Favorite fantasy authors: R. A. MacAvoy

After slogging through the next thousand pages of Stürm und Drang from Robert Jordan, it was an intense relief to turn to the latest trilogy by R. A. MacAvoy.

Sometimes I get really bored with a lot of magical pyrotechnics---you know, where Our Hero rounds the corner, confidently bearing his Staff of Infinite Smiting, but oh no, it's a three-hundred-foot tall Ballhog wielding the Shield of Endless Dispersal, and his smiting attacks bounce right off! Ho hum.

Well, if you want people stories, try R. A. MacAvoy. Technically, they are fantasy, but the fantastic elements are subtle when they show at all. Sometimes living characters will converse with the dead---but ghosts crop up in mainstream fiction, too, and no one banishes those books to the F&SF ghetto. Here are the works I've seen and loved:

• Tea with the Black Dragon was the work that made her name in the field. A sort of hi-tech whodunit in the context of a group of contemporary semi-pro traditional musicians. One of the characters might be a legendary Chinese dragon, but maybe not. Decide for yourself. I also loved the sequel, Twisting the Rope.
• A Trio for Lute is a trilogy that was also published separately as Damiano, Damiano's Lute, and Raphael. The period is early Renaissance and the protagonist is a musician from Italy who travels across Europe in the time of the Black Death and encounters other musics from as far away as Ireland. I love the scene where Damiano commits a grievous breach of etiquette by climbing a fence to get into a private yard because he has never heard an Irish harp and just has to meet the player. The emotions and events of this work are so intense that they remind me of the work of Evangeline Walton. Gripping. There is some quite overt magic going on here, but as with all her work, the human story takes center stage, not the flash.
• I think her latest trilogy, the only one commonly in print at this writing, is her best work yet. The titles are Lens of the World, King of the Dead, and Belly of the Wolf. Marvelously effective yet unintrusive writing style, a complete absence of magical gadgetry, and an assortment of believable characters of all types. How refreshing, in contrast to a lot F&SF hack-and-slash, to meet a protagonist who is more interested in making peace than starting wars, and who would rather grow in his craft and enlightenment than lead a Movement.

MacAvoy's work is filled with believable characters, the kind that remind me of people I've known. The dialogue and the mechanics of her writing are clear, unobtrusive, and as real as a mountain brook. If what you want is to be dazzled and stunned and smashed and left for dead by the sheer force of the writing, this ain't it. But if you like stories about people going through the kinds of things that people often go through, I think you'll like it.

Last updated: 1996/08/22 19:40:14
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/reading/macavoy.html