A McKillip and a McKinley

Pinch yourself. This year is too good to believe: Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley have both released new books: The Bell at Sealey Head for McKillip, and Chalice, for McKinley. Interestingly, they explore a similar theme: the roles, limitations, and importance of ritual.

McKillip, who often choses medieval-flavored settings for her novels, is writing in a more Jane-Austenesque world this time. In the sleepy, isolated fishing town of Sealey Head, for hundreds of years, an unseen bell has rung throughout the countryside, just as the sun sets. Most folk don't even hear it any more—it's just part of life. Judd Cauly, the struggling innkeeper, and Gwyneth Blair, the merchant's daughter, who's a closet writer, still hear it. So does Emma, the maid at Aislinn House, who sometimes opens doors in the old mansion and finds her friend, Princess Ysabo, diligently attending to a mysterious ritual that no one in that other world understands. Then Ripley Dow comes to town, full of questions about magic, and especially about Aislinn House, and everyone's lives change forever.

As usual with McKillip, the book has beautiful, haunting descriptions and a sometimes-comical lilt that keeps it from dragging or taking itself too seriously. I kept waiting for the tremendous experience that usually accompanies a McKillip book, but it fell a little flat for me. Was it that she'd created too many POV characters with not enough for everyone to do? Was it the evil bad guy, straight off the evil-bad-guy shelf? Perhaps it was that the ritual she portrayed, and the conclusions the book seemed to draw about ritual itself, fell flat for me. Or maybe I just had unreasonably high expectations. Even Patricia McKillip is entitled to an "off" book.

In Chalice, Mirasol the beekeeper has suddenly become the Chalice, in a land that requires a whole quorum of magical keepers and a complex set of rituals to keep it stable, wholesome, and productive. Mirasol's newfound powers work through her honey, and her bees, as a group, are an integral character. Most Chalices serve a long apprenticeship and take up their duties smoothly when the previous Chalice dies. But this time, both Master and Chalice have died horribly wrong deaths, the land is in an uproar, most of its keepers are brand-new at their responsibilities, and the new Master has been wrenched out of his training as a fire-mage. The moment he arrives, he accidentally burns Mirasol's hand to the bone with a mere brush of his burning hot finger. Master and Chalice must wrestle with unfamiliar new powers, political pressures, and their own doubts to save the land and themselves.

McKinley drops the reader right into the action, then backtracks repeatedly to explain what has gone before. This didn't work well for me, but the descriptions of the world were so lush, and the fantasy elements so fresh and unusual, I didn't care much after a few chapters. Who knew you could get attached to a special hive of bees as a character? And who knew honey could fascinate? In this book, what's known about the old rituals doesn't always fit with the alarming situation in which the main characters find themselves, so they have to let go of their preconceptions to understand, then evolve the rituals. I found this approach to ritual much more nuanced and satisfying than McKillip's. It got me thinking about the evolving role of the rituals in my own life.

But. Wrinkles and all, these are both fabulous books. Pinch. Buy. Read.

This is the (itty bitty) forest primeval

To the south of my house, a thick forest grows. Note the closely-grown trees competing for sunlight, and the path clearly marked to protect unwary travelers. Three steps in, chokecherries, elderberries, and gooseberries set fruit to feed the abundant wildlife. A bright-orange mold slowly devours a weathered stump.

Another six steps, and you trip over the next-door neighbor's kiddy pool.

I live in the desert in the suburbs, but I want to live down the path from Hansel and Gretel. So I had to plant my forest primeval. And weed it, and prune it. But this year, there are at least three different camera angles from which you can't see suburbia at all!

I like the wildlife the best. Tiny yellow birds perch on wild sunflowers and eat the seeds. Lazy cats sleep all day in the shade. Cub Scouts pass off the "identify 20 native plants" requirement. And little girls flit among the trees, fleeing from fairies and Indians and witches...or sometimes becoming them.

Mom, he's touching me!

Our nest survived the torrential rains last week, and now our twin hummers are starting to look crowded. With those sharp beaks always pointing up, I don't blame Mom for spending more time away from the home.

Photos, again, from RBerteig, here.

Anniversary

Just got an email from the Honda dealer, congratulating me on my minivan's first anniversary. What's customary here? Should I buy it a present made of paper? And what should I expect it to buy for me?

I am not a wildlife photographer

This time last year, a single mom moved in near our house, reared a lovely family, then moved out. This year, she's back, fixing up the house, and preparing to raise another family. If I were a wildlife photographer, and if my windows were cleaner, I'd show you the tiny nest made mostly of dead crabapple blossoms, on the remains of last year's nest. Instead, here's a picture (by RBerteig) that looks exactly like "my" nest. For a lot more fabulous hummer photos, go here.

I am not a re-reader

I think I was the last science fiction reader on the planet to discover Connie Willis. In some ways, that's nice, because I'm just now discovering the huge backlog of books she's been writing for the past 20 years. If you haven't read it yet, go NOW and find To Say Nothing of the Dog.

OK, you're back now. Let's talk about Passage. Except we can't, much. The huge, overarching, deep and beautiful metaphor that encompasses the entire book is revealed slowly, and it would ruin the book to reveal it. What's left, after leaving out that most important part, is a story about two doctors battling time, administrative craziness, a life-after-death loony author, an unbelievably complex maze of a hospital, and a whole cast of supporting crazy people, to discover the nature of near-death experiences (NDEs). They're pursuing the theory that the brain can use the NDE as a protective mechanism to bring itself back from the dead.

On the one hand, this book drove me nuts, as the cast of supporting crazy people and other obstacles were constantly, noisily interfering with the main characters' progress. That seems to be Connie Willis, and as in Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, all the disparate threads eventually, improbably weave in with that central, towering metaphor we can't talk about. After taking its sweet time for the entire first half, the book suddenly turned up the pace and the tension to Extra High, culminating in a climax and resolution that were sweet, moving, and thought-provoking all at the same time. What is death? What is real? This book doesn't try to tell you, but it shakes up your tidy notions, no matter what opinions you came in with.

I don't re-read. Drives everyone who tries to talk books with me crazy, because I'll remember enjoying a book, but I can't remember characters, major events, author...nothing. I finished Passage, turned to the middle, and re-read the whole second half. For days, I sat around thinking about the resolution. One morning I woke up and just lay there, happily thinking about this book. Six months later, it's still with me.

I am not a horror reader

I am not a horror reader, but at BYU's science fiction symposium, I heard Dan Wells read from his new book, I Am Not a Serial Killer. The main character charmed me in disturbing ways: John Wayne Cleaver is a 15-year-old mortician, and a diagnosed sociopath...but he's trying very hard NOT to become a serial killer. It's kind of the ultimate application of all those rules about YA fiction: main character has to be a teenager, has to be relatable, has to be somehow different, all at the same time. In the part Dan read, John's getting bullied at the school dance. Relatable, right? He scares the bullies away by describing just how indifferent he feels to them as living human beings, and just how interesting he thinks it would be to take them apart and see what they look like inside. But he also manages to creep out the cute girl who almost asked him to dance. See? Charming. Creepy. Disturbing.

Then a real, live serial killer comes to the kid's town, and it's up to John to outwit the killer while holding onto his own sanity.

You don't want to give this book to your precocious preteen reader. My kids—even the full-on teenager—were intrigued by the title while seeming to know they needed to leave this one alone. But even if you don't usually like to read about murder, guts, autopsies, and seriously sick individuals, you might be disturbed to find that you really enjoy this book.