Bradley's antecedents are not so much the swashbuckling heroic epic as they are the romance literatures, especially those with a medieval flavor. Here, the heroic code of the sword and a masculine milieu is replaced with a more civilized, less barbarian culture, settled rather than nomadic, valuing civility, gentleness, courtesy, and, finally, love in the sense not of possessive conquest, but of com radeship. Although the journey and the quest are present, the setting is towns and villages, rather than open territory. Adversaries are humans, not monsters-the sociopolitical, rather than the natural world. The interwoven narrative of the two young men is reminiscent of the intricately interwoven cycles, with their variant versions, retellings, allusion, and dense personal and historical context.

In fantasy literature, Bradley's mentor is most clearly Theodore Sturgeon, whose influence she often remarks. Although the most notable resemblance is perhaps their common interest in...