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The Bards of Bone Plain

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 988 ratings · 191 reviews

Scholar Phelan Cle is researching Bone Plain-which has been studied for the last 500 years, though no one has been able to locate it as a real place. Archaeologist Jonah Cle, Phelan's father, is also hunting through time, piecing history together from forgotten trinkets. His most eager disciple is Princess Beatrice, the king's youngest daughter. When they unearth a disk ma...more

Hardcover, 329 pages

Published December 7th 2010 by Ace Hardcover (first published October 25th 2010)

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Mar 13, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, in-by-of-the-americas, books-about-books, gods-myths-heroes, reviewed, fantasy-sci-fi

Sometimes an author catches me off-guard. She lays out an idea (or ideas) that aren't easily processed, where I expected them to be interesting but ultimately easy to think through. I'm not talking about the complexity of Virginia Woolf or the morass of Ulysses. It's not that I didn't understand The Bards of Bone Plain (her point is so obvious it leaves you with a bit of a headache from the beating); it's that I don't know if I agree with her.

I don't need to agree with the author, even when she...more Sometimes an author catches me off-guard. She lays out an idea (or ideas) that aren't easily processed, where I expected them to be interesting but ultimately easy to think through. I'm not talking about the complexity of Virginia Woolf or the morass of Ulysses. It's not that I didn't understand The Bards of Bone Plain (her point is so obvious it leaves you with a bit of a headache from the beating); it's that I don't know if I agree with her.

I don't need to agree with the author, even when she feels like an old friend, I have been reading her books for so long. I often don't agree with them. I don't need to. This time, though, I was caught out. I can't decide what I think of this one. Days later and I'm still trying to make up my mind. Oh, the book is fine. The story is interesting, the characters are very much of McKillip's style. The writing has her usual lyricism. I just have this pestering feeling about what she was trying to say here. I'm beginning to think that it just didn't work for me.

As I said, I've being reading her books for a long time, since sometime in college, I think. I love her ideas. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Book of Atrix Wolfe, particularly, are about not being able to run from what you fear. You must know yourself and face them or they will destroy you, your friends, and the innocent. The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy is about history and language and power and learning the meaning of stories (or riddles). I love that she does such things in a fantasy novel.

This time, though, we lost each other. The theme is music, something she's done before, and the power of those who create it and what it takes to bend it to their will and then what they can do with the power of it. There is a form of magic in the oldest stories, for McKillip, and a bard, a true bard, can influence kingdoms with it. I think about Beowulf and what it might have been like, hearing that epic in a dark, smoky hall. Imagine not having books or television for amusement (or electricity or indoor plumbing or dentistry). Think about a bard who tells stories and sings would mean in that society. Imagine a bard walking into your hall to tell you a new story. There must have been some magic in that.

Now, we are smaller, our bards are lesser. They mostly produce products, small commodities that I can pick up on iTunes clicking a button, I barely even think about it. In such an age, writing a book about the magic in the harper is bold. I admire her for doing it but it is also naïve. It's too nostalgic, too simplistic, too inflating of their modern meaning. That McKillip set this book a fantastic world that had steam power and cars, placed the bards much closer to our modern understanding than to the image of the Beowulf bard. We have no equivalent to him because we have too many other stimulants to keep us distracted from him and his story of the hero saving the hall, battling monsters. I check my phone a few times while his voice goes on in the background.

The book doesn't work for me because of this disconnection. She doesn't take on the harder question, she just wants to play in the older theme, when the bard could call up the powers of magic. It meant that this time I could not suspend my disbelief. I couldn't follow her into this world. I found her message annoying (headache inducing) rather than fascinating. (less)

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Jan 29, 2011 Kat Hooper rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Patricia McKillip is a must-read author for any true lover of fantasy literature. With a voice all her own, she imbues her work — both the story and the style — with beauty, magic, and wonder. Her latest novel, The Bards of Bone Plain, is just as enchanting as I was expecting it to be. I listened to Audible Frontiers’ version read by Marc Vietor and Charlotte Parry — a nice combination.

Scholar Phelan Cle is nearly finished studying to be a bard and he’s re...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Patricia McKillip is a must-read author for any true lover of fantasy literature. With a voice all her own, she imbues her work — both the story and the style — with beauty, magic, and wonder. Her latest novel, The Bards of Bone Plain, is just as enchanting as I was expecting it to be. I listened to Audible Frontiers’ version read by Marc Vietor and Charlotte Parry — a nice combination.

Scholar Phelan Cle is nearly finished studying to be a bard and he’s ready to graduate. He’s chosen a fairly easy and unambitious topic for his final paper, something that’s been written about many times before: the myth of Bone Plain. Is it a real place? If so, where is it and what happened there to Nairn, the legendary harpist who disappeared during the first bardic competition hundreds of years ago? Expecting to write a rather dull and inconclusive paper (like all the previous dull and inconclusive papers), Phelan is surprised to discover that his alcoholic father, archeologist Jonah Cle, knows more about Nairn’s story than the scholars do. Finally, Phelan’s interest is piqued, and he sets out in earnest to uncover the past.

Meanwhile, Princess Beatrice, is literally uncovering the past. Much to her mother’s embarrassment, Beatrice prefers to hang out in Jonah Cle’s underground archeological digs in her dusty dungarees rather than attend palace garden parties. When she unearths a strange piece of jewelry, she starts looking for the meaning of the unknown runes carved in it.

But she’s not the only one interested in ancient runes. So is Kelda, the mysterious bard who’s competing against all the other musicians who aspire to be the king’s new court bard. Also competing is Phelan’s friend Zoe, daughter of the palace steward who’s helping Phelan with his data collection. During the competition, it all comes to a head as Phelan’s research, Beatrice’s ancient discoveries, and Zoe’s talent collide.

The Bards of Bone Plain combines the arts and sciences (and mysteries) of archeology, music, language, and history, to create a multi-layered story that’s sure to satisfy both sides of your brain. I enjoyed the academic atmosphere and the way that Phelan’s research paper was used as alternating chapters to present Nairn’s story. In the audiobook edition, only these chapters are read by Charlotte Parry so that they are clearly set apart.

The characters are well-done, though there are so many important ones that we don’t get to know them all as well as we’d like to. I especially liked Princess Beatrice, who drives a steam-powered car and is always trying to balance her courtly duties with her dirty hobbies. She hates the social events she’s required to attend, but she knows that if she pushes her mother too far, she’ll be shipped off to the country to live with her sister’s family. Beatrice’s social blunders and her interactions with her family are delightfully humorous.

If you’re familiar with Patricia McKillip, then you know she writes in a somewhat dreamy and fanciful style that, though lyrical and lovely, is occasionally misty and vague. While the plot of The Bards of Bone Plain is fairly straight-forward, McKillip’s romantic style shrouds some aspects of the plot and characters in mysteries that are never completely cleared up. This sense of wonder is part of what makes her stories work so well as fantasy. The Bards of Bone Plain is another McKillip novel that leaves the reader in awe. It’s a gorgeous story that celebrates the power of music, language, and love.(less)

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Feb 09, 2011 Miriam rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: music majors

Shelves: fantasy

Patricia, I'm going to have to put my foot down: I know you looove the idea of harpers/bards/minstrels, but enough already. One author can only write so many stories about bards before it becomes a little embarrassing. And repetitive. Hey, I still enjoyed your book, but I did skip all those long passages about harp-playing and heartstrings and natural imagery. Sorry. On the bright side, that made the sub-narrative about Nairn go a lot faster, which was good because I liked the main plot line in...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Estara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: To people desperately longing for another taste of Riddle Master of Hed

Shelves: ebook, read-in-2011

When I read the description this sounded to me as if Patricia McKillip had taken bits of the ideas and tropes of Riddle-Master of Hed and explored them in a slightly different fashion. Since I particularly adore that trilogy (or omnibus, depending on when you've discovered it), that intrigued me enough to buy it.

I'm happy to say that this is - to me - exactly what it is. Now, this is a 250 pages book on my ebook reader at 12pt font size, Riddle-Master is a trilogy - of course certain pieces are...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, magic, adult

This story is told from multiple points of view, all circling around the story of Nairn the bard who failed all three trials of Bone Plain and is doomed to wander forever. [return]Phelan is writing his final research paper on Nairn. His father, Jonah, and the Princess Beatrice dig up pieces of the past and this time they may have found a site that is connected to Nairn. And then there are chapters told from Nairn's POV. Everything is tied together by the power of music. [return][return]Reading M...more

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May 19, 2013 Emiley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interestingly, the structure of the narrative drives the plot, which takes three perspectives from two time frames and weaves them together at the end such that one is not certain what is past and what is present since both are commenting on each other. (The poetic language, of course, is a given -- this is McKillip.) Although the message of this story is less oblique than other novels, it is still not spelled out for the reader, so one is free to interpret it freely. In my case, I took it as a...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Joshua Zucker rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book, particularly the poetry of the writing. How can you not love a book with lines like "Midway across, he stepped out of the clammy ambiguities of fog, gray water, stone, into the full astonishment of light." I would never have thought of using words like "ambiguities" and "astonishment" like that. I bet there's never been another piece of writing with the combination "clammy ambiguities", either. But it's such a perfect expression of a man walking on a stone bridge across a rive...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Maurinejt rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip is one of my favorite books and every so often I read her latest hoping for an encore. I didn't find it here, unfortunately. The premise is promising--full of bards and music and magic, an ancient mystery and a failed bard who is rumored to live without music through the eons--on the surface a gorgeous fable which Mckillip is famous for. However, The Bards of Bone Plain focuses on two separate story lines: one present day, one in the past which alternate e...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like this author, have for years. In fact, she was the first Scifi-Fantasy trilogy that I ended up getting trapped in (it took forever before the Riddlemaster series was finished). The language and the imagery, even, at times, the obscurity of visualizing what she has described (I am sure this is grammatically incorrect but it is how I feel), creates a heightened sense of unreality, magic even.

That has been less evident, in my mind, in her last couple of books which, while having some of that...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Shoshana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crossover, fantasy, literary, transcends

Patricia McKillip is one of those authors I sort of don't know how to explain to people. I read her masterpiece - The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy - as a kid (actually, my dad read them out loud to me first), and everything else she's written (and there's a lot) is wildly different and wildly the same at the same time, and doesn't measure up but isn't exactly trying to, and it's all very confusing and I don't really know how I feel about her.

Well, yes I do - I'm drawn. I'm drawn to her work. When...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Lynne Cantwell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I've got a new favorite Patricia McKillip novel in *The Bards of Bone Plain* -- and maybe even a favorite new novel, period.

The novel starts with a present-day story in the kingdom of Belden. Phelen Cle, a student at the bardic academy in Caerau, is casting about for a subject for his final paper. He settles on the overworked topic of the Bone Plain, thinking it will be easy. Phelan's father, Jonah, is a wealthy drunk who finances archaeological digs. One of his diggers happens to be Princess Be...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Suzanne Vincent rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a music lover and a McKillip lover I was excited to find and read this recent treasure.

*potential spoilers*

It was lovely and richly textured as always, but, along with another recent book, The Bell at Sealy Head, Bards seems to show that somewhere along the line these last few years, McKillip has either gone in a different direction or lost the ability to concentrate on a main character. It's odd. This book's main character is a person out of history, a story within the story for most of the...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Shaina rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I read this book almost a year ago, and the plot made almost no impact on me. In a vaguely steam-punk fantasy kingdom bards can do...magic? Maybe? Except that the knack has been lost through the ages and now all that's left is myth, history, and archeology? There's a mystery to be solved and a conflict developing, but figuring that out through the clouds of narration is a bit of a task.

The problem is that Mckillip is style over clarity and...heart, I guess. Her characters are all beautifully des...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Mikko Karvonen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-scifi

In The Bards of Bone Plain, Patricia McKillip returns to a subject she seems to find very dear: music. She embellishes it with everything that could be expected from her work - romance, magic and strong storytelling.

This time the story moves in two times, distant past and current, to weave one whole, with parallels and more between the events of two periods. McKillip pulls this off with much more skill and grace than most writers are able to, and in the grand final everything fits together beaut...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Karen's Books Beside My Bed rated it 3 of 5 stars

Althougth The Bards of Bone Plain is shelved in the adult section in libraries and bookstores, it will also delight teens with it's complex characters and weaving storylines. I have always said that reading one of McKillip's books is like reading a dream. You are not always sure what is going on at all times but you know you like it! This books take a bit more of a linear approach to her usual dream-like quality. Instead of not really remembering everything that is going on I was able to follow...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Rambles On rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

At one point, I noted the importance of music in the works of Patricia McKillip. I probably also said something about the poetic quality of her writing. I know I mentioned the way magic infuses her stories, context rather than event. That’s all here, in The Bards of Bone Plain, a story about poetry and music and magic.

There are actually two stories here, the story of Nairn, a crofter’s son who has music in his bones, who sings his first songs to the pigs and keeps looking for what’s under the wo...more At one point, I noted the importance of music in the works of Patricia McKillip. I probably also said something about the poetic quality of her writing. I know I mentioned the way magic infuses her stories, context rather than event. That’s all here, in The Bards of Bone Plain, a story about poetry and music and magic.

There are actually two stories here, the story of Nairn, a crofter’s son who has music in his bones, who sings his first songs to the pigs and keeps looking for what’s under the words until taken in hand by the King’s Bard Declan, who can’t teach him what he wants to know because it’s part of him already. That story is far in the past.

There is also the story of Phelan Cle, which becomes, at least in part, the story of his father, Jonah. Phelan is a student at the bards’ school founded centuries before by Declan, anxious to graduate, writing his final paper on Bone Plain with its three trials, three treasures, and three terrors, which has been lost somewhere. Jonah is rich, drinks a lot, and has strange enthusiasms, one of which seems to have made him determined to dig up the environs of the royal city of Caerau, searching for something, with Beatrice, the king’s youngest daughter, as his willing accomplice. He may even know what he’s looking for, but he’s not inclined to share secrets.

And in both stories there is a mysterious bard named Welkin, or Kelta, with no history, no origins, but with a harp that knows magic. And one of the keys to the mystery — or mysteries: one is never quite sure just how many there are — is the Circle of Days.

I’ve been reading Patricia McKillip’s books for more years than I want to admit at this point, and The Bards of Bone Plain has everything that has kept me coming back to them again and again, refined, distilled, and that much more potent. It’s all here: the terse, contemporary dialogue that never seems out of place in her fantasy universe with its echoes of times long past. And that sense of time, that history that stretches back beyond what anyone can know, built of ancient menhirs, nearly incomprehensible runes, old songs, all somehow mute, themselves the source of the mysteries that drive the characters. The characters themselves are immediate, sometimes earthy, not always earth-bound, exceptional people leading more or less normal lives who sometimes find themselves trapped in great destinies. Phelan finds himself caught in one of those destinies, although it’s not his. Zoe Wren, his friend and fellow student at the school, falls into hers almost without realizing it, while the mysterious bards Welkin and Kelta may very well be destiny, for someone. Jonah’s destiny, as we discover, is the story.

McKillip works in metaphor. That’s one thing to remember: the surface narrative is engaging enough, but it’s only half the story — in this case, somewhat less than half. The story is about people searching for meanings under the words they know, meanings hidden in ancient writings, meaning hidden in songs and poetry, and the story is built of meanings that lie under the words on the page, words spoken that we don’t really hear, events that happen in places we weren’t looking, even though we thought we were.

McKillip’s diction has always verged on poetry, a thing of inference and music. Here, it comes perilously close to surfeit, but never quite breaks that boundary. It’s not a book to try to read all at one sitting, though — it’s too rich, too circumspect, too inferential, a book that needs to let us rest so we can put the pieces together. And the pieces are there — McKillip doesn’t cheat, but she does make us work, in a way. Like Nairn, like Phelan, like Zoe, we need to find that still place under the words and there let them speak to us. Then the story unfolds.

-- Rambles(less)

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Jun 02, 2011 Wealhtheow rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

In the nation of Beldan, the princess prefers archaeology to balls, and the roads are traversed by steam-powered horseless carriages. After the princess digs up a strange coin, her friend Phelan begins finding other clues that the riddles and songs he's spent his life memorizing might be magical...and that the metaphorical immortal bard Nairn might be real after all. While Phelan searches through dusty records, a new court bard challenges Beldan's bard. Interspersed with all of this are Nairn's...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Well, it's Patricia McKillip, so I have to give it 4 stars because basically she can do no wrong in my eyes since I read The Riddle Master of Hed some thirty years ago. Oddly though, this book felt a little like a re-run, as it contains much about the power of music, and mysterious harpers, and very old ruins. Her lyrical style is one that I eat up with a spoon, so no matter what, I loved each page for the beautifully-constructed sentences that it contained. Okay, I'll just open a random page an...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fantasy readers

After I finished this book, I looked back and admired its structure and its centuries-long awe-evoking story and felt very satisfied. I loved how all the disparate elements wove together in the final section.

As I read the book, however, it seemed rather ordinary. The characters were interesting and grew and changed during the book, and the mix of magic and early 20th century tech was amusing.But otherwise, it seemed like same-old, same-old fantasy. Only about the middle of the book did I start...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Rosalyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

(This should actually be more like 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up for McKillip's sake).

It used to be that Patricia McKillip was one of my absolute favorite fantasy writers. I still find myself reading everything she writes, and I haven't ever been disappointed, although most of her recent novels have not been my favorite (I still prefer the Riddlemaster of Hed, and the Sorceress and the Cygnet, etc.) But her novels have a way of creating a vivid, mystical world--and her language is so poetic (n...more (This should actually be more like 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up for McKillip's sake).

It used to be that Patricia McKillip was one of my absolute favorite fantasy writers. I still find myself reading everything she writes, and I haven't ever been disappointed, although most of her recent novels have not been my favorite (I still prefer the Riddlemaster of Hed, and the Sorceress and the Cygnet, etc.) But her novels have a way of creating a vivid, mystical world--and her language is so poetic (not surprising given that she's married to a poet)--that I always come out of them feeling a little like one of her characters, blinking strange bits and fragments of magic out of my eyes so that I can see reality again.

This story was no exception. It follows a mixed cast of characters and then deftly weaves their stories together. Like many of McKillip's stories, this is set in a world where music is highly revered (and actually has capacity for a deep magic that most magicians have forgotten)--unlike most of her novels, this also has a modern feel, since some of the characters have cars (sort of early 20th century is the feeling I got). Phelan, one of the main characters, is desultorily finishing up his degree at the bardic school, thinking about doing his final thesis on "bone plain," since it seems like an easy topic. In the meantime, he finds himself wandering around the city looking for his wayward father, Jonas, who has an unerring eye for archaeological dig sites, but who is also (on occasion) required to be present for certain royal occasions, since he married into an upper-class family. The princess Beatrice is the despair of her mother for her interest in Jonas's digs--she works for him, and thus also finds herself drawn into the mystery about Jonas that Phelan's research gradually unveils. Their life rattles along pretty much as normal until a mysterious bard appears at the court, earns Jonas's inexplicable hatred, and--possibly--threatens the stability of the kingdom itself.

Meanwhile, the story also interweaves with a centuries earlier tale of Naim, also known as the Unforgiven, one of the greatest bards of history who disappeared after an unusual bardic challenge. I don't want to spoil how this tale eventually connects with the present day, save that it does so fairly deftly.

Most of the story I enjoyed--the characters are interesting and complex, the writing and descriptions are lovely, but the ending itself left too many mysteries unresolved and (as has been the case with some of her recent novels) the essence of the magic itself sometimes escaped me.(less)

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Feb 06, 2011 Noah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-literature

A very fascinating story about the foundations of music and poetry by a story-teller who has a deep sense of the reaches to which art can take its artist. McKillip mixes her own imagery with that of Irish and Welsh legends, particularly the cauldron as the source of poetic inspiration and the dark tower (from that of Cu Roi?). McKillip has a good command of both the greyness and the color of music and poetry and is frequently able to exhibit this in the written word. Unfortunately, the book itse...more A very fascinating story about the foundations of music and poetry by a story-teller who has a deep sense of the reaches to which art can take its artist. McKillip mixes her own imagery with that of Irish and Welsh legends, particularly the cauldron as the source of poetic inspiration and the dark tower (from that of Cu Roi?). McKillip has a good command of both the greyness and the color of music and poetry and is frequently able to exhibit this in the written word. Unfortunately, the book itself falls short of what I felt she could achieve, though, strangely, in topographical ways. For instance, the characters seemed set up to be used in ways much more dynamically than they were, while others weren't used at all. Further, McKillip seemed to find it necessary to describe (inexplicitly) some character's sexual lives, though they bear no real relevance to the plot, characters, or mood, and certain relationships just pop out of nowhere with very little foreshadowing and only seem to be present to mention the color of a character's underwear. Instead of deepening the character, this only added to their strange hollowness. Also, certain scenes cut short too quickly and one in particular, in fact the climax at the end, was approached in the narrative (in my opinion) somewhat clumsily. Much of McKillip's descriptions of the fantastic were done with juxtapositioning of otherwise unlike (or opposing) concepts or images, or even the jumbling of phrasing, and was successful with this in representing mystery and danger, but her more run-of-the-mill and daily descriptions were, I felt, somewhat wanting. The main plot of the book, in full, was wonderfully done, and I fully felt (I think, at least) the mystery, exhilaration and terror of the key scenes, but I felt that everything in between was merely filled in.

In the end, "The Bards of Bone Plain" was a fantastic read, one that kept me reading and very rarely lost my interest. I look forward, eagerly, to reading more of McKillip's works, but I rank the book only a four because I felt it could have been so much more powerful, so much thicker (without losing, at the same time, its 'airy-ness'), and so much more engaging than it was. I suppose it may be seen as wrong to judge a book by what it "could have been," but I feel that this story had a lot more in it than was given. But read it anyway, if you haven't. My imagination, personally, has grown and been nurtured by what McKillip has written.(less)

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Jan 29, 2011 Esther Shaindel rated it 3 of 5 stars

http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com/2...

I love Patricia McKillip's style. There's something so magical about it, a way of pulling you into this alternate world and immersing you so completely in it. She writes sort of matter-of-factly, about preposterous ideas, about things which even the people who inhabit these imaginary lands find strange and unbelievable.

McKillip's books are more about character than plot, and I think that's very evident in The Bards of Bone Plain. It was very easy to follow...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Kathy Davie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, history, homey, mystery

I would read Patricia McKillip if only to enjoy the poetic lyricism of her writing. She so effortlessly brushes in the atmosphere and thoughts of the scenery and her characters that one can't help but be enchanted with her words. And, eventually, her words make sense. I'm not denying that she can be rather confusing to start. Just enjoy the beauty of her words and you soon be engrossed and unable to put the book down until you discover all the mysteries she unleashes with Bards of One Plain.

It's...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Sophia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, sff, own

(ARC borrowed from my husband's to-review pile.) This is the third McKillip book I've read this year that made sense more than 75% of the time! (I jest, because I love her books, but it does get irritating when they wander off into abstraction and don't actually resolve the *plot*). The structure worked well, flipping back and forth each chapter between a handful of "modern" characters and the story of the fabled bard Nairn, whose chapters are headed first by an excerpt from a scholarly paper an...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Viridian5 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Phelan is looking to get out of the bardic school he's only in because his father wanted him there, his often drunk father is looking for something no one knows, and Princess Beatrice is looking into the buried mysteries of the past. When a strange bard with a mysterious power shows up and upsets everything, he brings danger, old secrets, old language, and old power into their lives.

Like most of Patricia A. McKillip's books, The Bards of Bone Plain uses magic, finding yourself, and the power of...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Althea Ann rated it 5 of 5 stars

McKillip is a master of combining romantic, poetic description with humor and realism, and in Bards of Bone Plain, as usual, she achieves a perfect balance.

The novel meshes two stories, set several hundred years apart. I love that both time periods have a realistic sense of history, of both past and future. Too often, books are like: "Well, this is the past, and this is the future." Nope. here, even the past has a past...

The 'present' here is a steam-age monarchy, slightly hazy around the edges,...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Joy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21c, american, fantasy

A recurring theme in McKillip's work is the pursuit of knowledge or excellence, taken near the point of obsession. If it's not music, it's poetry, or language, or magic. And the degree of focus shown by her most obsessed characters does feel authentic...it's just not enough to carry a book, especially because that very authenticity is a little distancing to a reader who may not share that drive. At least, that's the case here. The way so many of the characters here were so wrapped up in their li...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-you-should-read, fantasy

A bard is more than he or she first appears. Certainly the beautiful music, impressive memory, and courtly manners are part of the trade. But, there is magic in music...and in words, even the everyday variety.

THE BARDS OF BONE PLAIN is Patricia A. McKillip's latest creation. You may recognize her name for her award winning THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD or her Riddler-Master triology, among others. Her stories are subtle, beautiful, and full of magic. But the real magic in BARD is McKillip's prose...more A bard is more than he or she first appears. Certainly the beautiful music, impressive memory, and courtly manners are part of the trade. But, there is magic in music...and in words, even the everyday variety.

THE BARDS OF BONE PLAIN is Patricia A. McKillip's latest creation. You may recognize her name for her award winning THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD or her Riddler-Master triology, among others. Her stories are subtle, beautiful, and full of magic. But the real magic in BARD is McKillip's prose, which is lyric and enjoyable--even after decades of delighting her fans McKillip hasn't lost her touch.

BARDS tells two stories: they both happen in the same country, yet occur hundreds of years apart. There's the present day, an almost steampunk-type world where the youngest princess Beatrice practices archeology and drives in her steam-powered car. Phelan is in his final year at the bardic school, he's a brilliant musician who lacks ambition; but his plan for his final paper turns from one that writes itself into a mystery he is compelled to unravel. Zoe is the hair apparent to the king's bard, with the voice of an angel and a sense of the real power of music.

In parallel to the three present-day PoV characters, there's the mysterious story of the harpist Nairn, who is untrained but gifted, and is discovered by the king's bard Declan and helplessly drawn into his circle of influence. Declan wants to found his own bardic school on the plain outside the capital city, rebuilding the tumble-down tower there, draws in new students, and teaches Nairn the magic of his own land.

When the king's bard retires and a competition is announced to choose the successor, an interloper appears to vie for the position, hypnotizing everyone with his magnetic personality and magical voice. Nairn in the past and Zoe-Phelan-Beatrice in the present must stop the interloper from winning and thereby assuming the powerful position of Royal Bard.

The characters are quirky without being gimmicky and are influenced as much by their family and environment personalities as by their own personalities. Yet with all the multiple present-day PoV characters, some lack real depth and interest, there just isn't enough time to tell more of their story. Fortunately Nairn is more multi-dimensional and steals the show--this is his story, after all--with the antagonist Declan a close second. The interloper Welkin leaves too many questions to be more than a mystery.

I really liked the concept that everyday words, or words from the Circle of Days, have power. These words are ancient, and mostly forgotten, but even a word like 'bread' or 'laundry' has a sense of magic in them. The magic is subtle and the mystery is revealed slowly throughout the plot, but it's an important element of how music contains magic, and how it affects those who understand it. The other mystery to be unraveled is not only where the Bone Plain is, but also what it is. Academia has been centuries hypothesising, and Phelan thinks he can sail through his final paper basically writing what others have already said, but discovers that the Bone Plain affects him more personally than first realized.

BARD was a delightful book to read. It's tightly written and straightforward...but perhaps too much so, as the mystery unravels predictably. While it's a good addition to her body of work, it's not her best--but BARD is still worth reading, as an average McKillip book is still better than most.(less)

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Dec 20, 2010 Phoebe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lisa, Kezia, Nanci

Sometimes books are just pure poetry and a joy to read--and Patricia McKillip, who has been around for such a long time, has not lost her light and lovely touch in this fascinating tale. She moves from past to present and back with a marvelous fluidity as she unfurls this story of a talented young bard who competes in the nearly impossible bardic trials on the near-mythic Bone Plain, but fails to win, and is therefore doomed to everlasting life, no peace, no rest. To modern citizens of the city,...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Keri rated it 5 of 5 stars

The sense of completion that I get when I finish a McKillip novel is unrivaled by any other author. I’ve said it before, but this woman’s prose is magic. There doesn’t need to be a strong plot for me to enjoy it (though it helps that her books do have one!); there just needs to be these musical words creating a symphony on the pages.

The Bards of Bone Plain is a story told in two different sections: one following the life of Nairn, the Unforgivable and one following the lives of Phelan Cle, son...more The sense of completion that I get when I finish a McKillip novel is unrivaled by any other author. I’ve said it before, but this woman’s prose is magic. There doesn’t need to be a strong plot for me to enjoy it (though it helps that her books do have one!); there just needs to be these musical words creating a symphony on the pages.

The Bards of Bone Plain is a story told in two different sections: one following the life of Nairn, the Unforgivable and one following the lives of Phelan Cle, son of Jonah Cle - resident merchant, alcoholic, and collector of old things. Watching how these two stories intertwine to become one is an adventure.

Phelan is about to graduated from his bardic school and has to write a paper. He chooses the topic of Bone Plain, which has been done a hundred times according to his father. As he researches, he begins to find bits and pieces of a legend that hadn’t been explored before.

Jonah spends his time going here and there with the next bottle of rum before the arrival of a bard named Kelda. Then he suddenly starts going to the events he’s invited to just to watch this man, to the amazement of his family and friends.

The story within a story is the tale of Nairn, who has failed the test he was given many years ago and now must wander the world to try and redeem himself. It follows his life from when he first learned of music until it crashes into the other storyline.

The only complaint I have about this novel is minor, but jarring. At one instance, near the end when I’d figured out the twist already, a name was either mistakenly put it which revealed a secret, or she revealed the secret too soon. Either way, it confirmed my suspicions almost too early for me and made me upset that the double twist in my mind wasn’t going to happen. But that was me just over thinking things.

But that is just a drop of oil in the ocean of perfect, blue water that is this novel. If you’ve never read any McKillip, and you count yourself as a fan of fantasy, you’d better start. There aren’t many authors out there as poetically beautiful and creative as she is.
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About Patricia A. McKillip

Patricia Anne McKillip is an American author of fantasy and science fiction novels, distinguished by lyrical, delicate prose and careful attention to detail and characterization. She is a past winner of the World Fantasy Award and Locus Award, and she lives in Oregon. Most of her recent novels have cover paintings by Kinuko Y. Craft. She is married to David Lunde, a poet.

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Books by Patricia A. McKillip

Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy (Riddle-Master, #1-3)

The Riddle-Master of Hed (Riddle-Master, #1)

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Quotes from The Bards of Bone Plain

“He exuded ambiguities she decided, that was his fascination.
His mouth spoke; his eyes said something other: his smile belied everything....
He played with the language of the Circle of Days like a child with an arsenal of twigs....
His music said otherwise it seemed to echo through time out of a past as old as the stones on the hill. He lied with every note he played.
Or in his music he finally told the truth.” — 3 people liked it

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