The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip is a fantasy novel that follows the story of Sybel, a secluded wizard woman living with legendary animals. When a man brings her a child to raise, her solitary life changes as she learns about love, hate, and revenge. The book reads like a fairy tale, with stylized characters, idealized settings, and a plot that delves into themes of romantic relationships and human emotions.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The book contains themes of attempted rape, emotional abuse, and violence, warranting a medium level of content warnings.
Has Romance?
The novel contains a moderate level of romance, primarily focusing on relationships that develop throughout the story.
From The Publisher:
This World Fantasy Award winner is a spellbinding tale of chilling sorcery, human complexities, and dynastic war. "Like the Ring trilogy or the Earthsea books . . . this magical moonlit fantasy has dignity and romance, heart-stopping suspense, adventure, richness of concept and language."-Publishers Weekly
Ratings (17)
Incredible (4) | |
Loved It (5) | |
Liked It (3) | |
It Was OK (2) | |
Did Not Like (2) | |
Hated It (1) |
Reader Stats (46):
Read It (18) | |
Want To Read (23) | |
Not Interested (5) |
1 comment(s)
I loved reading
A Changeling Sea and hoped to find similar enjoyment in
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, considering their .1 difference in rating. Unfortunately, I liked this book remarkably less than I’d hoped, for mainly one reason: for every page I read, I wished there were twenty. Sybel was a fascinating character — and received little to no characterization. She and Coren were a cute couple — if I’d read any scenes developing their feelings for each other. The found-family bond between Sybel, Tam, and Maelga was heartwarming — and would’ve been more so if we’d been there for
any of the years they grew together.
It boils down to the fact that, stylistically, McKillip writes fairytales, not fantasy. Her stories are the ones you’d find compiled in a book at your library, each one charming in its way but too brief and lacking any real depth in world-building or character development. There are gems among them, but I’m finding that, in the majority, the frustration of wanting to know more about these worlds and their inhabitants outweighs my appreciation for the whimsy and magic steeped in her books.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld could’ve been a 5-star read, a new addition to my shelves, with “from the library of” embossed on the first page, but it needed to be twice as long and thrice as detailed.
What can you read after
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld?
About the Author:
Patricia A. McKillip is the beloved author of twenty-seven fantasy novels, including The Riddle-Master of Hed, Harpist in the Wind, Ombria in Shadow, Solstice Wood, and The Sorceress and the Cygnet. She received the inaugural World Fantasy Award for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and later received the World Fantasy lifetime achievement award. She is also a three-time Mythopoeic Award winner. She recently published the novel Kingfisher and the collection Dreams of Distant Shores. McKillip lives in Oregon. Internationally-bestselling author Gail Carriger's debut novel, Soulless, won the ALA's Alex Award. Her wildly popular steampunk Parasolverse contains multiple series including the Parasol Protectorate, which was also published as a graphic novel. Carriger has received the Steampunk Chronicle's Reader's Choice YA Award, the Prix Julia Verlanger, the Elbakin Award, and a Starburner Award in Literature. Her novels have been published in eighteen languages and made the New York Times list thirteen times. She lives in California.
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