many ways but the writing is solid and there's no embarrassing plotting issues I feel like apologizing for and no random sex. I'm not opposed to sex in books, I just don't like reading those scenes on the subway, so if it's going to be there I want to be forewarned.

 

 

Sorry to keep bumping this older thread, but I keep coming back to it.  I have another surgery coming up, and I'm stocking my library.  So the Empress of Timbra sounds like something I'd like, but I can only find it in Kindle format.  Am I missing something?  I don't want to take my iPad to the hospital.

[Tanaqui]

I think it might actually be Kindle only 😞

 

I've got a few books like that on my device.

[Serenade]

2 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

I think it might actually be Kindle only 😞

 

I've got a few books like that on my device.

 

Oh well.  I might get it anyhow for reading after the hospital stay.  Sounds like a book I would enjoy. 

[Tanaqui]

I keep refreshing the book page every month to see if there's a sequel yet, and not just that novella.