By Heather Brandon: The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Aerin is a not-very-pretty, awkward teen who happens to be the daughter of a king in a far-off, imagined land named Damar. In a country filled with dark-complexioned people, she has fair, freckled skin and long, curly, red hair. Her father, Arlbeth, has dark hair like her cousins. All the royalty have a bit of magic in them, and Aerin is no exception to this. But her strange appearance fuels the rumors in the capital city that she is the daughter of a witch woman who died long ago, when Aerin was only an infant. The king has never really told her the whole truth. Nor has he appeared to hope much would come of her, as she is tall and gangly, shows little interest in the more feminine things, and sits in her chambers to brood much of the time.

So begins Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, a tale of dragon-slaying, immortality, and a battle of good against evil. More than this, it is about the struggle of a young woman to make a place for herself that does not blindly imitate mistakes of the past, but instead heals them; and the difficulties her family and countrymen must undergo to gain acceptance of her and the associated, broader societal changes of their time.

Aerin first takes up an interest in dragon-slaying as something of a secret hobby, after chancing upon a mysterious and obscure fire-repellent recipe in an old text she finds. Determined to experiment with the paste the recipe promises, she tinkers with the amounts of ingredients—imprecisely listed in the text—and methodically tests out the results in the woods outside the castle grounds, where there are large-dog-sized dragons running amok if you go looking for them. Several failed attempts later, injured and burnt, Aerin finally strikes upon the right combination of ingredients and begins to make the golden, oily stuff in earnest, soaking her leather armor in it, dousing all of her hair and skin, and heads out to find herself some real dragons to slay.

Naturally this requires a good horse for the purpose as well. In her boring, long afternoons recovering from a nearly-successful attempt by an evil, jealous cousin to poison and kill her, Aerin befriends her father's former war horse, Talat, notoriously unfriendly to just about anyone but the king himself. Talat, having been injured himself in battle, can no longer perform in the king's service, although he is noble, capable and strong. Aerin watches him for long days from afar, sizing up his bearings and character, and decides she knows how to approach him. Showing more of the same determination it took to concoct the fire-repellent balm, Aerin gradually earns Talat's trust, and saves the horse from certain deterioration or execution. She slathers him in her golden oil:

"Talat came up to the edge of the fire and snorted anxiously. The fire was pleasantly warm—pleasantly. It tapped at her face and hands with cheerful friendliness and the best of good will; it murmured and snapped in her ears; it wrapped its flames around her like the arms of a lover. She leaped out of the fire and gasped for breath....Talat thrust a worried nose into her neck. 'Your turn,' she said. 'Little do you know.'"

Off they go together in a hunt for a legendary dragon that plagues the northern part of Damar, having plunged those villages into dark smoke and loss. Even the king had written them off, none of his men a match for the formdiable dragon. Aerin proceeds to make her attempt alone, and without telling anyone.

The story takes a while to get around to some of the other key elements in the broader plot, but it is so much fun in the process that I don't think it matters. Aerin grows, learns, explores, fails, and nearly dies over and over again in breathtaking, sometimes too-much-to-handle accounts of her adventures. McKinley offers sparse details in some sections, where I wanted to know more and more of exactly what happened in certain battles with certain dragons; but in general she delivers the satisfying goods and offers the reader a bountiful amount of imaginary visual fodder. The land, the people, and all of its glory and pain are depicted in rich detail, in the kind of epic language you might associate with a story about King Arthur.

There is a love story entwined in the plot that relates to Aerin saving the country from extinction. It is something of a love triangle involving Aerin, a mortal man she loves and must marry, and an immortal man to whom she becomes attracted, and who must help her in a massive heroic undertaking. While it seems she would give up "duty" and stay with this latter man, he urges her not to give up, but to do the honorable thing, in the interest of her people, with a promise of sorts that he will always be waiting for her years down the line.

This aspect of the book came as something as a surprise for me in a tale that appears at first to avoid such frivolous nonsense as mushy feelings. But McKinley approaches it in just the right way, giving us detail about the characters' emotions and choices, but not more than we absolutely must know to get the right idea. She portrays every scene in lovely poetry, and then she backs off. The book is thus a wonderful indulgence, like just the right amount of chocolate taken at just the right time.