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The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 · rating details · 5,351 ratings · 240 reviews

Sixteen when a baby is brought to her to raise, Sybel has grown up on Eld Mountain. Her only playmates are the creatures of a fantastic menagerie called there by wizardry. Sybel has cared nothing for humans, until the baby awakens emotions previously unknown to her. And when Coren--the man who brought this child--returns, Sybel's world is again turned upside down.

Paperback, 343 pages

Published January 1st 2006 by Sandpiper (first published 1974)

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Aug 21, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: vamps-and-other-mythical-beasts, reviewed, fantasy-sci-fi, in-by-of-the-americas, fey

The hardest books to write about are the ones written in a unique voice. There's no basis for comparison. I might tell you that McKillip's stories remind me of Isak Dinesen if you and I were to agree that the comparison is based on their abilities to move language into forms that alter your understanding of how it can be used to tell a tale of wonder.

This isn't your boy finds dragon, they bond, dragon stays with boy because he's a good master, and they have lots of adventures, saving the world a...more The hardest books to write about are the ones written in a unique voice. There's no basis for comparison. I might tell you that McKillip's stories remind me of Isak Dinesen if you and I were to agree that the comparison is based on their abilities to move language into forms that alter your understanding of how it can be used to tell a tale of wonder.

This isn't your boy finds dragon, they bond, dragon stays with boy because he's a good master, and they have lots of adventures, saving the world and acting like idiots the whole time, kind of story. I think of J.R.R. Tolkien's tales when I read this book because of the iciness of the characters in their giant, sweeping epic story, and how you watch the iciness crack and drip away until you are at the end of the book and they were real people, passioned, pained characters, even if only in your imagination. The tale wraps around you completely. It gives you a way into the characters even though the narrator is so careful to remain aloof and the writing leads you in down other paths. In the sorceress's garden on the top of a mountain which is at the center of this story, you walk its winding paths with the protagonists and the story is besides you, like a traveling companion, both following the paths. I'm enchanted by this story, the way the forgotten beasts are enchanted.

This isn't a silly little story. It's about power and wanting power and what control means and how power corrupts. I love that it is a woman who has power, or thinks she does, and how she must remain isolated to maintain such an illusion. She can control only certain things in her life and how she makes choices is interesting (I wish that wasn't such a lame, dull word).

I love this book because it covers a lot of themes that you usually find on the bookshelves of Wal*Mart (I'm guessing) involving chick-lit cliches that involve women's friendship, being afraid of vulnerability, and finding love, without being stupid about it. No one is empowered by bikini-wax in this one. But, if it stopped there, I wouldn't be writing about it now. It goes on. How do you learn the name of the thing that you fear most? How do you master it, even when it terrifies you? How do you balance power and kindness? These themes and the questions are, of course, bound up in each other, and you can't possibly really know a character, or yourself, without looking at both of them.

There is also a dragon. I love dragons and this one is big and alienating and challenging and barely controlled, as a dragon should be. No one should be hugging their dragons. They exist in our mythos as symbols of strength and power and freedom. They are not sheepdogs with scales, large appetites, and wings.

This is the book that introduced me to and made me love Patricia McKillip. I've read almost everything she's written now. This is the one I most often return to. It is easy to lose myself in this one, and looking up a few hours later, I realize I've been dreaming the story that McKillip has created here.
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Mar 12, 2013 Weasel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, reread-2013, childhood-fav

This is one of those books that deserves the label Classic Fantasy. The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld is just shy of forty years old now, and I'm sure it has been at least twenty years since I last read it.

It's the story of a powerful wizard named Sybel, who lived a quiet life with her books and animals, with no human contact save the father who raised her, until one day, after her father has died, when she is just sixteen, a man arrives on her doorstep with a baby.

Perhaps it's that "sixteen" that ha...more This is one of those books that deserves the label Classic Fantasy. The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld is just shy of forty years old now, and I'm sure it has been at least twenty years since I last read it.

It's the story of a powerful wizard named Sybel, who lived a quiet life with her books and animals, with no human contact save the father who raised her, until one day, after her father has died, when she is just sixteen, a man arrives on her doorstep with a baby.

Perhaps it's that "sixteen" that has people shelving this as YA these days. If so they weren't paying attention, because in the space of a few more pages twelve years have passed. Bookstores and libraries didn't have "YA" sections when I first read this book and continued not having them for a long time after. There are coming of age elements to the story which might be seen as "YA", but whatever. I don't think lends itself to such a categorization very easily.

And like one of Sybel's iron bound, jewel encrusted books which take a key, neither does this book open itself easily to all of those weaned on more modern fantasy. McKillip's style seems a thing of another era. I've always found it to be serene and detached, and unlike pretty much any other author writing fantasy today. The detachment suits Sybel well, as this is a woman who is unaccustomed to emotion. But to the best of my recollection McKillip's style is similar in all of her books that I've read. I find it agreeable, but many of those accustomed to a more energetic style with a deeper point of view may not find it to their taste.

Another thing which marks this as a book of another era, is the pace. McKillips prose feels leisurely, slow, perhaps. But in just over two-hundred pages, she relates events which more modern authors would likely stretch out over no less than three of those giant doorstops that pass for fantasy novels today. Oh, sure they might spends some of that time in other characters' heads and add some subplots as a part of that puffing up, but undoubtedly the larger portion of it would be a great deal of hand-wringing on the part of Sybel, endless exposition on the history and politics of the various kingdoms, and, lest we forget, pages upon pages expounding on the minutiae of the "magic system". In other words, all that incredibly boring "world building" stuff that authors ought to do, but which they once kept in their own heads or notebooks instead of using to inflate their page counts. McKillip tells the reader what they need to know for the sake of the story, and nothing more. If only that were in fashion these days. I might read a lot more fantasy.

I don't know how many times I read this when I was younger. A lot. I was in grade school when I discovered it and as kids will, I read it repeatedly. I am quite certain it's one of the three books I've reread the most times. Revisiting a childhood favorite is always a risky thing, too many times they turn out to be tawdry things, not worthy of our memories. But I had faith in McKillip. I was not nervous about rereading this. I think I do not love it now the way I did then. But it is still very good. And though I might only give it a four if I had read it now for the first time, "would I reread this?" is the difference between a four and a five for me, and it's already proven that many times over. So I think I'll let it keep its fifth star.
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Nov 25, 2011 Isa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Isa by: Hirondelle

Shelves: fantasy, favorites, owned, love-hate, read-2011, cozy, worth-re-reading

One day Patricia A. McKillip will write a bad book and that'll be the first sign of the impending apocalypse. I have no idea how I went through so many years of my life without having read her books. Actually, that would probably be because there are no Portuguese translations and I have to buy the originals from the UK.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is, in a word, delightful. Like all of McKillip's books the reader is lost in her magical worlds from the very first page. She writes things and they...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Henry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I first read this book probably 20 years ago, and was a little leery of re-reading it, since I had remembered loving it, but worried that I wouldn't like it so much anymore. Fortunately, I ended up loving it as much as the first time. It is a short book, but the plot is tight, and weaves an enchanting mood throughout. There is no time to develop a vast, detailed world such as Middle Earth, but McKillip manages to give her small world as real a feel as any other. I also appreciated that this is w...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Valerie added it · review of another edition

This is the edition I have.

McKillip's stories always have full backdrops. One feels that if one could read the wizards' books in Sybel's library, one could read all the old stories Sybel has read, and more. For example, Tam complains that he is laughed at for not even knowing who was king of Eldwold before Drede. Neither do we, for it's never said. But in Eldwold they know.

The forgotten tales from which Sybel and her immediate forebears summon the beasts have not been forgotten by everybody, jus...more This is the edition I have.

McKillip's stories always have full backdrops. One feels that if one could read the wizards' books in Sybel's library, one could read all the old stories Sybel has read, and more. For example, Tam complains that he is laughed at for not even knowing who was king of Eldwold before Drede. Neither do we, for it's never said. But in Eldwold they know.

The forgotten tales from which Sybel and her immediate forebears summon the beasts have not been forgotten by everybody, just by most people. The beasts come mostly for the pleasure of hearing their names sung again, but they stay because they're loved and cared for.

I won't spoil the surprise by revealing where the Liralen is. I'll just say that it's essential to resolving Sybel's anger, which nearly kills her as surely as Rommalb would have, but more slowly.

The fear people feel for Sybel because she is powerful and unaligned is quite inappropriate, until they create reasons for the fear. But it's odd that none of her male forebears seem to have occasioned similar fears. It must have been known that a family of wizards had established a retreat on Eld mountain, as it became known when a witch set up housekeeping on their doorstep. But until people kin to Sybel through her mother begin meddling in her life, it doesn't seem to have occurred to others that the wizards' power could potentially be quite influential, if anybody could gain their loyalty.

I liked it, by the way, that when the witch Maelga stole a cow and exchanged it for a valuable ring, people left the doors of their cow byres open hopefully for sometime afterward. Nice touch.

Several points in the story give clues to what must come, if all's to end well. One is Cyrin Boar's twice-repeated warning "The Giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward, and he died of what he saw there." But the most critical (and to Sybel, entirely unexpected) element in the story is Coren's comment that, though he has no choice but to come when she calls him, he will choose to come: "But one day you will find out how good it is to have someone who chooses to come when you call."(less)

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Aug 10, 2012 Paradoxical rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reading-list, books-otherwise

Beautiful and lyrical, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld captured my attention wholly until I finished the book. It was less the characters, and more of the wording, the way McKillip painted the world and the creatures contained within it around the readers. It read like a true fairy tale, complete with wizards and dragons and hidden princes. Tropes abounded, but somehow you forgot all of that as you read.

The book was very deliberately written so as there's a sense that you know that you're reading a...more

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May 23, 2012 NaiNai rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed-from-library, fantasy

There's something very...1970s-fantasy about the writing style, although I can't quite put a finger on what. I think the combination of simple sentence with a tone of "formality" is part of it, though. Sort of reminds me of C. J. Cherryh (sp?)? If I'm remembering Ms. Cherryh's writing style correctly, anyway.

There were some quotes I was going to add, but then had to return it to the library.

Well, there was the one about "you'll see how good it is when someone comes when you call" (end of chap 6...more There's something very...1970s-fantasy about the writing style, although I can't quite put a finger on what. I think the combination of simple sentence with a tone of "formality" is part of it, though. Sort of reminds me of C. J. Cherryh (sp?)? If I'm remembering Ms. Cherryh's writing style correctly, anyway.

There were some quotes I was going to add, but then had to return it to the library.

Well, there was the one about "you'll see how good it is when someone comes when you call" (end of chap 6 I believe? End of some chapter. Specific).

Think it was pages 138, 158, 172, and one more. 180-something?

Also, the Balmor is also the Liralen. I feel there's something symbolic there (that the big scary fear incarnate thing is also this beautiful bird/her hopes and dreams, but I can't quite put it into words).

Was bothered by what Dededre (sp) tried to do to Sybel--or rather, all of the fallout from it. The king wants to possess this incredibly powerful and aloof woman and make her submit to him and his command? I can buy it. But the wizard Mithran (whose name I'm sure showed up before he actually did, although I can't for the life of me remember when/where) wants her too? The most powerful wizard in the history of ever? (Not to mention she's got Coren chasing her too). The amount of romantic attention focused on her/that this romantic tension becomes problematic (see again Dedre and Mithran) is just such a Mary Sue trope.

But then again, it's not that poorly executed in this story, and is actually necessary for the plot--for her to want to plan revenge against the king (the way Coren once wanted revenge, effectively reversing her and his roles), so I suppose that does change things somewhat. Even more so because I am Terrible and loved her plotting with Coren's brothers behind his back. And her realization that her revenge was too much (because it dragged two kingdoms into it, rather than just being a matter for her and the king) and her subsequent retreat back to her mountain (essentially defeat at her own hands) was also pretty great.

I think my main problem with this is the 1970's-fantasy-writing-style. It does a good job conveying the aloofness and iciness of the characters, but at the same time, it's just not my cup of tea.(less)

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May 10, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

A remarkably non-epic book for a tale of wizards, a kingdom sliding into civil war, and talking beasts (incl. a dragon). Not epic, that is, in the usual sense. To be sure, it has all the elements, but they're beside the point. The point instead is a young, powerful woman wizard who can't escape the expectations of power; she wants to be left alone, to not have to make choices that affect others, but this is a luxury even she can not afford. No one can.

And despite all her determination to the co...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Amelia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I am like weary earth after the killing, hardening winter…I do not know if anything green and living will grow from me again (Sybel)

These words struck me and and that’s why I’m going to be hunting down every book that Patricia A. McKillip has ever written.

This story about Sybel, a female wizard living on a mountaintop who does not have much to do with other humans, preferring instead the company of mythical and legendary creatures that she controls is a simple, subtle and most insightful book....more

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Nov 27, 2011 Violetta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book deserves all the praise it has received. Beginning at first a little shakily to readers unused or unfamiliar with certain names and ideas, the story blooms and runs as freely and majestically as the creatures it describes.

It is the story of Sybel, the daughter of a powerful magician (who was in turn the son of the wizard who first called forth the beasts alluded to in the title). She inherits the ability to call forth and bind to her many mythic animals, who live with her on the mount...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Lightreads rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, fiction

A . . . parable – yeah, that’s close enough – about the sorceress on an isolated mountain the king she raises and the man she falls in love with, and how she is drawn back down into the world of men and politics and power and greed.

This is a hard book. It has this precise, chilly sort of narration, like it’s dissecting this story even as the characters act it out with dramatic, stylized gestures. The sorceress can call creatures to her – a black swan, a dragon – and bind them to her. The book is...more A . . . parable – yeah, that’s close enough – about the sorceress on an isolated mountain the king she raises and the man she falls in love with, and how she is drawn back down into the world of men and politics and power and greed.

This is a hard book. It has this precise, chilly sort of narration, like it’s dissecting this story even as the characters act it out with dramatic, stylized gestures. The sorceress can call creatures to her – a black swan, a dragon – and bind them to her. The book is about that, about the power reaching out and grabbing you, about how it hurts you and makes you angry. And how that’s what family is, too, and love.

A hard book. As in hard edges.

It also does a really good job with portraying a magical assault on someone’s mind as a kind of rape. The word never passes anyone’s lips, but it’s there in the fundamentals of the story, in her horror, in her thirst for revenge, in the instantaneous way everyone around her understands the magnitude of what was threatened.

I have . . . complicated feelings about the way a lot of modern fantasy – and more often modern critics – gloss particular kinds of magical attacks as rape. Or just flat out say they're categorically the same, I think is what I'm really talking about. I can’t articulate why this bothers me . . . something about using acts of real world violation and degradation as a shorthand to explain why this fantasyland psychic assault from atop Mount Doom is bad? Because not all invasions of the self are the same tenor of subjective horror, and piling all these psychic and symbolic-magic assaults into the category of rape muddies the waters on a word we can’t even get everyone to line up and agree on in the real world? A friend of mine recently sat next to a guy on a plane who believed as a matter of course that a prostitute could never be raped. Not the point, just, it stuck with me. I don’t know. Obviously thoughts still very unformed on this.

My actual point being, this book maneuvered that very well, and made me feel the horror and the violation. Let the characters like her husband respond in the way they would to rape, but also let the act be the weird, out-of-our-world magical crime that it was.
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Dec 30, 2010 Karissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sybil was raised on Eld mountain by her father. Her only company was the animals that her father called to the mountain. After her father died she maintained the animals and studied magic to become an unparalleled sorceress. She spends days upon days trying to call the one creature that she thinks can give her complete freedom, the creature called the Liralen. One day she is interrupted by someone at her gate; Coren wants her to take in and protect a baby named Tam. When Sybil accepts Tam into h...more

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Nov 08, 2010 BarkLessWagMore rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Enter a land where wise old boars speak, as well as falcons, lions and cats. A land filled with sorcery, beauty and evil . . .

Known as the ice white lady, Sybil was raised to live to care only for the mythical beasts under her control - powerful, beautiful and wise, and feared by man - she knows none of the ways of men and prefers to keep it that way. Until one day, when a young babe is left in her arms, and she learns to love, and gets entangled in a War she wants no part of.

THE FORGOTTEN BEAST...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Lesley rated it 5 of 5 stars

B brought another million boxes of books home, and I saw this book, grabbed it, and screamed, "THIS IS AN AWESOME BOOK!" Then I read the back and said, "Have I even read this?"

Seriously, I didn't remember anything about it except that I had read it at some point and totally loved it. And WOW. Just as awesome as I remembered. I made it halfway through not remembering anything, then I remembered one little thing, and then another little thing... and I vaguely remembered one detail about the ending...more

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Nov 08, 2009 H. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-sf, fiction-ya

One of the pleasures of young adult fantasy literature is that often the best of it will a subtle, insightful, and very much approachable exploration of life's themes and humanity through whimsical and alluring metaphor. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld does not quite accomplish this, but the rhythmic pace and language McKillip chooses is as much to blame for this as to credit for a final product that feels like a modern legend of yore. If one were to translate a minstrel's tale into common speech th...more

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May 17, 2013 Maren rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book for the first time years ago, and I was probably right around the target age group of "12 and up", if not a few years younger. I couldn't remember anything that happened in it, only that I enjoyed it and later gave it as a gift to one of my young cousins a few years later because I knew she would enjoy it just as much as I had.

A decade and a half later (at least), I've read it again... and I still enjoyed it thoroughly, perhaps even more than when I was younger because I'm readi...more

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Jul 06, 2012 kvon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reread, because I had forgotten too many details of character and plot. Things that struck me this time--issues of adoption, yearning for birth parents, extended families. Also Sybel as a woman responding to abuse. She has to choose between revenge or letting go of bitterness, and both sides are handled tactfully. On previous reads I was bothered by the imbalance in how the animals are used, but I'm better with it this time. I do wonder what Coren's backstory is, why he is so wise. I also see th...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Roger Burk rated it 4 of 5 stars

McKillip has a marvelous ability to create an atmosphere of high fantasy in her works, in this one as much as any. It is a feminist story, written when such things were not yet tedious and passe. Sybel is a beautiful wizard-woman who lives happily alone in her cabin in the mountains, communing telepathically with her various creatures. Then one day she is prevailed on to adopt an orphaned infant nephew, who then thrives, running in the woods with no other role models or education than what is pr...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Kyrie Fortune rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Personally, I love flea markets, it's always full of little treasures and interesting stuff, just like this book.

There is no particular backstory in this book: the protagonist is a sorcerer with the power of calling the aforementioned "Forgotten Beasts", legendary creatures whose name got lost in ancient ballads. Her quiet life far from the human world starts to change when a man comes to her house with a baby, claiming he's the son of her aunt. From then on, her life becomes more complicated wi...more

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Oct 03, 2010 D-day rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-mod-fant-list

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 11, 2011 Robyn rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Unfortunately, something was missing from this book, and that's a shame, as it had an excellent premise, and some interesting creatures. The writing, however felt very dry, and cold. I never really felt like I was there with Sybel, nor did I ever fully understand her motivations. Much of the plot seems to drag along, and it took me weeks to read, as I kept getting bored with it, and setting it aside. The emotions in this book are muted pastels, you see the shade of the color they mean to be, but...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Nathan L-g rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
by Patricia A. McKillip 343 pages Genre : Fantasy
“Farewell Ter Falcon, Lord of Air; Moriah, Lady of the Night; Cyrin, Keeper of Wisdom, who confounded the three wisemen of the court of the Lord of Dorn”
You can follow these majestic creatures, along with their owner, Sybel, in their adventures all throughout Eld World, where this book takes place. Also breathlessly follow the emotions of Sybel, who went through happiness and all the way to hate, for the evil king Drede....more The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
by Patricia A. McKillip 343 pages Genre : Fantasy
“Farewell Ter Falcon, Lord of Air; Moriah, Lady of the Night; Cyrin, Keeper of Wisdom, who confounded the three wisemen of the court of the Lord of Dorn”
You can follow these majestic creatures, along with their owner, Sybel, in their adventures all throughout Eld World, where this book takes place. Also breathlessly follow the emotions of Sybel, who went through happiness and all the way to hate, for the evil king Drede.
Sybel lives in seclusion on Eld Mountain with her animals whom she loves dearly. She does not know of the building conflict between the kingdom of Drede and the nine Lords of Sirle and their empire. Drede’s kingdom is growing, attracting many third party kingdoms around Eld World.
One of the most captivating things in this elegant piece of literature is the development of the characters. Drede for example.
In the beginning Corren of Sirle, one of the lords of Sirle comes and gives Sybel a baby, Tamlorn. When he drops of Tamlorn, who is Drede’s son, he comes saying that Drede is a hard and cold man.
Later on in the book, Sybel calls Drede for Tamlorn. Calling is a form of wizardry in which whatever you call comes wherever you send them to. When Drede comes he seems so kind and softhearted.
Then soon after a powerfull wizard starts calling Sybel. She fights it as long as she can but she is drawn to a small wizard’s tower she then finds out that Drede has hired the wizard

to take awway her feelings so she will follow him against her will. She escapes and then starts to plot against Drede. She is taken to Sirle by Corren. There
she plots with Corren’s brother Rok, creating a war of huge proportions against Drede. She called the rulers of some kingdoms, who would have fought for Drede. She even is willing to let her animals fight in the war.
Patricia A.McKillip also wrote the novels The Riddle-Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and many others. This wonderfully written book is definitely in third person. because of the many accounts of he,she,and they.
What will happen in Sybel’s war? Will Sirle be destroyed? What will happen to Tamlorn, Sybel, and Corren? The answers to these questions are surprising, so you will want to read the book to find out.(less)

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Nov 27, 2011 Mariella rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites, childhood-favourites, fantasy

That rare fantasy that manages to be lyrical, mythic in scope and feel, while remaining not only fully comprehensible but also engaging and entertaining, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld was the first ever winner of the World Fantasy Award. I read it when I was young, and it STILL manages to make me put everything aside for the afternoon just to sit down and re-read it from start to finish.

McKillip's use of language is gorgeous and poetic without suffering from the oftentimes TOO surreal quality of s...more

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Jun 10, 2013 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those magical books that you pick up, thinking it's going to be something else, and it turns out to be even better than you'd imagined it to be.

It reads like a fairy-tale - the slightly odd wizard, alone on her mountain-top with only her fantastical animals, until a baby is delivered on her doorstep, and she learns what it means to love other humans.

The story turns, though, when she learns what it means to hate - and how that hate can destroy everything, even love and identity.

Onl...more

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Sep 05, 2009 Mariah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, library, young-adult, 2009, reviewed

This is a beautifully written novel, that reads like a fairy tale with its simple yet poetic language. I can see why it won the World Fantasy Award. Sybel, a young woman trained in magic by her late wizard father lives on Eld Mountain alone with the legendary beasts he collected.
One day, a baby is brought to her to raise. In spite of her doubts, the boy Tamlorn grows to melt her heart and reconnect her with humanity. Her suspicion of human society and its politics and wars seems warranted howeve...more

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Apr 11, 2013 David Shakespeare rated it 4 of 5 stars

The edition I read indicates that it's intended for readers "Ages 12 and up" and if its target audience is young adults, I think that it's very good--maybe even excellent. Probably the representation of magic is what this novel does best, and is, so far as I know, unique: "calling" someone or something until it appears, either summoning a "beast" (of the novel's title) for one's own (ideally benevolent) uses, or to irritate and potentially damage an opponent's mind through repeated calling. Over...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Phillip rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The titular creatures are a collection of fabled animals which have been gathered through wizardry, serving as the only companions to the enchantress, sybel. The real beasts of this novel are the incarnations of betrayal, fear and hate that rise up in the human heart.

Although Sybel is wise in her sorceress ways, she stumbles as frequently as a novice when she is forced to interact with humans and learn to deal with emotions, both theirs and, more challenging, her own.

Patricia Mckillip starts her...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

This is an odd one, a fantasy antique from the 1970s. Stylistically it's similar to a fairy tale: the magic is not over-explained and technical, the protagonist and a young man fall in love for no apparent reason other than they're both beautiful and good, the characters speak in a strange dreamy way and use the word "shall" a good amount. But a third of the way in it really starts to pick up, to become twisted and dark in a way that feels completely natural.

It's interesting as a precursor to M...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Haaze rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Five stars in the category of fantasy, four stars in the overall book category (we should have tiers of ratings!).
The book revolves around a female heroine with the ability to call beasts and the problem of how her life as a hermit gets involved in the affairs of men (heart and politics). It is very well written book weaving a wonderful combination of story line, descriptions of land and beasts as well as psychological interactions. McKillip does a wonderful job in developing the story, but mos...more

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Oct 08, 2009 Ethan rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the concept of the book and the characters were interesting, if not always likeable or accessible. The use of names is vaguely reminiscent of Leguin's Earthsea books, but the application was different enough to not feel stale. I'm not actually sure which book was published first.

As far as negatives go, at times the action seemed rather diffuse (mostly described after the fact, not so much in scene), and the odd interaction between Sybel and Coren made this feel at times more like an ad...more

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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)

Heir of Sea and Fire (Riddle-Master, #2)

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“The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there” — 41 people liked it

“Shall I add a man to my collection?” — 14 people liked it

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