Even after 30-plus years of reading fantasy, there are still a few icons in the genre that I have not read. One of those was Patricia McKillip. With her World Fantasy Award-winning novel “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” up for its first e-book release in the near future, I took the opportunity to fix that oversight.

The sorceress Sybel has lived an isolated life in the mountains of Eld, with only the group of legendary beasts that she’s called to her and a nearby medicine woman named Maelga as family. Then a visitor, Coren of Sirle, shows up at her gate with a child. He is believed to be the bastard son of the Queen Rianna, a child that started a war between King Drede of Eldwold and Coren’s kingdom of Sirle.

Sybel takes in the child Tamlorn, who is later discovered to be the rightful son of Drede, and sets off a chain of events that will change her life and the lives of everyone that she touches in a whirl of love, betrayal and vengeance.


“The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” proves to me again that, sometimes, the old ways are better. McKillip’s 1974 novel recalls a time before fantasy novels became 1,000-page doorstops, often padded with lengthy descriptions and asides that don’t really add to the story itself. I’m not opposed to those huge novels, but what I love about McKillip’s style here is that every single word propels the story forward, and at the end, I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything for not having the extra length.

I know Sybel and Coren and even some of the beasts and lesser characters without having to take long side trips with them to learn about their past or get a glimpse of their inner turmoil. I understand it through the story. I have a solid picture of the setting without long, rambling description or history lessons. The story serves the world and the world serves the story, as it should be.

Epic doesn't necessarily mean massive and sprawling. At a relatively brief 240 pages, "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" is certainly nothing short of epic.

That’s not to say that the tale is sparse. Though McKillip wastes no words, the ones that she puts on the page are lyrical and magical. Despite the speed with which the tale moves, there is an undeniable flow that carries the reader along and catches us up in the action and the drama of Sybel’s story, and it’s a remarkable work of literature.

“The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” makes me sorry that I’ve neglected McKillip’s work for so long. I will soon remedy that situation.

Old style medieval Fantasy with wizards and dragons, magical animals and a child who must be hidden.

The narrative reeks of fairy tale, yet doesn't come over as a children's story. Although it has the usual patriarchal society, the main character is a strong female.

I can see why Patricia McKillip is so well-known and highly regarded. How I've missed reading her before is a mystery to me! She weaves magic and drama together artfully so that the impossible feels perfectly believable and I found it easy to care about the characters, especially Tam.

She addresses hard choices and issues of human nature in a way that engages the reader in the lives of the main characters rather than preaching. Though her style is definitely for my fairytale-like Fantasy moods, I will definitely be reading more of her work. This was apparently one of her early ones, now re-issued.

There were some surprises and a lot of conflict near the end that I couldn't see a way out of, so kept me interested and gave me a resolution that I didn't see coming. Highly recommended for Fantasy fans.

This is such a beautiful story. It is reminiscent of classical fairy tale but also a story of finding one self. I also loved the love story in this, how the prince never gave up on his love even after many years. Beautiful. Defiantly recommend this for fans of Robin McKinley and Mercedes Lackey.

In The Forgotten Beasts of Eld you will not find a totally original set – impossible crushes, lost heirs and long plans of revenge; all is common in fairytales and other fantasy stories. What is not so common is the way these vectors intertwine and how the story breaks the usual linear telling, delivering an unexpected development.
Along three generations of wizards their main ability is to enchanter mythical creatures as Riddle-master Cyrin the Boar, the treasure-starved dragon Gyld among others. Living alone, Sybel does not know the world of men – until the day a desperate soldier with a child comes into her life.
Winner of a World Fantasy Award and nominated for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is an amazing fantasy classic.

I thought I'd read this before, but I didn't remember it once I got into it, and I would have remembered a book like this. I think I'd just heard about it so often that I assumed I'd read it, particularly since I love the author's other work.

McKillip writes with a magnificent complexity and depth, in the mythopoeic style championed by Tolkien. Lest we be fooled by the commercial epic fantasy of the 1970s and 1980s into thinking that Tolkien was all about armies and orcs and a quirky mixed group on a quest, this book reminds us that there was another, deeper layer to his work, which few subsequent authors have the skills to emulate. It's poetic, without ever trying too hard for beauty for its own sake; it's mythic, while also being anchored in the reality of human psychology; it's epic, without depicting a single battle on stage (though a battle forms an important part of the backstory).

Love, revenge, betrayal and jealousy weave powerfully through the plot, as do wisdom and self-understanding. <spoiler>It has what I'm going to start calling the Glorious Ending, in which love, kindness and wisdom head off what seems an inevitable tragedy born of bad choices, fear, betrayals and resentment.</spoiler>

The central characters are magnificent, grand, and wholehearted. The setting is vivid, rich, and magical. The beasts of the title are worthy to stand beside the great dragons, lions, cats, swans, and boars of myth and legend.

A couple of quotations, to give you the flavour:

"My heart is in your heart. I gave it to you with my name that night and you are its guardian, to treasure it, or let it wither and die. I do not understand you. I am angry with you. I am hurt and helpless, but nothing would fill the ache of the hollowness in me where your name would echo if I lost you."

"I have many people who know my name, but only one or two or three that know who it belongs to."

The wisdom at the heart of this book is that, in caring for others, we come to understand ourselves; and the person who comes to this insight most clearly is not the young boy, but the magically powerful middle-aged woman. It's a landmark work in the fantasy field, and I'm glad it's being reissued in ebook, and that I had the chance to read it through Netgalley for this review.

A beautiful world with a plethora of magical creatures including a dragon - anybody else noticed that too few fantasy books actually have dragons in them?! - and a wise Boar that has a penchant of riddles. A world filled with magic, politics and love. A world that I left for the first time all too quickly and hope to return to soon.

In this book we see Sybel, third generation Wizard, on a journey where she learns what it is to love and to be loved. There are a few twists and turns through the course of the book (spoiler free but the last one made me sit up a little straighter as it really didn't turn the way I thought it would!) but, despite the book not being that long, it doesn't feel rushed in the slightest. In fact, it is the opposite; we get to immerse ourselves completely into the wonderful world that the author created and get transported totally.

This was the first book by Patricia A. McKillip that I have read but it definitely won't be the last. It was like reading a fairy tale in the way that it written and, trust me I don't mean this in a negative way in the slightest, it was refreshing to read such a girly fantasy novel. There being such a lyrical prose was what I think made this such a delight to read as even though nothing too much happens over the course of the plot, having such feasts for the imagination such as white hair being described as being “the colour of sun-touched frost” was enough to give me goosebumps.

The foreword of this book states that “If you are about to read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld for the first time, I envy you” and that is exactly how I feel right now. This was just an amazingly visual book and I am shocked that, loving fantasy as I do, I haven't seen this book being shouted about from the roof tops before now. It was a well deserved winner of the World Fantasy Award. (The covers of the previous printed editions are absolutely beautiful and one will definitely be joining my bookcase family soon!)

This was a fantastic fantasy book. I've never read anything by this author but this sounded quite interesting and I am so glad I picked this up. I was hooked from pretty much the very beginning. The writing was great, the characters are so well written and I loved the setting. I've seen it stated as a fantasy classic and I can definitely see why. I don't know what else to say about this book. I highly recommend it, especially if you are a big fantasy reader.

There isn't any one thing I can put my finger on that makes this book so good, but I have reread it probably a dozen times and it's satisfying every time. A true classic of fantasy writing. I only wish it were being published in hardback! It's the kind of book you want to have in the most permanent possible format.

There are some books that you read when you are young and idealistic and you love those books and then you read them again when you are an adult, or (worse yet) "middle-aged," and you find out they haven't lasted... they haven't passed the test of time. This book is NOT one of those. This is a book you can read as an idealistic adolescent, as a newly-minted "out on her own," and then, again, when you want a book to share with your children or grandchildren, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld will still be there for you.

The prose is beautiful. It is clear and resonant. The protagonist is Important... Sybel's astonishment and naivete when presented first with a baby and then with lust and friendship is a welcome, no, *critical* anodyne in a world that too often assumes that these are the only things for which a young woman lives. And then the story of Sybel's fury, her revenge and her repentance is, well, much more illustrative of the self-destructiveness of hate and the redemptive power of love than most Scripture manages to be.

As is the case with all the truly great "fantasy" books, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld delivers education about enduring truths in an entertaining and diverting parable format. McKillip is a Master and everybody should read this book. A few times.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld was my first book by author Patricia McKillip, and I am wondering how this young woman has slipped past me in a list of my authors I have to read. I absolutely LOVED this story.
This is the story of Sybel a young sorceress, and her rare magical powers and how she interacts with men after having lived in seclusion. It's also about the choices she makes with those powers. The author paints beautiful pictures of the magnificent isolation of the wizard woman's mountain, and the equally magnificent isolation of her soul.
If you like fantasy, this book is very perfect for you. What makes the Forgotten Beasts of Eld even better than the usual tales is the characters, including the beasts who are wistful and sarcastic. Great read for lovers of fantasy and mythical lore., very much enjoy this story. Looking forward to reading more works by this author.

At first this read like the highest of fantasy, somewhere between Eddison, Dunsany and Flight of Dragons - so rarefied as to make the War of the Ring read like grubby sword and sorcery. Atop a mountain lives the enchantress Sybel with a menagerie of fantastic beasts she's called to her, doing her best to stay out of the petty squabbles of humankind, content in the companionship of these majestic creatures. Until, inevitably, the world intrudes. But even then the story remains melancholy, idyllic, light on event...until suddenly it doesn't. And with one unspeakable act, we're tipped into a much darker book about consent, and the cycle of violence, and how you can never be wholly certain you won't lose those you love unless you're prepared to make yourself unloveable in the process. And in both modes, the story is equally spellbinding, and equally beautiful in its ornate Pre-Raphaelite prose. With one galling exception: the names. I know they're one of the sticking points some people have with fantasy as a whole; here they're enough to test even a fantasy fan. Drede. Rok and his brother Eorth - the latter's son is of course Eorthling. Hell, the most fearsome of all the beasts is called Blammor, which sounds like a rejected Transformer. But that aside, gorgeous.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a dazzling example of McKillip's dreamlike prose and attention to detail and to character that makes her one of the grandmasters of fantasy today. On its surface, it's an enjoyable and magical quest story. Underneath, however, are layers of thought on gender roles, class and society that are deftly woven in throughout the tale, but never in a way that feels out-of-place with the world she has created.

Lovely synopsis, but a premature info-dump put me off...

While I was growing up, The Sorceress and the Cygnet held an almost mythological place in my head. I had only read the book once, but it physically refused to leave me. To my mum, it’s That Library Book, the one that got lost for two years and reappeared magically in the car, a place we’d looked a million times. To me, it’s that poetic fantasy, full of beautiful sorrow and danger. When we found the missing library copy, it was warm and seemed to pulse with life. Patricia A McKillip is an artist of words who made an indelible impact on me as both a reader and a writer.

Dramatic reminiscing aside, when I saw a copy of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld on NetGalley, I clicked ‘Request’ before I noticed my hand moving. I’d never read it before, and I relished the chance. I expected a magical world rooted in both legend and realism, people drawn deeply in feeling like long shadows, and difficult emotional choices. No surprise, I got exactly that.

I finished reading it in the wee hours of the morning, unable to put it down. Among many other things, it’s a great 2:00am excuse to put off going to bed.

The main character is first established by her history, her brief heritage of lonely wizard men. Sybel is often described by her paleness and ice-like demeanour, underlining her detachment and the things that make her not quite human. She calls great beasts like Gules Lyon and Ter the fierce falcon to serve her and keep her company.

Her life begins an irrevocable avalanche of change when a man named Cored brings her a baby to save him from political fighting, and tells her to love the tiny thing. She does, and that proves both her undoing and her making. The baby is never the only human in her life as a result of her decision to take him in. She gains a surrogate mother, and they can never quite escape the politics that sent the boy to Sybel in the first place.

This is a gorgeous tale of the perils and joys of familial as well as romantic love, and the dreadful cost of revenge on both oneself and the people around one. I can’t recommend this enough, to pretty much every type of reader: the new, the jaded, the avid, the reluctant. The story is timeless. The writing is as beautiful as the cover. This is classic fantasy in its finest form.

It's been almost 20 years since I read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and I'm pleased to say it remains just as relevant and enjoyable as ever. Mckillip's craftsmanship and faerie tale aesthetic is beautifully displayed throughout, with a strong and capable, sympathetic heroine and an engaging, if traditional storyline. While the fact a baby is unceremoniously given to her to raise without prior consent is a bit irksome, that thankfully doesn't detract from how inviting, exciting and fun the rest of the story is. There's no doubt this is a fantasy classic, and I hope this new edition will help a new generation of readers discover this delightful tale.

This is one of those classic fantasy novels people are always recommending to me, but it was never available in a digital format so I was kind of like eh. But now it is being reissued--with an intro by Gail Carriger!--and will finally be available digitally. It's the story of a young wizard girl, from a line of wizards who care for fantastic creatures of legend, and what happens when a young warrior brings her an infant prince to care for. I will say that it is somewhat rapey (and the protagonist is threatened with even worse things, it is all very upsetting, should we blame it on a 1974 publication date or nah?) but it is beautifully written and well-plotted and moving and etc. Lessons are learned and hugs are given. Good times. A-/B+.