I find myself rereading Robin MacKinley every year or so. When I'm visiting my childhood library, I never have enough time to get to all the books I want, and the McKillip trilogy would wipe out the possibility of attending to others, too. But you have managed to trigger a real itch, here, so I think I'll go looking the next time I'm in the used bookstore. To contrast with Arthur Koestler, whose world is rather unrelievedly grim.