He died of what he saw there: Vengeance as a theme in the writings of Patricia A. McKillip

Other aspects of McKillip's work are also considered on this page.

Originally written, as a web page, which was not part of this blog, on May 2, 2008 (Links checked May 11, 2011). The latest version of that web page is here.

This post considers most of the fantasy writing of Patricia A. McKillip, with some reference to that of Jack Vance.

"I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places." Patricia McKillip (1948 - ____) US science fiction writer
In "Faces of Fantasy," by Patti Perret. (source: http://creativequotations.com/)


Darko Suvin, in "Considering the Sense of 'Fantasy' or 'Fantastic Fiction': An Effusion," in Extrapolation 41:209-247, 2000 describes much fantastic literature as parable. He says: "For the parable consists of a narrative body as 'vehicle' and an intended meaning as 'tenor,' as a way of intimately relating art to truth or narrative and metaphoric imagination to conceptualized, normative doctrine." (p. 211) I can only speculate about McKillip's intent, but some of her narrative body seems to have, as a significant part of its tenor, that vengeance is dangerous to the avenger, and good characters, although they may be tempted to seek revenge, draw back from it.

Vengeance in The Forgotten Beasts of Eld:
Any discussion of McKillip should start with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, (New York: Avon) Published in 1974, this book has deservedly remained in print ever since. The book is deep, with many characters, some magical, some normal, some human, some not so. The themes are love and vengeance. Sybel, a beautiful enchantress who is the daughter and granddaughter of wizards, lives in isolation on Eld Mountain, with her collection of magical animals, including Cyrin, the talking boar. Out in the world at large, the house of Sirle and Drede, king of Eldwold, are at war. Norrel, one of the seven Sirle lords, fell in love with Rianna, Drede's queen, a relative of Sybel, and Rianna with him. The two armies fought, and Norrel was killed, as the Sirle lords lose the battle. Coren of Sirle, full of hatred for Drede, brings Tamlorn, Rianna's child, to Sybel to keep. Sybel knows nothing of keeping a child, but agrees to take Tamlorn.

While Coren is at Sybel's house, Cyrin tells him a cautionary tale: "The giant Grof 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." (p. 70) This, and a gradual falling in love with Sybel, shows Coren that he had been nursing a desire for revenge toward Drede, and that it was destroying him.

Sybel raises Tamlorn until he is in his teens, then agrees to let him live with his father, Drede. She has been calling for one last animal, a great crane, the Liralen. It does not seem to respond, but a ghostly creature, the Blammor, having power to use the evil within people against themselves, appears. Drede and Sirle are still enemies. Drede finds a wizard, more powerful even than Sybel, and asks him to destroy her freedom of choice, so she will be his queen, with her animals serving him through her. The wizard calls Sybel from her house to Drede's city, where he is about to take her will from her. He momentarily succumbs to lust for Sybel. As he does, she calls the Blammor, which kills the wizard. Drede comes in to claim Sybel, and finds the wizard dead. He guesses what has happened.

Sybel agrees to marry Coren. She has come to love him, but her main motive is to use the Sirle war to destroy Drede. She does not want Coren to know how much she wants revenge, so hides her plot from him. In a moment of panic, she even removes some of his memory, not unlike Drede's wizard might have done to her.
Sybel calls all of her animals to her at the house of Sirle, Cyrin last. The boar speaks, telling Sybel the same tale that he once told Coren. Sybel, unlike Coren, does not give up her revenge. She proceeds with her plans for war. The night before the war is to begin, with neighbor armies called magically by Sybel, paid for by her dragon's gold, however, she gives it up. That night, in a nightmare, she sees the Liralen, the beautiful magic bird that she has been looking for, dead with a broken neck. She sees what a desire for revenge has done to her, and tells all her animals that they are free--they don't have to participate in the war, and goes back to her mountain retreat.
Seven days later, Tamlorn comes to the mountain. His father has died of fear, and the Blammor. The armies of both sides have been led magically away from the battle by Sybel's animals, and he is now king. Shortly thereafter, Coren comes to find Sybel. He forgives her, after she explains how she nursed a desire for revenge, even stronger than her love for him, but gave that up on the night before the battle. They forgive each other. Suddenly Sybel realizes that the Blammor and the Liralen are one and the same, and the Liralen appears, and carries the two of them back to happiness at the Sirle house.

I am not the only person to realize that vengeance is an important part of McKillip's plots. Says an author who reviewed The Forgotten Beasts of Eld for Amazon: "McKillip's thoughts on revenge are intertwined with the 'Riddle-Master' trilogy, 'Fool's Run,' and 'Song for the Basilisk.' Here we see how hatred and its offspring, vengeance, might destroy a person from the inside out and destroy what they most care for." Indeed.

Vengeance in the Riddle-Master trilogy:
This splendid trilogy consists of three books, The Riddle-Master of Hed (abbreviated RH), Heir of Sea and Fire (HS) and Harpist in the Wind (HW), all published in New York by Ballantine, in 1976, 1977, and 1979. They have been re-published, as a single volume, with a new introduction by McKillip, as Riddle-Master (New York: Ace, 1999). The best summaries/reviews of these books that I have found are by Geoffrey Prewett (Riddle-Master, Heir, Harpist). There is a concise, but accurate summary of the trilogy here. The author likes the first two books, but not the third, and says why.

In Tree and Leaf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), Tolkien proposed the term eucatastrophe for a great change that brings about ultimate good. His own Lord of the Rings trilogy is an example, of course. The Hed trilogy is, like Tolkien's, about the ending of an age. At that ending, many good things are lost, but evil is averted.

McKillip certainly can't be accused of lacking imagination, or of making the rules of her fantastic worlds explicit. They just are, and the reader will grasp most of the rules by reading. As an anonymous reviewer of her Song for the Basilisk put it:

In most of McKillip's novels (Winter Rose, etc.) and short stories, this veteran author, a World Fantasy Award winner (for Forgotten Beasts of Eld, 1975), uses words in precisely the same way her mages do, to shape images and create fantastic visions where none previously existed. Sometimes the images are grotesque and violent, but more frequently they are ethereal and exquisite. (Publishers Weekly, August 10, 1998 p. 373)

Another writer put it this way: Have you ever started on book two or three (or later) of a series that doesn't s[t]and alone well or at all? If it's a good series, you enjoy the book, but you spend a lot of the time confused, because there are references to things that happened earlier in the series and you have no idea what those things are. 

That's how I felt when reading The Riddle-Master of Hed, despite the fact that it was the first book in the series. McKillip gives absolutely no explanation of anything, expecting the reader to infer what and who things and people are from the context of the book. Things like descriptions are almost completely left out, even when they're central to the plot.

The last writer still said that she liked the trilogy. Here's why, in the words of yet another blogger:

Words seem ironically inadequate to describe the skill with which McKillip spins the English language into magic. Lyrical is one word that is often used in reviews, but it's so much more. Most of McKillip's work deals with magic, and if there is any true magic in the world, I would suspect it would be found in her use of language. I could luxuriate in work written by McKillip regardless of the story, simply to enjoy her use of words. 

I agree.
The Hed Trilogy is about a land in an unspecified place. This land, at the time of the narrative, appears to be overruled by the High One, with six land-rulers under him. Most of the land is in one of the six areas ruled by the land-rulers, but there is wilderness that does not fall under them. In part of this wilderness is the city of Lungold, where, centuries before, Ghistestlwchlohm, perhaps a wizard himself, perhaps more than that, built a school for wizards, who came to him to learn. He betrayed them, and no wizards have been seen since. The High One hasn't been seen for a long time, either, but that is to be expected. He lives in Erlenstar Mountain, which is also not in any of the areas ruled by the land-rulers, and is also isolated. His harpist, Deth, travels around the land, acting for the High One.

The reader eventually learns that land-rule is a special knowledge of, and bonding with, the area and all the rocks, streams, plants, people and animals that are there. In An, Mathom, the land-ruler, also has special knowledge of, and some control over, ghosts of the past. One of those ghosts, Peven, was once king over one of the three portions of An. Each land-ruler has a land-heir, who becomes land-ruler when the former one passes.

In Caithnard, a city on the sea, is the College. The College is where Riddle-Masters are trained, and, if they are skilled enough, eventually become teachers themselves. Riddles are not just puzzles, as in Tolkien's The Hobbit. They are apparently some sort of supernaturally revealed wisdom, with special morals. The overall theme of the College, of riddles, and of riddle-mastery, is to seek the truth, regardless of the consequences.

Hed is an island, the smallest of the areas with a land-ruler. It has never had a wizard, or a riddle-master, until Morgon, son of the land-heir of Hed, a young man who was born with three stars on his forehead, has a desire to attend the College. He goes there, and learns a great deal, but one riddle that he doesn't try to answer is who he, Morgon, really is. His parents come to see him in a boat, and are drowned, so Morgon becomes land-ruler of Hed. His brother, Eliard, is his land-heir.

Morgon goes to Peven's castle, and wins a riddle-game with Peven, a dangerous thing to do. His prize is Peven's crown. Morgon doesn't know it, but Mathom has also promised his daughter, Raederle, to whoever wins the crown.

RH begins with Deth visiting Hed. This leads to Morgon and Deth sailing to the College, where one of the masters is Ohm. Then the two of them sail to An, so that Morgon can seek Raederle's hand in marriage. On the way, the sailors all disappear, and the ship sinks. This is Morgon's first experience with the shape-changers, who are trying to kill him. Morgon is washed ashore, but has lost his memory. Eventually, he recovers, in the house of Heureu, land-ruler of Ymris. There he is given a harp, made long ago, with three stars on it, that no one but he can play. Heureu's wife, unknown to Heureu, is a shape-changer, and tries to kill him again. The upshot of these events is that Morgon decides to go to Erlenstar Mountain to ask the High One who he is--what is the significance of the stars on his face?

The journey is a long one, through all the lands of the land-rulers except An. In Herun, where the Morgol rules, she tells Morgon that she suspects that Ohm, one of the Masters of the College, is Ghisteslwchlom. In Osterland, Har, the land-ruler, teaches him how to change into an animal. In the form of an animal, he finds one of the wizards, who has been hiding in animal form for centuries. That wizard tells Morgon that Ohm is the one he has been hiding from, and dies. In the depths of Isig mountain, the land that Danan rules, he finds the graves of the Earth-masters' children. These children, though dead for millenia, have been awaiting the Starbearer. They give him a sword, with three stars on it.

When Morgon finally gets to Erlenstar Mountain, he finds, to his horror, that Ohm, or Ghisteslwchlom, is sitting in the High One's seat. Deth has brought him there, in a monstrous act of betrayal. RH ends at that point.
In HS, we learn that Morgon has been held in captivity by Ghisteslwchlom for months. Ohm has tried to capture Morgon's mind. Occasionally Morgon hears Deth harping in the background. Morgon finally escapes. When he does, he is bent on killing not Ohm, but Deth, supposedly his friend during his long journey to see the High One, but his betrayer. Also, the land-rule of Hed has passed to Eliard, who thinks that means that Morgon has died.
Through the books, we gradually learn more about the shape-changers, and the Earth-masters. Apparently the High one was an Earth-master, and the Earth-masters and the shape-changers were originally one and the same, but the High One and the other Earth-masters wanted to use their tremendous powers, over land, sea, animals, and plants, to heal and preserve. The shape-changers wanted to use these powers unchecked, without regard for the other beings in their world. As one of them says, "Not compassion, but passion . . ." characterized the shape-changers. (HS, p. 115) So they fought, over a thousand years ago, and the war is not over.

Raederle has a major role in HS. We learn that one of Raederle's ancestors was a shape-changer, but that she doesn't want to yield to that heritage. And we learn that Morgon is beginning to see that his thirst for vengeance is destroying him. "I am so blind with hatred I can't even see my own land or the people I loved once." (HS, p. 163) The College, and the land-rulers, sympathize with Morgon, but are not sure that revenge is right. "Is there a riddle on the master lists that permits the wise man to revenge?" (HS, p. 152) asks Har, a riddle-master as well as a land-ruler, of the College. The implied answer is that there is none. Raederle knows that there is a person of power coming through An, bent on vengeance, and that he is pursuing someone. She makes a bargain with the ghosts of An to protect the pursued, thinking that Ghisteslwchlohm is pursuing Morgon. But Morgon has become such a creature of vengeance that he is pursuing Deth, and thus Raederle makes this mistake. As HS ends, Morgon confronts Deth in the house of An, and raises the sword with three stars to kill Deth, but he does not. He lets the sword drop to the floor, and lets Deth walk away. 

HW begins with Morgon learning the land-law of An, and, using it, taking a ghostly army to Hed to protect it from the shape-changers, who have lived in the sea since the war. Then Morgon and Raederle make the long journey to Lungold, hoping to get answers there. On the way, Raederle yields to her heritage, and changes shape, so she can fly there as a crow with Morgon. On the way, the shape-changers try to kill Morgon again, and Morgon again meets Deth, but doesn't kill him. When they get there, the remaining wizards of the realm are present at the destroyed school for wizards, burying their dead. Morgon freed them when he broke free from Ghistestlwchlohm. There is a battle at Lungold, between the wizards and Morgon, against the shape-changers, but it is inconclusive.
As HW proceeds, Morgon learns the land-law of the other areas. He and Raederle meet Deth again, not as himself, but as one of the ancient wizards. Morgon realizes that he loves and, somehow, trusts Deth. The three of them proceed to King's Mouth Plain, where the ruined cities of the Earth-masters are, and where sits Wind Tower, which, legend says, has never been climbed. All of the land-rulers are there, too. Before the final conflict, the ending of the age, the eucastrophe, Morgon climbs the tower, where Deth is waiting. Morgon realizes that Deth is the High One. Deth tells Morgon that he has been hiding from the shape-changers, as a wizard, and then as the High One's harpist, and that Morgon is his land-heir. Ghistestlwchlohm kills Deth with Morgon's sword, and that act destroys Ohm. Deth welcomes death, believing that Morgon is ready to become his heir. Morgon, now taking the power of the winds, drives the shape-changers to Erlenstar Mountain, not killing them, but binding them there. He is now the High One. Raederle wants to know what Morgan has done with the shape-changers, fearing that he has destroyed them. He tells her.

Morgon, then, as the trilogy progresses, has had opportunities to kill Deth, but does not take them. He has had the opportunity to destroy the shape-changers, but does not do so. He withdraws from vengeance-seeking. Ghistestlwchlohm, on the other hand, kills Deth, the High One, and is destroyed. The lesson is clear--don't take vengeance.

I have posted, on my blog, a summary of the Riddle-Master trilogy, and an essay on "Christian themes in Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy." (I do not claim that McKillip is a Christian. She may be, she may not be.)

Vengeance in Song for the Basilisk:
Victoria Strauss mentions vengeance in her synopsis of Song for the Basilisk. (Ace, 1999) So does Jackie Cassada, in a one-paragraph summary in Library Journal, Sept 15, 1998, p116. It's there, alright, but, as with other McKillip tales, it's not quite so simple as to be that easily summarized.

The Basilisk is a terrible man, a practitioner of poisoning. He is leader of Pellior, one of the four houses of Berylon, and has tried to minimize two of the other two houses, and entirely eliminate the house of Tourmalyne. He didn't succeed. Caladrius, of the house of Tourmalyne, survived a fire, meant to kill his whole family. A relative took him to the school for bards, far away from Berylon. He remained there for over 30 years, producing a son, Hollis. After discovering a flute made of bone, which has dangerous powers, Caladrius feels drawn to Berylon. Hollis follows him.

The Basilisk has three children, an ineffectual son, Taur, his heir, Damiet, a woman whose life centers on how she looks, and Luna, who seems to follow her father in many ways. The music scores of Tourmalyne house have been moved to Pellior, and a librarian is wanted. Caladrius, incognito, takes the job. Hexel is hired to write an opera for the Basilisk's birthday. (There's a lot of music in this book.) Damiet has fallen in love with Caladrius, who has not encouraged her. She is a poor singer, but Hexel, who has never heard her sing, writes the opera with her as the lead. The opera is about the destruction of Tourmalyne house, and a mysterious survivor who returns to Berylon. The performance of the opera is sensational, in several ways. Damiet doesn't sing well. Some Tourmalyne survivors, carrying swords under their robes, have joined the chorus. One of them is Hollis. Caladrius, in the audience, plans to play his flute at the finale. Instead, Hollis plays, hoping, like Caladrius, that the piping will kill the Basilisk. It doesn't. Their vengeance, or self-defense, is thwarted.

The Basilisk, confined to bed, orders the city blockaded, intending to destroy the last Tourmalyne survivors. His son gives an order in his father's name, and his father, enraged, disinherits him, making Luna his heir. This is what she does:

She looked at Caladrius. . . . "I think," she said softly, "that Pellior House has tormented Tourmalyne House enough." She turned back to the captain of the guard. "Let Lord Tourmalyne and his son go free."
. . . noises came from the Basilisk, who, struggling to rise, stared blindly at his daughter, his face purple, a vein throbbing furiously above his brow. He tried to speak, produced only a long, inarticulate word that ended in a moan. He stiffened in amazement, one hand groping at his heart. The blood receded in his face; it grew paler and paler as he struggled for one last word . . .
The physician, with a sudden exclamation, felt for his heartbeat. . .
"He's dead, my lady," the physician said incredulously.
"What killed him?" Damiet whispered. Luna lifted a finger, touched her father's motionless hand; she could not seem to speak.
"Kindness," the physician guessed blankly.
Luna looked silently at Caladrius, the mask of her smile fraying at last to reveal the strength behind it, the bitter love and weariness.
He bowed his head, blind himself now with unshed tears.
"Thank you," he said. "My lady." (pp. 298-9)

If Luna's refusal of vengeance is foreshadowed in the book, I, at least, didn't see it coming. However, now that I have read Basilisk more than once, there is a clue. Early in the book, the Basilisk sets Luna the task of preparing a "gift" for her brother Taur's mistress, a glass rose that contains poison that will kill her. The poison doesn't do so, but it turns the mistress into an old woman. Luna, who doesn't seem to make any mistakes, tells a henchman that the Basilisk will not be pleased that the mistress isn't dead. Then, near the end, after the Basilisk is dead, Caladrius sees Luna give an old woman a rose. He asks her if it is a poison. "'This one heals,' she said enigmatically . . ." (p. 303) McKillip, too, is enigmatic, and it is left to her readers to decide if the old woman is the mistress, and the healing is going to give her back her youth.
Vengeance in other works by McKillip:
Yoon Ha Lee, in a five-sentence summary of The Tower at Stony Wood, which is apparently no longer available on-line, mentions that a man surrenders his vengeance. (I mention the length not to criticize Lee, but to point out that vengeance, or surrendering it, was important enough to Lee that it was included in a five-sentence summary.)
Fool's Run (New York: Warner Books/Popular Library, 1987) is a science fiction novel about many characters, including Aaron Fisher, a policeman whose wife was killed in a mass murder by Terra Viridian. She has been tried and sentenced to a satellite orbiting prison. For seven years, Fisher has been looking for her twin sister, Michele Viridian. He finds her, without knowing it, when she joins his favorite band, which is going to play for the prisoners. His motivation is complex. He wants to understand the death of his wife, he wants to find his wife again. He says that he didn't want revenge, but that was probably only partly true:
"Revenge?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"She--nothing made sense. Why she was killed. I just wanted to understand why. I loved--I loved her." (p. 148)
Terra breaks out of the prison, taking the band, and Fisher, with her. She is on a quest to fulfill a vision about an alien being, which is why she killed over a thousand people. The vision is fulfilled, and she dies. Her last words are an "I'm sorry" to Fisher, who has not tried to avenge his wife.
Moon-Flash (Berkley,1985) is also about earth. There is no vengeance in the book. The story is about primitive people living in a future world, and some of them discovering that there is more to the world than their immediate surroundings. It is, in other words, about our modern dilemma of the effects of technology on our environment, and on ourselves. It is a beautiful book, but I won't give away the twist at the end.
 
Fool's Run and Moon-Flash are clearly about earth. Many of McKillip's books may be, or may be about some alternate world, or about some indefinite time in our world's past. They are apparently based on the middle ages, or something like the middle ages. That is true of the Hed books, and of Forgotten Beasts. The same things are also true of Winter Rose (Ace, 1997). It isn't necessarily about our earth, and is not of our time, and it has no main character driven by revenge. Both of these books are about someone being lost in an alternate, magical world, and someone who isn't sacrificing so that they can be rescued. In Sea, a prince is trapped in a sea-monster's body. In Winter, Corbet Lynn is trapped in the world of the queen of the wood. Solstice Wood (New York: Ace Books, 2006) uses the same setting as Winter Rose, but is set in the present, which is unusual for McKillip. It doesn't have vengeance as a main theme, either.

The Changeling Sea, (Ballantine, 1988) one of McKillip's most beautiful books, is all about magic, losing and regaining, and love. It does have a character out for revenge, but not on a person. Peri, short for Periwinkle, is a young woman, the daughter of a fisherman, in a little fishing village, apparently in one of McKillip's alternate worlds. Her father has drowned. Her mother withdraws from everthing. Peri has befriended an old woman, who has disappeared, leaving her cottage behind. Peri takes to living there, because she doesn't want to see her unresponsive mother. The old woman must have been something of a witch. Peri, based on things she has seen the old woman do, and especially based on her hate for what has happened, casts a "hex" on the Sea. She tries to bind the Sea's magic, and its ability. She later learns that it worked, and, on p. 139-140, unhexes the sea, and takes back her hate. There's more to the book than this, of course, but one consequence of Peri's withdrawal from vengeance is that her mother becomes normal.
 
The Book of Atrix Wolfe (Ace, 1996) has much the same theme as the two works mentioned in the previous paragraph. It is about an alternate world, and someone, actually more than one someone, who is trapped. However, it also has the capacity for revenge as a possibility, which, finally, is rejected. Atrix Wolfe is a great mage. He believes that the ruler of Kardeth will not only destroy Pelucir, where he holds siege, but that he will go on to capture and control Chaumenard, home of the mages. Mages have rules. One of them is that they not participate in wars. Atrix Wolfe believes that the need of the moment, and of the mages, overrides this rule, and casts a spell which creates the Hunter, a fearsome being who ends the war in front of Pelucir Castle by destroying most of the participants.

Twenty years later, there are still ghosts in Pelucir Castle. Talis Pelucir, brother of the king, who was born at the time of the battle, is summoned from the school for mages in Chaumenard. He has the ability to find Atrix Wolfe, who has been hiding, not practicing magic, as a healer of animals. He also has the ability to find, and read, a book which Atrix Wolfe wrote after the terrible battle.

Jack Vance is accused of not paying much attention to most of his plots, and of creating cardboard characters, and the charges have some truth. He is, however, noted for his prodigal imagination, almost creating a new culture, with exotic customs, on every page, in some of his works. In Wolfe, not only does McKillip create characters that have substance, but she has also created an exotic culture, and, unlike Vance, dwells on it intermittently throughout almost the entire book, adding more substance as she goes. That culture is that of the kitchen of Pelucir Castle. The foods, the fires, the wide array of servants, filling many niches, are portrayed carefully. One niche is pot-scrubber. Saro (presumably rhymes with sorrow) fills that niche. She can't speak, but she can move through the kitchen almost invisibly, and she does her job, because it is the only thing she knows, or so it seems. She was found on the woodpile the night of the battle, and named because she must have been some one's sorrow.

As the book progresses, Talis discovers that the Queen of the Wood is trying to trap him, because she wants to find Atrix Wolfe. Her consort and her daughter have been snatched from her by his terrible spell, trapped, in different ways, in a world alternate to the Queen's. Talis is told, by the Queen, that her consort has become the terrible Hunter. The Queen doesn't know what has happened to Saro, who, of course, is the daughter, trapped in a body that no one but Talis pays attention to, unable to speak. Saro is rescued, and Saro and Talis are apparently going to live happily ever after, as the book ends. But, near the end, the Queen, who believes that she will never have her consort with her again, because he has been so terribly changed by Atrix Wolfe's spell, decides that she doesn't really want to kill Atrix Wolfe for this terrible deed, which, after all, he did not forsee. She is right about her consort--he comes back to her for a little while, then turns into a tree--but he does not take vengeance on Atrix Wolfe. This, my reader, is a marvelous book.

McKillip has created another alternate world, or perhaps two of them, in her related works, The Sorceress and the Cygnet (Ace, 1991) and The Cygnet and the Firebird (Ace, 1995). In the first, she begins with Corleu, supposedly a common man, part of a group of migrating people called the Wayfolk. Corleu's group gets lost, going nowhere, and no one but Corleu realizes it. The Wayfolk have songs about the constellations, and their constellations are also the emblems of the Holders, richer folk who do not migrate. By the time the book has ended, the constellations have come to life in Ro Holding, and Corleu has played a significant role in rescuing Ro Holding, and his own people. Astor Ro, the Holder of Ro, and her three daughters, Nyx, Iris, and Calyx, and her niece, Meguet Vervaine, have been introduced, and play a major role in the drama, as does Hew, the gatekeeper of Ro. Nyx is a mage, living in a swamp, trying to learn whatever magic she can in whatever way. Meguet is the protector of the Cygnet, the emblem of Ro Holding. Hew, also from the swamp, is more than an ordinary gatekeeper--he has powers to protect Ro Holding, as does Meguet, who is not an ordinary soldier.
 
McKillip evidently knew that she was onto something when she created the family of Ro Holding, because she brought them back in the second book. (Corleu is restricted to a few lines.) There Ro Holding is challenged by a firebird who becomes a human, Brand, at night. In the process of trying to help him/it, Nyx and Meguet travel, by magical means, to Saphier, a kingdom ruled by a mage, near the Luxour desert. It is not clear whether Saphier and the Luxour are physically close to Ro Holding, or even if they are in the same time. Traveling through time by magical paths is a major theme of the book, as are dragons. At the end, Brand is human again, and Nyx and Meguet have saved Ro Holding by averting an attack by soldier mages from Saphier. These summaries, of course, do not do justice to these works. Neither of them have vengeance as a major theme, although Brand began by wanting to kill the mage he thought had enchanted him, but discovers that it was his father, the ruler of Saphier, who did it.

In the Forests of Serre (New York: Ace, 2003) is a book that I read three times, trying to get a handle on the book. I believe that I finally did, and it's not McKillip's fault that it took me so long. It's about the heart. The word, referring to the seat of the emotions, is used over and over again, and two of the main characters give up their hearts for something else, and regret this.
I don't see how I can summarize the plot, or even describe the characters (there are nine that I would consider main characters) in anything like a post length that's reasonable, even for me. So I'll just summarize the book this way:
McKillip has again written a book with excellent use of language, describing a marvelous forest, wizardry, and a cold castle. The Princess Sidonie decides that she doesn't want to marry Prince Ronan unless he re-claims his heart. He gave it away because his first wife and child died. After numerous trips, by several characters, into and through the forest, all is well. Everyone who should have a heart does, and the two really can fall in love and be married. Vengeance doesn't play a significant role in this book.

Alphabet of Thorn (New York: Berkley, 2004) is a fine book, but I couldn't find vengeance in it. I would say that it does have a plot, though, more than some of McKillip's work. The book is a coming-of-age story. Nepenthe is a translator for the library of Raine, an institution that is large, old, and full of lots of books. Her name is Nepenthe because she was a foundling, and foundlings are named in alphabetical order by the librarians. Tessera, a mousy young teen, has suddenly become queen, due the the accidental death of her father. And Kane? Kane is a powerful sorceress, legendary, because some of her exploits are thousands of years old. Her exploits are to help her cousin, and lover, Axis, to conquer yet another kingdom. Kane appears to others as a man, but is a woman, who found her life in Axis when they were both young children. So she disguises herself, and has herself given to Axis on his wedding day. What Axis wants is to conquer yet another kingdom.
 
Finally, Axis and Kane run out of kingdoms, so Kane discovers that she can bring Axis's army through time. Axis asks her if she wants anything else. She wants a child by Axis. But she cannot raise a child while supposing to be a male warrior mage, so she leaves her baby, who becomes Nepenthe, at the library for the librarians to find, and has no more contact with her, except for a message, hidden in a book, with an alphabet constructed of thorns, in the secret language Axis and Kane have used between each other.

When the book unfolds, Axis is ready to conquer another kingdom, and Kane will lead his army to Raine, in the time when Nepenthe has grown into a young woman, fallen in love with a young wizard, and fallen under the spell of the book with the alphabet of thorns. She is almost done translating it. Tessera comes of age by discovering that Axis's army is coming, and figuring out how to defeat it --she will hide her entire kingdom by magic. Nepenthe comes of age by deciding that she will reject the parents she has never known, to live her life in Raine. And Kane? Kane decides that she will leave Axis, and live with her daughter, in a world where she knows no one, and doesn't know the language. So Axis goes back with his army, and the rest of them start their lives, as mature individuals. I'd like to know how it all came out, but suppose that McKillip won't tell us.

A couple of interesting quotes:
"Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim; It depends if the conquering army likes to read." p. 68.
"We don't choose our passions." p. 70 (Nepenthe, about her passion to translate the book.)
"History moves in great, messy shifts of power, in choices made as though by too many people building a house, where one misplaced stone in the foundation slips under the weight of another stone near the roof. . . ." (Laidley, a librarian, to Nepenthe.) Alphabet of Thorn (New York: Berkley, 2004) pp. 296-7.
Ombria in Shadow (New York: Ace, 2002) is a dark work. There isn't much vengeance in it, although the evil Domina Pearl is finally defeated in the end. There's a lot of murky stuff, unresolved. Even a second reading left me unsure what had gone on, although sure that McKillip had created a world that somehow drew me in. Ombria is a large old city. Is there really a shadow city? If so, can you only get to it by some sort of magic, or is it just old and forgotten? Are Domina Pearl's guards alive, and, if so, are they human? What is Domina Pearl? What is on her black ships? These are some of the questions I can't answer.
It is often true, in McKillip's books, that parentage is obscure, or that parents have died untimely deaths. That's especially so in Ombria. Mag is told that she is a creature of wax, but she isn't. Whose child is she? Kyel Greve, the child prince, has lost both mother and father. Ducon Greve's mother is dead, and his father is unknown. Lydea's mother has died. These four are more or less normal, and they are the characters who, with help from Faey, the sorceress Mag works for, finally destroy Domina Pearl.
One theme throughout the book is art. Ducon Greve and Kyel communicate through sketches. Ducon sketches a lot of things, in fact, this is his main occupation, seemingly.
Something that's usually found in McKillip's writing, but not in this book, is trees and forests. Not only in In the Forests of Serre, but in most of her other works, there are trees and forests. Not so in Ombria. There are weeds growing on the dock, and a patch of sunflowers near the palace gate, but that's about it. I missed them.
Od Magic (New York: Ace, 2005) is a book that reminds me, although it's much shorter, of course, than the Hed trilogy, although there is no noticeable vengeance. Od is a female sorceress. She started a school for wizards in Numis centuries ago. As in the Hed books, the school has gotten rather restricted. Real events, real powers (as in the Hed trilogy, formless, hidden, and undefined) exist. McKillip uses the word power. Much of the book is about freedom -- King Galin expects the school for wizards, which is in part of the palace, to abide by his rules, and to study nothing else. His daughter, Sulys, a traveling trickster, his chief wizard, Yar, and Od, herself, bring him to his senses. I would say that this book certainly has a plot, and some notable characters. Although there's no forest, per se, there is close attention to the things of nature, and it is clear that paying such attention is related to being the best wizard, or person, that you can be. Perhaps this book is as good an introduction to McKillip's work as any, if The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is not available. These books, written over a quarter century apart, by a master, or mistress, of the craft of fantasy, are splendid, if you can stand McKillip's murkiness about power.
As in most or all of McKillip's work, there are young people who have lost one or both parents in Od Magic. Another interesting tidbit is that the school for wizards has a door which only appears to a few people. In the book, 19 years separate the most recent entrances. (There are other ways of getting in, but they don't appear unless you really want to do real magic.) This is a reminder of the door to the school for wizards in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books, of the door to the train to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books, and, especially, of Christ, the only true door to the narrow way. (John 10:1-7)
Magic will spring up where it wills, King, and in a lifetime you couldn't make enough laws to stop it, any more than you can put out all the night fires in Numis with a breath, or contain the wind within four  vengawalls. Trust your wizards; let them come and go. What they find outside these walls and bring back to you may be worth more than you can imagine. Od speaking, pp.311-12.
Harrowing the Dragon (New York: Ace, 2005) is a collection of short stories by McKillip. The longest of these is the second, "A Matter of Music," which was originally published in 1984. As in Basilisk, musical performance is a major feature of the culture, and of the plot. There's a long-standing feud between the Daghian and the Jazi, two of the music-oriented groups in the story. The Jazi allow a Daghian leader to live, although it takes some musical persuasion.
I hope to consider more of McKillip's work as I continue to work on this page, and as more becomes available.
Comparison with Vance
As concerns vengeance, there is a contrast with the writings of Jack Vance. In Vance, the sympathetic characters take revenge--not necessarily a gruesome, terrible revenge, but an administering of punishment, whereas in McKillip, they may give it up entirely. In The Forgotten Beasts, both Coren and Sybel give revenge up entirely. In the Hed trilogy, Morgon has the chance to take vengeance on Deth, but doesn't. Another character destroys Deth, and is himself destroyed in the act. Although Tourmalyne House has been aggrieved more, Pellior House has some claim to vengeance, too, but Luna renounces it. In other words, Vance's characters usually follow the Old Testament's "eye for an eye" (Leviticus 24:19-20), while McKillip's may take the New Testament "vengeance is mine (God's)" (Romans 12:18-20) approach.
Both writers consider the effect of vengeance on the avenger. However, Gersen finds himself empty and without purpose, when the destruction of the five Demon Princes is complete. Sybel renounces vengeance before it is completed, because she sees that dwelling on it would destroy her. To a lesser extent, the same thing happens to Morgon.
 
To put all this another way, the examination of vengeance is central to some of McKillip's work, whereas I would argue that, even in the Demon Princes books, it is not central to Vance's work. A number of authors have pointed out that Vance is really a stylist, using baroque language. Others say that what Vance is really up to is the invention of strange cultures. As Tom Shippey's title puts it, "People are Plastic: Jack Vance and the Dilemma of Cultural Relativism." (in Jack Vance: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography, Edited by A. E. Cunningham. Boston Spa and London: The British Library, 2000, pp. 67 - 84). Vance's central features, his cultures and his style, happen to be found often in stories of vengeance. McKillip has been, at least some of the time, interested in exploring the effect of vengeance on the would-be avenger.

Aside: McKillip's names.
McKillip is good with names. Most of the names of her characters (and locations, and, in one case, a species of animal) are close to those in normal North American English usage, but few of them are commonly used in our culture, if at all. Some of them stick in my mind: Raederle, Atrix Wolfe, Nyx Ro, Caladrius, Lungold, Ombria, Vesta, for example. Sometimes the names are puns, that confuse other characters who hear them: Deth and Saro are understood as Death and Sorrow, at least sometimes.

Thanks for reading. Read McKillip. A post on Christian themes, not just rejection of vengeance, in McKillip's writing is here.

Alphabet of Thorn, by Patricia A. McKillip

I previously posted briefly on two fantasy works by Patricia A. McKillip, one being Alphabet of Thorn. Having re-read that book (twice consecutively), I wish to return to it. The Wikipedia article on the book is here. I'm going to say some things that aren't in the article. Almost all of them relate to McKillip's writing in general, not just to this book.

First, McKillip is a stylist. Her writing is careful, doesn't mimic anyone else's, and weaves its own spells.

Second, McKillip shifts between reality and whatever is outside of that. In this book, the construction of the library, and the politics after the death of fourteen-year-old Tessera's father, resonate with real things. The things Tessera explores could not exist in the real world of the room in our house, where I am writing this, or in any nearby part of this earth as we know it.

Third, a recurring theme is that young people do not have parents, or do not know who they are. I've already referred to the death of Tessera's father. Nepenthe, the other important character who is a young woman, is a foundling. Someone left her for the librarians to raise. She is not the first baby raised by the librarians. Axis, a male character, loses his father before he reaches adulthood.

Fourth, there is a school. In this case, it's the school for wizards, a floating school. It is not anchored to the earth, or at least it is not found in a fixed place.

Fifth, important characters in McKillip's tales often turn away from exacting vengeance, even for grievous wrongs. That is not a feature of this book, but Kane, an important character, does withdraw herself from a powerful army that has been conquering diverse kingdoms without being defeated. She turns away from the spectacular to the ordinary.

A feature that is not, to my recollection, found in any other of McKillip's other stories is time travel. Some of the characters in Alphabet of Thorn can travel through time.

Thanks for reading. By all means, read McKillip.

Ombria in Shadow by Patricia A. McKillip

Ombria in Shadow (New York: Ace Books, 2003) by Patricia A. McKillip, is a good book. As the Wikipedia article on the book says, it won the Mythpoeic Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Like most McKillip works, I read it twice -- once to get an idea of what was going on, and once to get some of the details.

The Wikipedia article, referenced above, considers the plot. I wish to muse about other things.

First, the title. Ombria is a city. McKillip doesn't connect it with a country, or a planet, except that it has docks, and ships come and go. She treats it as an entity unto itself. The shadow part of the title relates to two aspects of the city. First, there is an under-city. There are tunnels and passages, sunken rooms and mansions, under the city known to most of the inhabitants, and even in the palace. Then, there is a shadow city -- a city separate from the "real" city, but somehow linked to it: "The shadow city of Ombria is as old as Ombria. Some say it is a different city completely, existing side by side with Ombria in a time so close to us that there are places -- streets, gates, old houses -- where one time fades into the other, one city becomes the other. Others say both cities exist in one time, this moment, and you walk through both of them each day, just as, walking down a street, you pass through light and shadow and light . . ." (Lydea to Kyel, p. 4)

Then, the characters. Lydea is one of them. She grew up as the daughter of a tavern keeper, but Royce Greve, the prince of Ombria, took her as his mistress when his wife died. Kyel is the five-year-old son of that first wife. As the book begins, Royce Greve is dying. An ancient, evil relative, Domina Pearl, also known as the Black Pearl, takes power as regent for Kyel. She expels Lydea from the palace. The "real" Ombria is such a corrupt city that Domina Pearl, and Lydea, don't expect her to last through her first night in it. There are evil people abroad. But Lydea does survive, thanks to Mag, another of the main characters. Mag is the teen-aged ward of Faey, a sorceress, who knows the under-city as well as anyone. She helps Lydea get to her father's tavern, without being seen by Lydea. Faey calls Mag her "waxling," pretending that she has made Mag out of the drippings of candle wax, to help her run errands of all kinds. The last main character is Ducon Greve, the illegitimate son of Royce Greve's dead sister.

Next, love. Lydea loves Kyel. So does Ducon. And, it develops, Faey loves Mag, and Mag loves her. (They both know that she is human.) In all cases, this love is unselfish, giving love -- concern for, and exerting effort for, the other person.

In the end, Faey, with help from Mag and Ducon, destroys Domina Pearl. Love triumphs. There are hints that Lydea and Ducon are in love with each other, too. Ducon becomes regent, and he begins to set Ombria to rights, having trash cleaned up, and getting the gangs off the streets, and into useful pursuits.

Finally, I'm going to include a quotation from the book, not because it is central to the plot, but to show what sort of writing McKillip does: Air trembled on the threshold, smelling of grass, slow rain, and lavender. A light sparked, reflecting Ducon's candle; how near or far, he could not tell in the utter darkness. There were voices, whisperings. A bell began its slow dirge, faint and far away within the shadow, for someone who had died. Ducon felt the icy hand of sorrow and wonder glide over him. Shaken, unable to move, he heard a second bell, louder, on this side of the shadow, its great open mouth speaking the word that Royce Greve could not. Ducon closed his burning eyes and wondered if, in the shadow city, someone stood like him, in a secret place, listening to the mourning bell of a city within a tale. (32. Ducon is in the old passages in the Palace.)

Thanks for reading!

The Reality beyond reality

He woke in a dream of the wood, he thought dazedly, raising his head. No true oak grew that shade of gold, though that gold was what the eye looked for in the golden oak. No true grass felt so silken, no true shadow hid a swath of such dark velvet across it. No true leaves burned that tender and fiery green in the morning light. Patricia A. McKillip, The Book of Atrix Wolfe, p. 135. New York: Ace, 1996.

Those three days were the happiest he had ever known. For he understood everything he did himself, and all that everything was doing round about him. He saw what the rushes were, and why the blossom came out at the side, and why it was russet-coloured, and why the pitch was white, and the skin green. And he said to himself, "If I were a rush now, that's just how I should make a point of growing." And he knew how the heather felt with its cold roots, and its head of purple bells; and the wise-looking cottongrass, which the old woman called her sheep, and the white beard of which she spun into thread. And he knew what she spun it for: namely, to weave it into lovely white cloth of which to make nightgowns for all the good people that were like to die; for one with one of these nightgowns upon him never died, but was laid in a beautiful white bed, and the door was closed upon him, and no noise came near him, and he lay there, dreaming lovely cool dreams, till the world had turned round, and was ready for him to get up again and do something. George MacDonald "The Carasoyn," Chapter VII, "The Moss Vineyard," (one version is known as "The Fairy Fleet") public domain.

Many works of fantastic literature suppose that there is a reality beyond, or behind, or underlying, what we usually perceive. The heroine has to go back in time, or the wizard has to go into a trance, or on a long journey, or see the world in ways others cannot see, or enter into some alternate spiritual state, in order to be restored, or to find help or answers. Being too concerned about alternate realities may be dangerous, of course, especially if it draws us away from what we should be doing and thinking about in this real world. But there is an alternate reality -- see 2 Kings 6:8-23, and
1 Corinthians 2:6 We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written,
“Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear,
    which didn’t enter into the heart of man,
these God has prepared for those who love him.” (WEB)

As far as I know, McKillip is not a Christian. George MacDonald was. Both of them did a good job in describing an alternate reality in terms that we, from this one, can understand.

Thanks for reading. I guess this post is in the real world.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia A. McKillip

I have suddenly realized that I have never blogged about one of my all-time favorite books, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia A. McKillip. This is a gap that I wish to fill as soon as I possibly can. (I have blogged about several of her other works. If interested, click on the Patricia A. McKillip tag at the end of this post. Perhaps the most important of these posts is an analysis of Christian themes in a trilogy by McKillip.) I am not alone in thinking that this is a good book. It won the first World Fantasy Award ever given.

I will not try to set forth a summary of the book. The Wikipedia article on it does a good job of that. I will discuss one aspect of the book, which, I have argued elsewhere, is a frequent theme in McKillip's novels. That aspect is the rejection of vengeance. Several of McKillip's characters, although grievously wronged, decide not to take vengeance on those who have harmed them.

There is an important quotation from the book, found in two places, in both cases spoken by Cyrin, the magic boar. It is about the giant Grof, who was hit in an eye, and the eye changed, so as to look into his brain, and that killed him. In the first instance, it is spoken to Coren, who is in the process of falling in love with Sybel, the sorceress (and she with him). Coren is full of desire for revenge for a brother who has fallen in battle to the enemy of his family. In the second place, it is spoken to Sybel, herself. She was captured, and her mind examined deeply, by a magician in the pay of King Drede, who is also Coren's family's chief opponent. Sybel comes to see that, in her desire for vengeance, she has been using Coren, her husband, and his family, and that if she continues to be driven by that desire, she will lose everything that is important to her. She withdraws from pursuing vengeance. The statement made by Cyrin is on pages 106 and 249 of the 2006 edition of the book, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Bible has something to say about this matter:
Proverbs 25:21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat.
    If he is thirsty, give him water to drink:
22 for you will heap coals of fire on his head,
    and Yahweh will reward you.

and, quoting and expanding on this:

Romans 12:19 Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
    If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
    for in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head.” (Both quotations from the World English Bible.)

Thanks for reading.

Brief book report: Solstice Wood, Inside Job, and Afternoon of the Elves

I have recently read Solstice Wood (New York: Ace Books, 2006) by Patricia A. McKillip. I don't want to give away the plot. This is a reasonably good summary.

The book brings the setting of McKillip's Winter Rose into the present. Characters have cell phones, watch TV, take airplanes, and drive. All this is new territory for McKillip, but she handles it well. Let's just say that the setting of Winter Rose, and of this book, is on the border, or at the interface, of fairyland. She also writes from the viewpoints of a half dozen different characters. Each chapter is from a single viewpoint. I found this an interesting literary device.

McKillip is a good writer. Her settings and characterizations sometimes obscure her plots, but there is a plot in this book. There are real characters in the book. She uses interesting figures of speech, as in "Seven years had done nothing to diminish the force and energy of her voice, which could have cut short a brawl between sea lions." (p. 12. I believe that McKillip lives on the coast of Oregon. The book has no sea, or lions, in it.)

* * * *

I also read Janet Taylor Lisle's Afternoon of the Elves (New York: Orchard Books, 1989). I was attracted by the title, and the fact that the book was a Newbery Honor winner. Let's just say that I liked the book, which is supposedly aimed at middle schoolers, but didn't really meet any elves. I wouldn't call it fantastic literature, because it could have been real.

* * * *
The Wikipedia article on Connie Willis says that she is a highly honored writer, and no wonder. Her Bellwether and Doomsday Book are splendid, and her other works are also good. Inside Job (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2005) is about debunking spiritism, etc. One of the beliefs being debunked by the main characters is Intelligent Design. Willis doesn't say much about that theory. The title, at least in part, is because the late H. L. Mencken, one of the most diligent debunkers of the past, is being channeled by a medium who is otherwise a charlatan, debunking her to her own audience. Short, and funny, and the guy marries the beautiful and brilliant girl in the end.

Thanks for reading.

The Bell at Sealey Head, by Patricia A. McKillip

For anyone new to this blog, I read a lot of fantastic literature, and occasionally post on it, often about the religious aspects of such literature.

I have posted several times on the work of Patricia A. McKillip, a fine craftsperson of fantastic literature. McKillip has won more Mythopoeic Awards than any other author. One such post is here. I recently read her The Bell at Sealey Head. (New York: Ace, 2008)

The setting of the book is a community on an un-named ocean, where there is an old hotel on a headland, and other people and buildings, within a mile or so, especially Aislinn House, a decaying mansion. A bell rings every evening, just at sunset. Most people don't pay it much attention. Even those who do do not know where the bell is located, or who rings it.

For a good review of this book, including the plot, see here. The reviewer argues, with reason, that the book is partly about women's roles. I suspect that it was partly inspired by McKillip's residence, which, is now, or has been, on the Oregon coast. McKillip, after all, writes fantasy. She always, for me, at least, leaves major questions unanswered, characters not fully explained. That is part of the appeal for some people, I suppose. She is masterful at descriptions and setting moods, and at placing lots of interesting minor characters in her works. All of these tendencies are found in The Bell at Sealey Head.

Two thoughts on the book:
1) Opening and closing are a major theme. There are doors in Aislinn House which sometimes lead to a parallel world, and sometimes don't. It is dangerous to cross their thresholds. In the end, the villain is trapped by being closed up, in a way that I won't reveal.
2) I read the book twice (I usually do, for McKillip, and learn things that I missed the first time, in the second reading.) and found little or nothing about religion, of any kind. Her characters don't seem to worship, or pray, at all. (Nonetheless, some of her novels explore a theme compatible with Christianity, namely not taking vengeance.)

I liked this passage: . . . following the same impulse the sea has had toward land since tides began, they longed to conquer it, to claim and to possess it, beginning with the rugged rocky shore and crag of stone that was Sealey Head. (162) This is from part of a fictional story within the main one, about selkies, seal-people.

Thanks for reading. Read McKillip.

Sunspots 159

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor:
(or something) K has tried a new kind of fruit, with photos.

Science:
Wired on a giant squid, with the largest eye ever studied.

Literature:
An interview with Patricia A. McKillip, wherein she answers questions about her writing habits. Spoiler: she listens to Telemann while writing.

Christianity:
Bonnie on how to keep up with what's going on in the world (or not).

Russell on how men look at women, and how they should (or shouldn't).

Slate has a disturbing article (disturbing because of what it says about some Christians) about alternative Christian culture. For example, I had no idea that there was a "Christian pro wrestling." What makes it Christian? Do they hit each other's heads with softer chairs?

Image source (public domain)

Invisible in plain sight: a recurring theme in the works of Patricia A. McKillip

Patricia A. McKillip is a solid craftswoman of fantastic literature, and has been for over three decades. There's no sense of the occult in her works, and, seldom, great works of wizardry, causing disaster, or the reverse. Her characters usually face situations they don't fully understand, and the reader often feels that way, too. If that's the case, what makes her a great craftswoman? She uses words well, she knows how to create an atmosphere, and she knows how to describe life-changing experiences in her characters.

I have previously argued that rejection of vengeance is an important theme in many of McKillip's works. Another theme that occurs in some of her work is the importance of musical artistry. One of her books is named Harpist in the Wind, another Song for the Basilisk. These titles aren't accidents. Nor is that of "A Matter of Music," the longest story in her collection, Harrowing the Dragon. (New York: Ace, 2005). Another theme that occurs more than once is strange ancestry. In "A Matter of Music," even though the Jazi despise the Daghian people, some of the Jazi are part Daghian. In the Riddle-Master trilogy, Raederle is part Earth-Master. There are other examples of this in McKillip's writing.

It was while I was reading this collection that another of McKillip's themes occurred to me, that of the title. Her characters are often in plain sight, yet invisible to those around them. In "Ash, Wood, Fire," (in Harrowing) a kitchen helper in a castle is so invisible that the other workers in the kitchen have no name for her. Finally she leaves the kitchen. "Cooks, Sauces, Bakers milled bewilderedly, betrayed, calling, "Fire! Fire!" and never seeing her, while beside the door a young woman stood watching . . ." (185) This story is similar to the description of Saro in McKillip's The Book of Atrix Wolfe. In "Transmutations," a wizard's apprentice hasn't seen his female co-apprentice in her other life as a servant at a tavern, even though he goes there all the time.

But it isn't always fellow workers who don't see McKillip's characters. In her "The Snow Queen," also in Harrowing, a man doesn't see his wife, who loves him deeply. He sees another woman: "To his eye she was alone; the importunate young lapdog beside her did not exist." (154) He leaves her, and she blossoms during the separation: "For a moment he did not recognize her; he had never seen her laugh like that." (172)

In another story in the same book, a destructive villain is destroyed and dissuaded because someone sees aspects of him that no one else has ever seen. ("The Stranger")

On reflection, some of McKillip's other works have this same theme. In her Riddle-Master trilogy, some wizards hide in plain sight for centuries. Nun is a pig-herder, Suth a wild animal, Aloil a tree. And the most important character, the High One, masquerades for centuries as harpist for a false High One.

This theme is important, because we have the same problems. Probably all of us have been invisible to someone else, even though we are in plain sight. And, worse, probably all of us have overlooked a co-worker, a spouse, a store clerk, a neighbor, when we should have seen them for what they are. I'm afraid I have.

Thanks for reading.

On realness by Patricia A. McKilllip

The witch shrugged. "I have you now. You conjure firebirds out of your head. I'll have your magic out of you and then I'll change all my hens into firebirds."

"It won't be enough," Gyre told her softly. "It will never be enough. Not once you have heard its true voice and seen the face it hides. All the power I possess could not make out of all the white hens in the world a single feather of the firebird." (Patricia A. McKillip, In the Forests of Serre. New York: Ace Books, 2003, p. 178)

Ah yes. There is real, and there is unreal. The link with the book's title is to a more comprehensive post on the same book. Here's the Wikipedia article on McKillip.

Thanks for reading.

In the Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip, re-done

Patricia A. McKillip is one of my favorite fantasy authors. I have written elsewhere about one reason that I like her work, namely that much of it involves a main character deciding not to seek revenge. (I suppose that makes her novels, with this aspect important, Christian, in a sense.)

Here's what another blogger wrote about her use of words:

Words seem ironically inadequate to describe the skill with which McKillip spins the English language into magic. Lyrical is one word that is often used in reviews, but it's so much more. Most of McKillip's work deals with magic, and if there is any true magic in the world, I would suspect it would be found in her use of language. I could luxuriate in work written by McKillip regardless of the story, simply to enjoyher use of words.

I agree. It is also true that McKillip can be obscure, and leave quite a bit unexplained.

In the Forests of Serre (New York: Ace, 2003) is a book that I have read four times since I got it from one of our daughters for Christmas. I believe that I have finally gotten a handle on it, and it's not McKillip's fault that it took me so long. The central theme is the heart. The word, referring to the seat of the emotions, is used over and over again, and two of the main characters give up their hearts for something else, and regret this. (They get them back.) Here are two items of evidence:

The queen's voice cut sharply at him, cold and edged with astonishment. "What is the matter with you? You came out of that forest as heartless as your father." (p. 203). Queen Calandra is Prince Ronan's mother, and married to King Ferus of Serre, who has no love, or empathy, for anyone else, certainly including his wife and only son.

He had thought the wizard's last battle would be a tale of terror and courage, feats of unimaginable magic performed with heart-stopping skill and passion, good and evil as clearly defined as midnight and noon, a heroic battle for life and hope against the howling monster that left death in every footprint and ate life to fill the unfillable void where its heart had been. Instead he was trapped in the middle of something grisly, ugly, dreary, that ate into his own heart word by word until he could scarcely stand to look at himself. (212)

"This monster, when it could not kill me, reached into me and broke my heart. . . ." (213. The Wizard Unciel has described his battle with a monster to Euan Ash, the scribe who is working for Unciel. The wizard needs all sorts of help, because he has been weakened physically and emotionally, almost to the point of death.)

I don't see how I can summarize the plot, or even describe the characters (there are nine that I would consider main characters) in anything like a post length that's reasonable, even for me. So I'll just summarize the book this way:

McKillip has again written a book with excellent use of language, describing a marvelous forest, wizardry, and a cold castle. The Princess Sidonie decides that she doesn't want to marry Prince Ronan unless he re-claims his heart. He gave it away because his first wife and child died. After numerous trips, by several characters, into and through the forest, all is well. Everyone who should have a heart does, and the two really can fall in love and be married.

Three themes that I have found in some of McKillip's other work, namely rejection of vengeance, being visible in plain sight, and having someone strange in a character's pedigree, are not prominent in this book.

I hope that my heart is present, and doing what it's supposed to do.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (ESV)

Thanks for reading. Much of this post comes from a previous one.

Christian themes in Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy

I should begin with two acknowledgments:
1) I am grateful to Patricia A. McKillip, who has written a body of work that I have enjoyed. Sometimes I've had trouble understanding what was going on, which was probably my fault, but I've never had trouble understanding that I'm in a world of fantastic fiction, where things don't work quite as they do here in the real world.
2) I'm grateful to Elliot, of the Claw of the Conciliator blog, for posting an annotated list of important authors of fantastic literature that show evidence of a Christian world-view in their work. I commented on this, and suggested, based especially on her use of the theme of turning away from vengeance, that McKillip might belong on his list. Then, I decided to go further, examining McKillip's longest work, the Riddle-Master trilogy, for Christian themes. I'm not sure that I would have ever done this if I hadn't read Elliot's post.

I now add a disclaimer. I have never read anything suggesting that McKillip is a Christian, other than her novels. A list of "Famous Science Fiction/Fantasy Authors," written in 1999, and updated in 2006, which gives the religious affiliation of all of these authors, does not mention her. This implies that the person who prepared this list did not consider that McKillip belonged on it, in spite of the awards she has won, and the value of her body of work, and really says nothing about her religious affiliation.

Now, to Christian themes in the Riddle-Master trilogy. (See previous post for my plot summary, and bibliographic information.) Here are some of the ones I have found.

Rejection of vengeance. Deth led Morgon to Ghisteslwchlohm, without warning him that he would be subjected to months of mental torture, or that Ghisteslwchlohm was not the High One, when he understood both of these full well. So Morgon had motivation to kill Deth. In fact, he followed him through An, wanting to take vengeance on him. However, when he finally caught up with Deth, he did not kill him. Here's an exchange between Morgon's sister, Tristan, and his companion, Raederle:
"He's changed. Once he was the land-ruler of Hed, and he would rather have killed himself than someone else Now --"
"Tristan, he has been hurt, probably more deeply than any of us could know . . ."
She nodded a little jerkily. "I can understand that with my head. People have killed other people in Hed, out of anger or jealousy, but not -- not like that. Not tracking someone like a hunter, driving him to one certain place to be killed. It's -- what someone else would do. But not Morgon. And if -- if it happens, and afterwards he goes back to Hed, how will we recognize each other any more?" p. 301. Ellipsis in original.

Morgon finally realizes that Deth is the High One, and marvels that he did not destroy Ghisteslwchlohm. He had reason to, and could have.

See Romans 12:19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (ESV)

A fuller treatment of this them in McKillip's writing is here.

Redemption through death. The core story of the trilogy is that the High One, the supernatural ruler of the realm, needs to die, so that evil, in the person of the shape-changers, can be conquered. Deth, the High One, willingly dies, allowing himself to be killed, so that this may be accomplished. (His heir, Morgon, will be able to conquer the shape-changers, but couldn't, of course, be his heir as long as the former High One was still alive.)

See Colossians 1:19-22, and other passages: 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, (ESV)

Unselfish love. This, of course, is epitomized in 1 Corinthians 13. I wouldn't say that such agape love is a main theme of this trilogy, but it is at least an underlying one. Deth says that he didn't expect to love Morgon, and Morgon certainly didn't expect to come to love Deth, even though Deth betrayed him to Ghisteslwchlohm. There seems, also, to be affection amounting to unselfish love, for Morgon, from two of the land-rulers, Har of Osterland and Danan of Isig Mountain.

Forgiveness. (See Matthew 6:7-15) At least one example, of course, is that Morgon forgave Deth for betraying him. This took some time -- he pursued Deth in order to kill him, first -- and wasn't easy.

Maintenance of the material world. Colossians 1:16-17 says this: 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (ESV) While McKillip's land-law does not seem to include creation of rocks, soil, water and organisms, it does have aspects of control, knowledge, and maintenance:
The High One, from the beginning, had let men free to find their own destinies. His sole law was land-law, the law that passed like a breath of life from land-heir to land-heir; if the High One died, or withdrew his immense and intricate power, he could turn his realm into a wasteland. (p. 109)
"Eliard was out in the fields when it happened. He just said he felt that suddenly everything -- the leaves and animals, the rivers, the seedlings -- everything suddenly made sense. He knew what they were and why they did what they did. He tried to explain it to me. I said everything must have made sense before, most things do anyway, but he said it was different. He could see everything very clearly, and what he couldn't see he felt. He couldn't explain it very well." p. 262. Tristan of Hed, Morgon's sister, explaining the passing of land-law from Morgon to her brother Eliard.
The High One knows the land of the entire realm. The six land-rulers (see previous post) are responsible for the land-rule of their own kingdoms. Different land-rulers seem to have somewhat different powers. For example, there is no mention that the land-ruler of Hed controls anything (although the books don't say that he or she doesn't).

See the first three principles in this page for more on this topic.

Control of natural forces. This could be considered as part of the land-law, but I prefer to mention it separately. Jesus is called the master of wind and wave in Matthew 8:23-27, and parallel passages. In the Trilogy, Morgon becomes the master of the winds, so as to use them to control the shape-changers.

God appearing among humans. Christ was incarnated as a human being, and lived as one until He died, and there are a few instances in the Old Testament which may also be examples of this. In the Trilogy, the High One masquerades as Deth, the High One's harpist, a human servant, for centuries, and shows no evidence of supernatural powers to those who know him.

Powerful supernatural beings making a choice. The Bible doesn't say much about it, but many believe that the angels had a choice, long ago, perhaps even before the material universe was created. Some of them rebelled to follow Satan, but a majority didn't. In McKillip's trilogy, the Earth-masters and the Shape-changers were apparently one and the same kind of being, until the High One decided to take care of the earth and its creatures, while the Shape-changers decided to use it for their own ends. Not much is said about this division. (See Wikipedia article on Evil Angels, or this web page on Angels.)

This story, of course, is not a perfect parallel to the gospels. For example, Deth, the old High One, doesn't resurrect himself. There are other differences, but that is the main one. Nonetheless, I submit that there are important Christian themes in this trilogy. Does that make it Christian fiction? That depends, of course, on your definition of Christian fiction.

Thanks for reading.