Well, since the gospel of Frontier Wolf seems to be pretty well spread already, I'll talk about my favorite that doesn't already have fic: sun Horse, Moon Horse.
This one is set in pre-Roman Britain, and tells the story of the creation of the White Horse of Uffington - or rather of the creator of the White Horse. He is a chieftain's younger son, too dark and too small and too introverted to ever fit into the place he was born into, and it isn't really until disaster hits that he starts to figure out how to be who he is anyway.
It's a very short book - shorter even than Frontier Wolf - but for all that it creates this world and draws you into it thoroughly, and the way it does it - there's no "outsider" POV to make this a culture clash like many of her book, there's just Lubrin Dhu who is an outsider at the same time as being thoroughly immersed in the culture.
spoilery parts: This isn't one of the typical outsider gains acceptance, finds a home stories, though, or one of the outsider leaves home, finds their people ones - Lubrin never really finds acceptance; his narrative is about realising that he will never fully gain acceptance from his people, but that doesn't make them any less his, or him theirs. Which is not a happy narrative (yes, she kills him in the end) but it was a narrative that I really needed when I first found the book, that there are different kinds of loneliness.
I found it a deeply unsettling book, but it's also a book full of beauty-- Lubrin is an artist with an artist's eyes, and the beauty he makes and sees around him is the thread of joy that runs through it despite everything and that both makes the story work and makes it one of my favorites.
(disclaimer: I haven't read this one in years and don't have a copy to hand, so any inaccuracy here is due to rose-tinted memory.)
Sun Horse, Moon Horse
This one is set in pre-Roman Britain, and tells the story of the creation of the White Horse of Uffington - or rather of the creator of the White Horse. He is a chieftain's younger son, too dark and too small and too introverted to ever fit into the place he was born into, and it isn't really until disaster hits that he starts to figure out how to be who he is anyway.
It's a very short book - shorter even than Frontier Wolf - but for all that it creates this world and draws you into it thoroughly, and the way it does it - there's no "outsider" POV to make this a culture clash like many of her book, there's just Lubrin Dhu who is an outsider at the same time as being thoroughly immersed in the culture.
spoilery parts: This isn't one of the typical outsider gains acceptance, finds a home stories, though, or one of the outsider leaves home, finds their people ones - Lubrin never really finds acceptance; his narrative is about realising that he will never fully gain acceptance from his people, but that doesn't make them any less his, or him theirs. Which is not a happy narrative (yes, she kills him in the end) but it was a narrative that I really needed when I first found the book, that there are different kinds of loneliness.
I found it a deeply unsettling book, but it's also a book full of beauty-- Lubrin is an artist with an artist's eyes, and the beauty he makes and sees around him is the thread of joy that runs through it despite everything and that both makes the story work and makes it one of my favorites.
(disclaimer: I haven't read this one in years and don't have a copy to hand, so any inaccuracy here is due to rose-tinted memory.)