#48 in Adventure
The Blue Sword
- 272
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Blue Sword” moves with the speed and simplicity of a fairy tale and fits a kingdom’s fate into under three hundred pages. Harry Crewe, newly orphaned, arrives at a desert outpost, meets the king of the Hillfolk and discovers magic of her own. Some readers miss deeper character work and fuller explanation, and others have reservations about the colonial setting. Some point to the restrained romance and the writing.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Blue Sword is a fantasy novel written by American author Robin McKinley. It follows Angharad "Harry" Crewe, a recently orphaned young woman, to a remote desert outpost in colonized Damar, where her brother is stationed in the Homeland military. When she meets Corlath, the mystical king of the Damarian Hillfolk, Harry discovers her own magical powers and a destiny that leads her to save Damar from invasion.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 147 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 50% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Adventure average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 20 | 14% |
| Hardcover | 7.8 | 127 | 86% |
Frequently asked
What age is The Blue Sword for?
The Blue Sword sits on the Middle grade shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 8–12. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 272 pages — shorter than 95% of the ranked books in Adventure.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Adventure — with scores between 7.8 and 8.0, closest to this book.
