Review of "Pilgrims" by Ann Chatham (it amused me to pick this story to read and review the week of Thanksgiving, though these are very different typeReview of "Pilgrims" by Ann Chatham (it amused me to pick this story to read and review the week of Thanksgiving, though these are very different types of pilgrims). Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Magda is on a solitary pilgrimage, trekking on foot through the wilderness. When she sees a man’s dead body, she somewhat reluctantly takes the time to bury it, even leaving her last ring on his tongue as a burial gift. Two days later she meets a knight on horseback, who greets her politely and tells her that he is under a geas to do a great service for the first living soul whom he meets. Magda, who has eaten the last of her supplies, asks him for food or drink. He willingly shares his food with her, then accompanies her on her journey.
Magda is more or less glad for the escort and company, until she realizes that he is the man whose body she buried a few days ago. Despite her understandable fear, they continue on their way together, both of them in search of absolution.
“Pilgrims” is a well-written but somewhat opaque story set in an Arthurian type of world, where religion and magic uneasily co-exist. Magda tells the knight, “I seek the root of the Tree that the Lord cut down to end His war, that I may build a shrine at its heart, and burn an offering there.” But the theology in this story seems to be a quarter-turn off of Christianity, something unique to this world. I would have preferred some additional world-building, but I enjoyed this poignant, thoughtful tale.
Patricia McKillip’s fantasy novel Kingfisher blends together the disparate elements of an 3.5 stars. Review first posted on www.FantasyLiterature.com:
Patricia McKillip’s fantasy novel Kingfisher blends together the disparate elements of an Arthurian-type court, with King Arden, his knights, and their search for the Holy Grail ― in this case, an ancient cauldron with magical powers ― and a contemporary setting, complete with cell phones, vehicles, highways and all of the modern conveniences.
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Kingfisher also weaves together three different plotlines of three young people who are all somewhat adrift and searching for answers: Pierce Oliver is the son of a sorceress who left her estranged husband, a knight, without ever telling him she was pregnant and had a son. They’ve been hidden in Cape Mistbegotten on Desolation Point ever since, until Pierce meets four knights of the king, who are passing through his town, and abruptly decides to leave his home and mother for the big city and the king’s court to try to find himself and, perhaps, his father.
The second main character is Carrie, a gifted cook and the daughter of a mage. Carrie who works at the mysterious Kingfisher Inn, where everyone (including her father) seems to be mysteriously troubled, and the weekly All You Can Eat Friday Nite Fish Fry has somehow become a vaguely ominous ritual. Carrie takes a second job with a competing restaurant run by the gorgeous Todd Stillwater and his wife … but there’s something very odd about this couple and the food they serve in that restaurant.
Finally, we have Daimon, the king’s bastard son, who falls in love with Vivien Ravensley, an otherworldly girl. Daimon discovers through her that he has a dual heritage, and is both entranced and torn by it.
Placing a Camelot-type court in the modern era, and mixing in liberal doses of both magic and technology, is an intriguing concept. It’s hard to resist chuckling at knights of the court roaring off on their motorcycles to try to locate the lost vessel/Grail, or one knight texting others an image of a fake cauldron in order to draw them off course in their search. But these two vastly disparate worlds don’t always mesh smoothly.
More problematic is that the plotline is too fragmented, following several different characters and storylines, and including too many elements: a shape-changing father, the queen and court ladies’ rather paganist holy cave, a Circe-like sorceress who kidnaps Sir Leith in a bout of unrequited love, the elusive cauldron, the haunted Kingfisher Inn and its inhabitants’ bitter feud with Stillwater’s restaurant, and so on. McKillip’s poetic writing can be gorgeous, and it’s filled with delightful imagery, like Pierce’s worried mother using various animals’ eyes to keep a watch out for her wandering son, as Skye mentions. But McKillip’s rather ambiguous writing style adds to the obscurity and sense of confusion, making it difficult for me to feel fully engaged by the story.
Kingfisher does contain a lot of subtle nuances and allusions to Arthurian and other legends that are fun to try to tease out. The Kingfisher Inn and the book’s title call to mind the legend of the wounded Fisher King, who depends on another person for his healing. Daimon’s girlfriend, Vivien Ravensley, is part of an ancient realm called Ravenhold, whose remaining people want to regain power over the land that was taken from them. The repeated raven references and imagery seem to be an allusion to the Raven King legend, in which King Arthur was transformed into a raven and roams the earth in that form until his return. Pierce Oliver seems to be an analogue of Sir Percival, who was taken by his mother into the forest and raised in ignorance of the ways of men, until he meets a group of knights as a teenager and decides to try to become one himself. This book is a goldmine for Arthur lore enthusiasts.
In the end, the confusing storyline, with its overabundance of competing elements, made Kingfisher feel muddled and thus less than a complete success for me, particularly where several story threads are left unresolved in the end. But it had a lovely mythic feel to it, and at least it errs on the side of being ambitious.
I received this ebook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a review. Thank you!...more
The Crystal Cave is a lush, detailed historical fantasy about Merlin the magician, from his boyhood through when he was a young man (before Arthur comThe Crystal Cave is a lush, detailed historical fantasy about Merlin the magician, from his boyhood through when he was a young man (before Arthur comes on the scene). It's well written and richly imagined but the pace is rather slow, or "deliberate" if I'm being nice.
So I've been having some issues with this book (which is kind of embarrassing since I'm a moderator of the Mary Stewart GR group). I got about halfway through this book a few months back and then stalled out. It's been sitting under my bed since then while I've gotten busy with other books. I'm not quite ready to call this quits and label it a DNF, but it's on hold at least for now. I don't think I'm inclined to read the other books in this series. Mea culpa.
Original post: I read this so long ago, and remember it so little, that I would feel really guilty about giving it a star rating. But Mary Stewart was a very talented author and I like almost everything she wrote. One of these daysmonths years I'll try reading this one again....more
This is kind of a feminist version of the Arthurian legend (I say "kind of" for a reason; Nenia's review offers several reasons why it's arguably quasThis is kind of a feminist version of the Arthurian legend (I say "kind of" for a reason; Nenia's review offers several reasons why it's arguably quasi-feminism at best). It's well-written but I got bored, and it was long-winded, and I simply didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't find any of them particularly likeable or sympathetic. I skimmed most of the second half. ...more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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