Something Rich and Strange

by Patricia A. McKillip

They have lived among us for centuries—distant, separate, just out of sight. They fill our myths, our legends, and the stories we tell our children in the dark of night. They come from the air, from water, from earth, and from fire. What are these creatures that enjoin out imagination? Faeries.

Something Rich and Strange creates a faerie story that's not to be missed: Megan is an artist who draws seascapes. Jonah owns a shop devoted to treasures from the deep. Their lives, so strongly touched by the ocean, become forever intertwined when enchanting people of the sea lure them further into the underwater world—and away from each other.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Magical Realism, Fae, Fairies, Fairy Tales

179 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Patricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Posted at Shelf Inflicted

When I first read this book, it was a Saturday afternoon, drizzly and cool, and I was sitting in my favorite chair reading. After I was done, I had such an overwhelming urge to drive to the beach. So I did. It was pouring, and the beach was soggy and desolate. I loved the smell of the turbulent ocean and wanted to reach the "bottom of the stairway into the sea" and discover all its mysteries. So rarely does a book have this kind of power over me. It was beautiful, magical, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days.

I decided to revisit this story. This time, I did most of my reading while riding the bus or during the long commute to work. There was no way I could just get out and drive to the beach. While the imagery still enchanted me the second time around, I was more focused on the relationship between Megan and Jonah, their problems, the strong environmental message, and how the sea and its mysteries are slowly drawing them apart.

McKillip's magical prose and gorgeous style does not fail to enchant. This is a short story with gorgeous illustrations that can easily be read in one or two sittings.

If you love beaches, love the sea, and love dreamlike, magical stories, then I would highly recommend this. The beach will never look the same again.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty slow going, but in a dreamy, almost psychedelic sort of way. As an artist myself, I liked how the main character saw the world. And I thought is was interesting how the world of Faerie started to insert it's way into her life by crawling uninvited into her drawings. The main focus of the book is how the world of man and man's predation on the world is slowly killing the natural and supernatural worlds.
I heard a song the other day from the Poozies that pretty much completely summed up this book. Check it out on youtube here: Neptune

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a story in itself, I would probably give this 4 stars, but I wanted to give higher marks to the author's writing style in general - actually, the title of this book pretty accurately describes the way she writes her fantasy novels. Also, this book holds a special place in my heart, having read it as a teenager interested in both artistry and the sea. And of course tortured romances.

I also like the concept of the authors using some of Brian Froud's artwork for their inspiration in this small fantasy series. The color plates in my edition are really wonderful.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather dreamy, slow book, this novella tells the story of an eccentric couple, Megan and Jonah, who live in a seaside town. Megan's an artist and Jonah runs an artsy souvenir shop. But a mystic couple arrive in town... Megan finds herself irresistibly drawn to a travelling jewelry-maker, and Jonah finds himself obsessed with a beautiful singer he sees in the local pub. Magic intertwines with reality as Megan and Jonah's relationship seems to be tearing apart, for these strangers are magical beings from the sea, and Jonah is drawn in like so many other of legend, by siren song. But today, the mermaids want for than sensual, cruel amusement - they want to draw attention to the ecological disaster being faced by the world's oceans.
I really love Patricia McKillip, but this novella gave me a bit of an 'unfinished' feel - there were a few loose ends, and the 'message' seemed awkwardly fitted in.

[Melanti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous book, all the way from the beautiful dust jacket to the dozen or so lovely drawings, all by Brian Froud. I now realize how much I missed out on by reading a non-illustrated re-print of de Lint's contribution to this series.

The plot of the book isn't McKillip's best. She gets a bit preachy and pushy with the ecological theme of the series though her prose and imagery is as lovely as ever.

It's a modern ecological fairy tale. Unusual for her, but good.

[CrossCulture · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, lovely writing. But the story line seemed choppy, unsuspenseful, all over the place. It had gorgeous little moments, but they felt like standalone snippets of prose. In the end, the plot and direction became predictable yet again. 2,8 stars. Lovely writing style, story building? Hmm.

[Allison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have previously liked Mckilips writing but I found this book pretty corny where it could have been intriguing. The writing here leaves the reader a step behind and I needed to go back several times to figure out what had just happened.

[Eleanor]

McKillip is a big dog of late-20th-century fantasy, but this was the first time I’d read her. This is about a couple who live by the sea—Megan’s a dreamy artist who does seascapes and Jonah’s a grumpy shop owner who sells maritime trinkets—and the way they both end up entranced by what the jacket text calls “fairies” but which are perhaps more properly nereids, or sea nymphs. There’s a brother, Adam, and a sister, Nereis, and their mother Doris or Dory (who really was a Greek sea goddess). McKillip writes beautiful prose, almost luxurious in its focus on colour and texture, that nevertheless doesn’t stray away from sense. It lends itself really well to a story where the fantastical enters the real. It’s sort of urban fantasy-inflected, but in a coastal town, not a big city, and not magical realism either; this is proper committed fantasy, only the secondary world is within our own. Megan has to go rescue Jonah from Nereis and her song at the end, which of course I loved. The ecological message comes through perhaps a touch overtly, but I guess, since it was 30 years ago and we haven’t done much to save the sea, the urgency was justified. Source: 99p Kindle copy

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing and wonderful illustrations.

[Maureen E · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something Rich and Strange
(with illustrations by Brian Froud)

This book was nowhere near as successful as McKillip's best. I think it's because it remained too grounded in our world--the best McKillip, with the exception of the Riddle-master sequence, is that which takes us into a dream, weaving it around us so tightly that when the story ends we emerge shaken, wondering what we're looking at. Something Rich and Strange never does that. I don't know that it even tries to. I also found it hard to like any of the characters. Often I have this problem with McKillip because the characters are insubstantial, unknowable. But here it was almost as if they were too known.

Also, for a book based on pieces of art (by Brian Froud--it's one in a whole series), I found curiously little interaction between art and word. In the end, I feel that this is a book unsure of exactly what it wants to be.

[Alyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

The forward by Brian Froud was more interesting than the actual book. The tinner's rabbits are so cool and such a mystery why did this lady choose to write about boring mer-people and there nonsensical attraction to the two most boring people on the planet.
Way too detailed - her mind numbing descriptions were clearly used a filler to take up more pages --it did NOT carry the "story" at all.
She also had a tendency to reiterate the same explanations way too many times. If the reader already knows what's going on-there is no need to recap every 10 pages-even if its one character to another. We get it-move on!

[Laura Bone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading about the Fae. The writing for this book is very descriptive and illusive. I wish I could have visted the ocean during and after reading the book. It definitely reignited a passion for the beauty of the sea that I sometimes forget. However, the language and writing style might be a little too flowery and the plot too metaphoric for some people. Overall, I enjoyed it and the feelings/desires it stirred within me. I felt my imagination take wing, or should I say "fin," throughout the novella.

[Ilana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very cool book, full of the magic and dark mysteries of the ocean. My head is still full of images of waves, scales and pearls. I didn't feel like the characters had much personality, which was not so good, but it was a great tale.

[Bethnoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book, full of beautiful ideas and descriptions. As someone who knows the pull of the sea, this felt very familiar to me, I have dreamed it too and only didn't give it 5 stars because I thought it ended a bit abruptly.

[Kara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was severely disappointed with this book - the ocean offers so much rich potential for story telling, and instead we get a modern update of Hans Christian Andersen's melodramatic angst.

[E.A. Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

McKillip's language is lovely, I can only quibble with some of her lack of narrative clarity but I do enjoy her prose so much I don't care so much.

[scarlettraces · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too little plot, too much didacticism for me. Probably my least favourite of McKillip's so far, but I guess something has to be.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 3* rating is a compromise between a 4* book for about 80%, and then a very weak preachy ending.

Also, the pictures are horrible. Grotesque, twisted, and nothing to do with the story.

[Windrider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patricia McKillip writing & Brian Froud's illustrations. What more could one ask?

[Keri Sparks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patricia does such an excellent job writing lyrical magic and keeping the mystery and beauty in the story, without humanizing any of the faery bits. I love her writing style, but I didn't particularly love this story.

Also ... I did not like Nereis. Ended up not liking Jonah either, idc what his excuses were. Sooooooo not happy with the ending. Megan should have left Jonah to his sea witch and ran off with Adam. I would have. Fictional me, anyway. Cause Adam was 100% heart-capturingly worth leaving the mundane life behind and becoming a sea-maiden for. Alas, how dissatisfied I am with Megan's choices in men.

On a serious note, this was a very beautiful story but simple and mainly written to bring a point across, which I didn't realize when I had bought it, but not all that upset about it either.

Side note: anyone else bothered by how the art does nothing for the story? I know. I know. I read the foreword by the artist, but still.... The illustrations were so outside the scope of the story that they detracted from it. It was like they were telling a different story and that distracted me from the written one. I wanted to see Megan's drawings. I wanted to see the glassy stairway into the sea T_T

[Blk Mdnna · Rating 2 out of 5]

McKillip really knows her way around a turn of phrase. Her prose is always compelling and lovely. But personally, I have had a really hard time getting into the Froud fairy collabs with prominent fantasy authors.

It's almost like they're all trying too hard. I didn't enjoy this one so much, although it did have a strong start...nothing about any of the characters except Megan was actually interesting or redeemable. They felt either forced or glossed over. Jonah came off like an a-hole the hole time and DEFINITELY not worth fighting for. Girl, let the sea keep him, ok. Adam was creepy and a little too into his sister.

I generally enjoy McKillip, again, if for nothing else than the lyricism in her prose, but this Froud mashup took too long to get going, the dialogue felt out of place for the setting and much too formal even between the lovers, and then feels like it skipped some important event in the middle. You blink, and then we're crying pearls to get free (but not really) from a covetous water woman, but not in a good way. And then it's just....over. So.

Couldn't really get into it. Too much of too little happening in this one for me which is a shame because normally this kind of story would be right up my alley!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patricia McKillip. Need I say more? Her writing is so fluid; she is the only author I know of that is truly capable of capturing the sea in written word. Her writing carries both the weight of reality and a breadth of magic that hearkens back to the old folk tales told around cozy stone hearths in driftwood-hung fisherman's cottages. Megan is a character that appeals to both my bookish tendencies and my imaginative underpinnings, so I *loved* her. The only reasons to give this 4, rather than 5, stars are the slightly heavy-handed moral toward the end (a bit clunky considering how lyrically beautiful the rest of it is) and that there was a bit more sexual content than I'd usually seek out. However, even the sex was handled so fluidly and naturally that it didn't feel gratuitous or inappropriate. Definitely a book I'll re-read in a few years.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slim novel about an artist who paints seascapes and a shop owner who sells fossils and other treasures from the sea. Ordinary people who make a life together next to the ocean that fascinates both of them.

When strangeness starts showing up in her pictures and their lives, they find themselves pulled into the real life of the sea. Jonah, like the sailors of old, becomes obsessed with the song of a mermaid, while Megan wants to free him.

I have always thought Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley (another favorite of mine) have an indescribable way of writing. I can't tell how they do it, but they draw you into magic, and show you beauty, and when you surface (from their sea of words) you can't explain what happened to you, but you are glad you saw what you did.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautiful book, both story and art. Froud made fifty drawings and gave them to several authors to create a story inspired by the art. This is McKillip’s result. It explores the interaction of humans with the realm of Faeries under the sea. This book is definitely a mood piece. Lots of description of surroundings, especially underwater, and lots of emotions or lack thereof. It’s a short book, maybe just a little longer than a novella, so it works. If it was another hundred pages, I think I would have been longing for more action. This book won the Mythopoeic Award for 1995.

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[Slinkyboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little preachier than I expected, but still an excellent read. McKillip's lyrical prose can be hauntingly beautiful, and she manages to capture the magical allure of the sea like a siren's song.

"He downed the beer quickly, ordered another, trying to ignore the feeling that the night had suddenly split itself between the moment when he had not known of her existence and the moment when all he knew was her absence."

[Patricia Burson · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Read as part of "Dreams of Distant Shores".) I may be considering a career change due to "Something Rich and Strange" ... Because the sea has always called me, and never as evocatively as in Ms. McKillip's words.

[Alyssa Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of rich and strange beauty, where one journeys with Megan and Johan into the depths of the sea. Accompanied by the captivating illustrations of Froud, McKillip weaves a tale of enchantment and lures one to see the sea in both its beauty and terror and death.

[christine ✩]

actual fever dream but that is entirely to be expected of a collab between McKillip and Brian Froud. slow... beautiful... dizzying... I need a shelf for books about the sea tbh. the fae are unknowable.

[Laura Peggram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strange in deed!

[Amanda Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lyrically magical story about a couple finding each other again in a underwater world.