sutcliff_swap | Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

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Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

We're going to post the Sutcliff Swap rules and schedule, and open for sign-ups, Real Soon Now! But while you're waiting, why not squee about your favorite Sutcliff book in the comments here? This is your chance to remind others of that book they'd almost forgotten they'd loved, and inspire them to request or offer fanfiction or fanart for it. And if a book you haven't read sounds good to you, you can read it this summer and enjoy the fanworks created for it - and maybe you'll want to request it for Yuletide or Yuletart, or for next year's Sutcliff Swap. (Because this is going to be so much fun we will want to do it again!)

We're doing this on Dreamwidth only, so that we can use comment subject lines to identify the books we're talking about. If you don't have a Dreamwidth login, you can use OpenID or comment anonymously. ETA: anonymous commenting is now enabled! OpenID works too, which will email you comment replies. Please join in and promote your favorite Sutcliff books (this post has a list of all the books), and start thinking about what you might want to request and offer for the Sutcliff Swap!

Also, if you are intrigued by the descriptions of books you haven't read yet, you should be sure to join, not just watch, the community (at either site) so you can see locked posts. *cough*

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I thought I'd start things off with one of my two favorite Sutcliff books (and one of my favorite books ever), Sword at Sunset. This book is a historical (as opposed to fantasy) version of Arthurian legend. Sutcliff grounds her story in the real history of the Dark Ages (late 5th Century CE) and salts it with the grit and pain of real war. The characters' names may not be recognizable (other than Artos and Guenhumara, which are barely so) but the story is familiar. And even the standard story (Arthur betrayed by his son by his half-sister, and by his best friend) is really only a minor part of this story of one man's battle to unite Britain - the tribes and the remnants of Rome - against the Saxon invaders and their allies.

And for those of you who like M/M loyalty-kink brothers-in-arms stories: there is a gay heroic warrior couple whose story forms an important thread of the overall narrative. (And their relationship is really the most solid and loving one in the book!) There is also quite a bit of subtext to suggest that Artos and Bedwyr (the Lancelot role) may be lovers as well - certainly they are "closer than brothers", and it adds another dimension to the love triangle with Guenhumara. But really, the themes are similar to those of Sutcliff's other books, of loyalty and brotherhood, of love for one's country and those who fight shoulder-to-shoulder with you to help you keep it safe, and of keeping the light of civilization burning bright against the barbarian dark. Although be warned that this book ends no happier than any other version of Arthurian legend.

The book is a bit slow to start, but it really starts to pick up after Artos gets the horses from France, and after they have gone to Trimontium it is just amazing, really. The writing is magnificent.

It's part of the Dolphin Ring Cycle that starts with The Eagle of the Ninth, as one of Marcus Aquila's descendants is a minor character, but it very much stands alone. It is also not a YA book as the others, and is both a lot longer and a bit more sophisticated (although really, her YA books are not exactly childish!).

Anyway, I adore this book, and encourage everyone to read it, offer it, and/or request it!

I am starting this tonight! :D

Haha, it is...kind of long. But actually I see I read it in just over a week! So, you know, if you don't have anything else to do, and you're a fast reader...

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.)

Edited 2012-06-07 01:41 (UTC)

At the great Roman fortress and shipyard of Rutupiae in Britain, the new junior surgeon finds that the red-headed centurion who has just directed him to the bath house is, in fact a distant cousin. The two of them become friends, and after a political mishap, they are both sent to a remote posting on Hadrian's Wall. When the traitor Allectus takes over the rule of Britain, the two join an underground resistance movement and see things through to the bittersweet moment when Rome comes to take back its own.

Justin, the surgeon, is a shy, self-deprecating young man who believes himself a disappointment to his father. Flavius, the centurion, is friendly and confident, but an orphan who was raised by his elderly great aunt. The two make a pleasing "opposites attract" pair. The well-drawn secondary characters - Evicatos, a hunter who befriends the cousins on the wall; Paulinus, a deceptively mild-mannered member of the resistance; and especially the redoubtable Great-Aunt Honoria - appeal to my love of a team cast, working together.

This book doesn't seem to get as much love as most of the Sutcliff Roman Britain canon. There is not a whole lot of character-building angst, and although my slash goggles are usually keen, I can't find anything but friendship between the cousins. But I love Justin, especially, as a character (I can identify with him), and I'm always happy with a plot involving outnumbered good guys fighting against evil. The details of the British landscape - from the marshes outside of Rutupiae to the farm on the Downs (the same one Marcus, Esca, and Cottia built in Eagle of the Ninth) to the wilds along the wall - are lovely too.

(This is the DW version of my writing account ... I use something else for discussions/modding on the Sutcliff_talk book comm.)

Oh, I loved The Silver Branch! And I even posted about it over at

sutcliff_talk asking why people don't seem to like it as much as the others!

I am planning on requesting this canon for the fest, just so you know! I am totally on board with either Justin/Flavius or Justin+Flavius; I just like them as a team. (And I adore exactly the same secondary characters as you!)

I'm so delighted to see someone else expressing love for this one!

Oh, this one made me cry a lot. I thought there were some parallels with The Shield Ring, about artists as outsiders in warrior cultures.

I'm not sure what one could write for it, though.

I love Justin, too!

Also, Flavius may be Alexios' father. Or grandfather, although either one does slightly twisty things to some aspects of canon. FAMILY SAGA TIME?

Yeah, it's a fairly small story (and it's long enough since I read it that I've forgotten all the little things that could be story hooks) but I think I've gone all this time mostly wanting something set after the end - how Lubrin Dhu was remembered, and how what he did changed his world after him.

It would probably still make people cry, though.

I would totally read it.

Hmmm. I wonder if it would be too contrived to have whatshisface from Shield Ring somehow find some legacy of his (who knows, maybe he's an ancestor!). I am a total sucker for those mystic-connections-to-the-past stories.

This book!

Allectus crushing the moth, Carausius and Cullen - oh, Cullen, so brave, that incredible depiction of fighting through the mob, that so brief flowering of the empire in the North... There's such a vivid urgency in the description and action in this book: twenty years on, I still can't forget some of the imagery Sutcliff uses here.

Thank you so much for mentioning. :)

I can do three, right?

Knight's Fee.
Like Geoffrey Trease and writing at the same time, Rosemary Sutcliff here picks up some of the political themes which were very much present in children's novels of the period (Bows Against the Barons, anyone? Hereward the Wake?) - integration, rebellion, resistance - and her own interest in wounded heroes, and of them makes this story. It's set in Norman England, just after the start of the Norman Conquest, and covers a rather longer timespan than most Sutcliff novels, taking half Saxon, half Breton dogboy Randal (Randal the Bastard, Randal the Thief,... ) from whipping boy to a knight with his own manor, the knight's fee of the title which is both reward and cost. Along the way, it encompasses some beautifully drawn other characters - Ancret, the wise woman, Bevis, whom Randal loves and serves, and the minstrel Herluin, who sells Randal to his first leige-lord, Sir Everard. Oh, and William Rufus' death. I'm not going to spoil it, but it's beautiful and tragic the only way Sutcliff can write, and I loved it as a child only second to Eagle of the Ninth.

D’Aguillon looked down at his tangle of pale hair with a kind of half-amused wonder, and said, ‘Randal – do you love me, then?’
‘If you take a half-starved dung-hill whelp and bring it up to be your hunting dog and hearth companion, you’re likely to find in the end that the silly brute loves you!’ Randal wept, almost defiantly.

And:

Lewin said, 'You killed de Courcy?’
‘Oh yes,’ Randal said very gently. ‘I killed de Courcy.’

Shipping? Eh, there is such a plethora of characters and a tangled mix of alliances and friendships and loyalties that almost anything could be written. Randal/Bevis is so near canon as to make little difference, but I ship, hard, post-canon Randal/Herluin.

I meant to go comment on that discussion - truly I did! RL gets in the way of my fandom life all too often.

Blood Feud
Vikings, slavery, debts owed and paid in blood, the Black Sea trade routes, the Varangian Guard – the Emperor’s own wolves, the Vikings of Constantinople – this book hits my fictional and historical kinks so damn hard. It’s the story of Englishman Jestyn (a big man, lean and rangy and scarred as an old hand) and his journey from the Saxon Shore to the slave markets of Dublin to Jutland, no longer thrall but friend to the warrior Thormod Sitricson. From there, the blood feud of the story takes them to Constantinople, and Jestyn to a new life, under the shadow of the white god and in the House of the Physician.

Like all Sutcliff’s books, it’s beautifully realised, and tragic, and Jestyn’s journey is one of redemption and faith and friendship. It’s written in the first person, unusual, and contains rather more early Christianity than she covers in other periods and other places; the descriptions of Constantinople are, frankly, stunning and unforgettable.

The Imperial Palace is like a city in itself, palaces and pleasure pavilions, armouries and stables, even the lighthouse and the Royal Mint, all set in shady gardens sloping to the Bosphorus. And everywhere one looks one sees beauty and strength and splendour. In the greatest things, the mighty tower of the lighthouse with its blazing crest of flame that speaks to shipping far across the waters of Marmara and up the straits towards the inland sea: in the smallest – the colonnade before the Emperor’s private quarters, opening on to a tiny court, and in the court a tiny tree whose leaves were all of beaten gold.

Shipping? Jestyn/Thormod, but, familiar, Sutcliff bookends this story with Jestyn/Alexia, the small, fierce girl of a character so many of her heroes love.

Incidentally, I had *no* idea the BBC had done anything with this book, and if anyone can point me in the right direction I would be incredibly grateful...

Oooh, maybe, butif you want scenes with them together, Alexios either has to be very small or Flavius about to die, according to what I pieced together for "Coming Around Again."

Outcast
Full disclaimer. Outcast is, to my mind, the slave!fic Sutcliff would be writing if she was writing fanfiction today. (I am absolutely convinced that she’d be gleefully writing hurt/comfort knotfic with the rest of us, just better.) It’s the story of – eh, it’s the story of storms; the storm that wrecked a Roman merchantman on the Cornish shoreline and brought Beric to the Clan as a black-haired orphan. As with many of Sutcliff’s waifs and strays, he fights for his place in the warband and wins his warrior’s spear, but this is nowhere near the end of the story – p.26, to be honest, in my own New Oxford Library edition with the stunning Kennedy illustrations (recommended!). Kidnapped, enslaved, set to the oars on a Roman longship, it’s another storm altogether which washes Beric up on Romney Marsh, to encounter again the Roman engineer Justinius. It’s not the last storm, either.

The face above him was growing clearer every moment: a dark, hard face with the brand of Mithras between the eyebrows, out of which eyes that were the cold grey of wintry northern seas looked down at him with an odd intensity.

Staring up into that dark face, Beric burst out desperately: ‘I never turned robber! I only ran away because he said he would sell me into the salt mines! You heard him – you were there - ’

‘So it is you,’ said the Maker of Roads and the Drainer of Marshes.

Shipping? Justinius/Beric. Gloriously.

Edited 2012-06-07 12:13 (UTC)

Actually, I love Cullen. I love weird, odd characters who are somehow broken and managing to function even so. But I know he disturbs some people, so ... .

I love this book a lot, although it is very sad. The way the tragedy builds up in slow, measured acts is really masterful.

Post-canon Randal/Herluin ... oh, wow, I bet I could write that. Herluin wouldn't stay, if course, but Randal would always be watching for him to come down the track.

It really is beautifully constructed - re-reading now, I'm reminded all over again just how complex this one is, almost bridging the gap between the lovely simplicity of her books for older children and her adult novels.

... I'm not going to push, your sign up is your business, but I caught my breath when you said you could write Randal/Herluin. Thank you so much for the thought alone.

Disturbing, yes - utterly intriguing: I've wanted to write Cullen for years. Also... thinking now (going through bookshelf) does he remind you a little of Herluin, and of The Shield Ring's Majnun? I am racking my brains for other Fools, and thinking too of Susan Cooper's Hawkin...

AHAHAHA. I totally agree that Sutcliff would be entirely onboard with fanfiction.

I actually was thinking about starting this now, as I've just finished reading The Shield Ring. I had been avoiding it for reasons of having read a string of really depressing Sutcliff and wanting something a little cheerier first, but I guess it's time. (Don't spoil me; I only was advised not to read it right away after my doom-and-gloom post about other books.)

! - how can I say it's not that depressing without spoiling it for you?

It's not that depressing.

It has some absolutely amazing depictions of storms. And it's a little more firmly set in place and period than some of her Romanobritish novels. Plus, Justinius is well worth the read.

I'd read it. :)

Hee, I'm sure! I mean, Frontier Wolf is not depressing, but the subtext I was seeing was Alexios/Cunorix, so I was a swirly mass of feelings, and then when the next thing I read was Mark of the Horse Lord I kind of plunged off an emotional cliff.

(I am tapping my foot waiting for Someone Else to pimp Mark of the Horse Lord but if she doesn't I'm going to, because GAHH AWESOME BOOK.)

But we don't ship the same main pairing in Frontier Wolf (or Generation Kill!) so how do I know I'm *not* sending you off a cliff! - no, seriously, do read it: you can hit me up with Bonnie Dundee in assignments if I fail you...

Totally agree with you about Mark of the Horse Lord. It tore my heart in shreds, too. I rather thought you might like to post about that one.

Song for a Dark Queen comes very close in atmosphere to MotHL, I think. Sutcliff's Boudicca is awesome. Er... yeah, kind of obligatory sad ending, there? She dies? I... don't feel that's a spoiler? *grins*

I have actually come around to Alexios/Hilarion provided the assumption of (even unrequited) Alexios/Cunorix prior.

I am waiting to see if

smillaraaq posts on Mark of the Horse Lord first. If she doesn't, I will!

I haven't read Song for a Dark Queen yet. Yeah, it's not a spoiler if it's, you know, history.

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Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

Sword at Sunset

Re: Sword at Sunset

Re: Sword at Sunset

Sun Horse, Moon Horse

The Silver Branch

Re: The Silver Branch

Re: Sun Horse, Moon Horse

Re: The Silver Branch

Re: Sun Horse, Moon Horse

Re: Sun Horse, Moon Horse

Re: The Silver Branch

Knight's Fee

Re: The Silver Branch

Blood Feud

Re: The Silver Branch

Outcast

Re: The Silver Branch

Re: Knight's Fee

Re: Knight's Fee

Re: The Silver Branch

Re: Outcast

Re: Outcast

Re: Outcast

Re: Outcast

Re: Outcast