Patricia A. McKillip is one of those authors whose work I have always meant to read. I may even have picked up a thing or two of hers once or twice over the years, at a library or a bookstore or a friend’s house. But then my wayward attention would be caught by something new in Urban Fantasy or Military SF or an old favorite that simply demanded rereading or something, and I would promptly forget that McKillip and her purportedly beautiful prose existed.

So when I saw this book in my stack of recent releases awaiting review, it seemed time and past time to give her work a try. I’m not entirely sure, to be honest, how I came by the knowledge I had of her prior to my encountering this book -- mellifluous phrases, ethereal atmosphere, a kind of gentle yet compelling take on Fantasy -- but I assume I read a review or encountered a fan somewhere throughout my life who told me so. I must have, because all of that was all borne out in this book… and more.

I think I have a new favorite author. And we all know how exciting that can be. Yay for me!

This tale, as the title suggests, is about bards. It’s also a mystery, and a love story, and a history, and is told in a very interesting style. We jump across centuries and back again, as we follow the exploits of the gifted minstrel Nairn at the founding of a new nation, Belden, forged in war out of the quite primitive Five Kingdoms (why is it there are always a number of Kingdoms like that?), in alternating chapters with the doings of Princess Beatrice, resident of a Belden well on its way into a mild Industrial Revolution. We meet Beatrice’s mentor, Jonah Clay, a drunkard and archaeologist; his son, Phelan, a bardic student at the great school we see first established in Nairn’s time, and slowly, with infinite care and patience, but without frustration or delay, we see the two streams of time merge, become one, and become two halves of a complete story.

I loved it. I just… loved it. From McKillip’s detailed pseudo-academic accounts preceding almost every chapter to the inner-monologues she gives of her various important characters, from the long view of the country’s record that we are shown to the greater themes of redemption and loss and forgiveness with which we are presented… I loved it all. I loved the oft-mentioned standing stones of the plain, and what they came to be and represent; I loved the magic in the music that had been misplaced throughout time; I loved the independent-mindedness of the recalcitrant princess and I loved how the past was pieced together in a distant future through the “accounts rendered” by meticulous bureaucrats. I even loved how they were trams and newly-invented cars in the story, which surprises me no end, since they are assuredly not my preferred modes of transport in Fantasy, typically, me tending to lean far more towards the traditional questing on foot, on horse or – at times it’s acceptable – in a carriage.

This was just a… a lovely book. Such a pleasure to read. I am so mad with myself that I waited so long to discover this author’s genius for myself. The good thing about having put it off for so long, however, is that I have (at conservative estimate) about thirty novels, and at least as many short stories, of hers’ to now seek out.

I say again: yay for me!

    -- Rachel Hyland