Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander (1924-2007) was an American writer of children's fantasy novels, best known for the High Fantasy Prydain Chronicles. Other works include The Arkadians, Time Cat, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, The Illyrian Adventure and the Westmark trilogy.


 * The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio
 * The Illyrian Adventure
 * Prydain Chronicles
 * Time Cat
 * Westmark trilogy


 * And I Must Scream: In The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen, some soldiers are turned into stone, but find that they can move with great effort.
 * Awesome Moment of Crowning: Ops in The Arkadians.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Lloyd Alexander is quite fond of these.
 * El Cid Ploy: The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha has La Résistance perpetuate the myth that their greatest king is alive and fighting to frighten their oppressors. In reality, his daughter is in charge, and arguably accomplishing more than her father actually did.
 * Evil Chancellor: The Vizier in The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha.
 * Legacy Immortality: In The Arkadians, the main girl's mother is the latest in a line of priestesses passing for one immortal one.
 * Regent for Life
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something:
 * In The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen, the title character starts out as an over-pampered member of a completely useless royal family, but a series of adventures outside the palace walls, a few weeks of life as a crippled outcast, and an attempted coup make him a proper ruler.
 * In The Iron Ring, the lead is a minor king from Fantasy India who abandons his country over a matter of honor; he did a perfectly good job until then and left it in good hands, but he comes back with a mega agenda at the end and reforms the country like crazy. A whole lot of other kings appear over the course of the story, as both negative and positive examples.
 * The lead of The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha is a professional layabout who's magically sent to a vaguely Persian country where he first nearly drowns and is then proclaimed king. Spends a while enjoying the easy life, then gets bit by a sense of responsibility, complains about how exhausting it is, annoys the hell out of his whole court by attempting to actually rule, and gets himself nearly assassinated. Then the plot starts.
 * The Good Chancellor
 * The White Prince: Prince Jen from The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. Upon embarking on a pilgrimage to a mystical kingdom, he sniffs the air and asks his servant what that wonderful, invigorating smell is. His significantly more wordly-wise servant hazards a guess that the odors of rotten food, body odor, the occasional goat, and the distinct lack of cash comprise "The Essence of Misery".
 * Who Wants to Live Forever?: The short story, "The Stone", was about a man who found a stone that stopped him from aging -- but it also had the same effect on everything around him. So his crops wouldn't sprout, his cow wouldn't calve, and his child wouldn't grow. To make matters worse, the stone was a Clingy MacGuffin.