This series, by Lloyd Alexander, was recommended to me by William Morris (indirectly on a post a while back). It’s an interesting series. I’m not sure, in the end, that I really liked it though. The three books — Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen deal with some intriguing and engaging ideas: politics in general, a monarchy versus a republic specifically; war (The Kestrel is very much an anti-war war book); how a person who believes himself to be good can turn into a monster because of war; hate and forgiveness; ideals versus practicality; the evils of a dictatorship; and so on. But, in the end, I think the series was only about ideas. I really found myself not caring about the characters. The “bad guy” Cabbarus is evil, but you don’t really hate him (that he’s absent for all of the second book and most of the third doesn’t help that fact). The “good guy” Theo is terribly conflicted, which makes him human but not very sympathetic. The love story’s weak; I found myself impatient with the stupid things Theo did because of his love for Mickle. And there were characters that I was interested in that Alexander just dropped after a while. Connie, the King of Regia, for example. I really liked him, but he didn’t survive past the beginning of the third (though he wasn’t killed off, not for lack of trying). Admittedly, I did like Keller, Sparrow and Weasel. But three characters out of the host that were in the books isn’t that much.

As a result, I found the ending weak. The ending was character, rather than idea, driven and if one doesn’t care about the characters very much, the ending will probably be unsatisfying. On the other hand, the ideas were presented well, and they are very interesting to talk and think about. It’s probably worth reading, though I think if anyone asks me for a good Lloyd Alexander book, I’ll recommend the Prydian series over this one.