Subject: review of _The Cygnet and the Firebird_ by Patricia McKillip

From: [email-masked] (Ethan A Merritt)
Date: 12 Oct 93 11:55:56 GMT

Book Review: 	The Cygnet and the Firebird  (Patricia McKillip)

Here is a sequel, of sorts, to the _The Sorceress and the Cygnet_.
"Of sorts" because, although the action takes up almost immediately after the
close of the earlier tale, readers will search in vain for any sign of
the loose ends which they may feel _Sorceress_ left hanging. Better to think of
it as a companion book, rather than a sequel;  a second portrait of the same
characters.

Although I love these books dearly, I have some sympathy with those who put
down McKillip's earlier Cygnet volume scratching their heads and wondering
if the publisher hadn't forgotten to print a chapter ... most likely the
one which was supposed to let the reader know what on earth was going on. 
Or maybe there weren't many such readers; those who approached the book
expecting "epic fantasy" of some ilk probably gave up on it before ever
reaching that point.  The Cygnet books are marvelous fantasy, but they are
a fantasy of mood and illusion rather than one of action.  Each is a
marvelous tapestry of fantastic creatures, and as with a true tapestry the
beauty lies not in a linear reading from start to finish, but in an array
of set pieces which the eye can wander over at will. Actually, the feeling
of "loose ends" in _Sorceress_ is itself an illusion.  All the ends were
neatly tucked back into the tapestry.  But we were left to wonder as to the
meaning of the images they wove. 

At the close _Sorceress_ we saw Nyx, second daughter of Ro holding,
returned to her family. Nyx is a largely self-taught sorceress, heir to the
books and trinkets of the great mage Chrysom from an earlier era.  She had
apparently driven herself to learn her craft to the exclusion of everything
else, including family and common sense. Worse, she had gotten mired in a swamp
(metaphorically and physically) gaining crumb after crumb of dubious knowledge
by the equivalent of pulling wings off swamp flies. Through the efforts of her
cousin Meguet Vervaine, not to mention the machinations and intervention of
a zodiac's worth of mythological entities, Nyx was been reclaimed from the mire
and re-installed into the household of Ro holding.

_Firebird_ traces some further adventures of Meguet and of Nyx, mostly
after they separately arrive in the dragon-haunted realm of Sapir.
McKillip takes an interesting approach to dealing with central characters
who can tap amazing magical powers.  The constraints of suspense and plot
dictate that there must be some challenge to the heroines; they can't just
open the magic book to page 108 and read off a spell of denouement. 

In Meguet we have a heroine who is [apparently] the current generation's
embodiment of the magical power the Cygnet, the mythological entity at the
heart of Ro holding.  However she has no conscious control over all this
power. Instead she serves as eyes, ears, and [apparently] judge for events
in the real world which might threaten the Cygnet/Ro holding.  When she
[or through her the Cygnet?] judges that events warrant then she may
manifest some appropriate power, but she does not know in advance what
will happen.  This treatment reminds me of the fantasy works of Ardath
Mayhar, in which the central characters often possess magical strengths
largely as puppets for shadowy higher powers.

In Nyx, on the other hand, we have a sorceress who is all too confident of
her own powers.  But she is self-taught, and Sapir is chock full of mages
(not to mention the dragons), and neither she nor they knows whose magic
is likely to prove stronger.

There is a complex symmetry in the two books which I have not entirely
worked out.  If the heart of _Sorceress_ is the redemption of Nyx through
the actions of Meguet and Corleu, then in some sense the heart of
_Firebird_ is the redemption of the Dragon Lord of Sapir through the
actions of Nyx and Meguet.  But in both books we only recognize this theme
after the action draws to a sudden halt at the end, and the characters
themselves scarcely realize it any earlier. 

Rating (can't have reviews without ratings I guess):
I can only rate these books to other fantasy tapestries-in-print,
and that doesn't leave much besides other works by McKillip herself.
They have more ambience and texture than the Riddle Master of Hed, but
substantially less plot.  Perhaps the closest comparison is to her much
earlier _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_, but her writing is now much
smoother and the sense of depth much greater.  To me it was certainly
worth the purchase of the pair in hardcover.  Readers of this forum 
who persist in equating "fantasy" to "Tolkein clones" would certainly
broaden their horizons by trying McKillip's very different approach to
fantasy.

%T The Sorceress and the Cygnet
%A Patricia A. McKillip
%G ISBN 0-441-77564-0 
%I Ace
%D 1991

%T The Cygnet and the Firebird
%A Patricia A. McKillip
%G ISBN 0-441-12628-6
%I Ace
%D 1993

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				Ethan A Merritt
				[email-masked]
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