The Bards of Bone Plain, Patricia A. McKillip

I love McKillip’s work, now that I’ve got into it; I actually found it a bit difficult to pick which of her books to read last night, and ultimately just went with Lynn‘s recommendation. It took me a little while to get the hang of how this world works: there’s cars and trams, but also ancient magic, a bit closer to the surface than it is for us. It’s nice to have a fantasy setting where there’s industry, where there are essentially grad students (trainee bards) and archaeologists (the princess and her team) and that sense of a past, present and future — some fantasy worlds neglect one of the three.

The twin narratives mostly work for me; you slowly realise what the linkages are. I liked that we also get to read Phelan’s thesis, as well; but then, I’m always a fan of texts-within-texts like that (see also: my love of the various texts mentioned in The Lord of the Rings).

As for McKillip’s writing, I found it a bit less dense and dreamlike than usual, and I’m not sure if that’s because I’m used to it now or because it’s genuinely more comprehensible. It’s still magical, either way.

Rating: 4/5

Ombria in Shadow, Patricia A. McKillip

I love all of McKillip’s work, as least so far. She can really manage enchantment: her Ombria is a strange world, decaying and bright, mysterious and intriguing. There’s a lot going on here: the magic behind Faey and her waxling, the magic behind Domina Pearl, Ducon’s father and Mag’s origins… And there’s characters you can’t help but care about: Kyel, so alone; Lydea, who loves him; Ducon, the bastard son with no designs upon the throne, who spends his time drawing, searching, learning the city and seeing it in ways others can’t. And the details, like Lydea’s bitten fingernails, the charcoal stains Ducon leaves on the bedsheets so everyone knows where he’s been sleeping and when.

And of course, the hidden passageways, the secrets, the two worlds side by side.

It cast its spell very quickly over me; McKillip writes beautifully, of course, and that itself is kind of mesmerising.

Towards the ending — perhaps the last twenty pages — I was less sure of what was going on. It might pull itself together more on a reread, I’m not sure, but I was left not quite knowing who knew what was happening, who understood what, why certain things changed and others didn’t (or if they didn’t change, but people acted like they had to make things easier). I have that feeling with McKillip’s work a lot, though, and it hasn’t deterred me from picking up more.

Rating: 4/5

Winter Rose, Patricia A. McKillip

When I first read this, it was the first book I’d read by McKillip and I really didn’t appreciate it. I thought the words were lovely, but the substance was all over the place; everything had dream logic, and sometimes I couldn’t hold onto that logic and follow it through — or I’d come to totally wrong conclusions that I don’t think McKillip intended at all. But I expected this time to be different: I’ve come to really love McKillip’s work, in general, and to enjoy and follow the lyricism, the imagery, the logic of it that’s more to do with magic than orderly lines of reasoning. The quality that makes me feel like this is real magic, more so than anything Gandalf could ever do.

And yet. Nope. This book still makes very little sense to me. It’s ‘The Snow Queen’ and ‘Goblin Market’ and Tam Lin, and I don’t know if it intends to be all three or if I’m just grasping at straws. It’s got the magic and mystery of McKillip’s other work and yet it never quite comes together for me in the same way. It’s beautifully written, and yet it never coalesces quite into sense for me.

I think I understood it better than I did the first time, and at least I went into it prepared to take my enjoyment from the beautiful words and the feeling of magic, but I find myself blinking when reading reviews where people think this is the most warm and human of McKillip’s novels, the least mythical and distanced. There are parts of it like that — Perrin’s love for Laurel, through everything; Rois and Laurel’s father’s uncomprehending love for his daughters… But mostly it was so lyrical that I couldn’t touch it.

I make it sound like I really disliked it, I think, but it’s more that I’m just not on the right wavelength. Clearly some people are, and I’m close enough that I can appreciate some of the beauty. I think there’s a really emotionally absorbing, satisfying story in there for some people, judging from reviews. Just… not for me! I was really disappointed that I still don’t ‘get’ it, despite my new appreciation of McKillip’s other work.

Rating: 3/5

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia A. McKillip

Somehow, from the midst of feeling dreadful because of this cold, I realised that what I really wanted to read was something by Patricia McKillip. It’s so strange how I disliked the first book of hers I read; I feel like I appreciate her work more with each book I do read. And this one… it’s fairytale-like, mythic — a review on GR said ‘parable like’, and yes: that too. It’s full of epic fantasy elements but the real struggle is between taking revenge and being true to who you really are and those you love. (The phrase “being true to yourself” sounds annoyingly cliché, but I can’t think of another way to put that without quoting the whole book.)

McKillip’s writing is gorgeous, and works well with the character she’s chosen — a girl who has not been loved, does not know how to love; who hasn’t been among people to be drawn into loves and hatreds. And in the course of the book she does learn, and she struggles with it… There’s a coolness to the book, like a mountain stream; an aloofness that you can get with distance from something, but toward everything. I can understand why some people disliked it for that very thing, but for me it perfectly matched the subject.

I like high fantasy, but since so much of it draws from the same well as Tolkien, there’s something all too real about it sometimes. This book, the character of Sybel, are closer to real magic for me, in the same way that the contemplative parts of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books (the sleeping man with the thistle growing by his hand…) come closer to real magic for me than all the magic rings and restless shades in the world.

And one last thing to love: I adore the way that the relationship between Coren and Sybel works out. That it has to be worked on, from both sides, that it’s not always matched.

Rating: 4/5