The Bards of Bone Plain

Review ebook The Bards of Bone Plain

Patricia McKillip generally writes dreamy, lyrical fairy-tale-like fantasies, and her books have always been a mixed bag for me. I adored The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The Changeling Sea and Alphabet of Thorn. Despite several tries, I’ve never been able to make it through the entire Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy trilogy. I also DNF’d The Bell at Sealey Head but I’m determined to give it another shot sometime (since I own a copy of it). I tried twice and could not at all get into The Sorcere Patricia McKillip generally writes dreamy, lyrical fairy-tale-like fantasies, and her books have always been a mixed bag for me. I adored The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The Changeling Sea and Alphabet of Thorn. Despite several tries, I’ve never been able to make it through the entire Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy trilogy. I also DNF’d The Bell at Sealey Head but I’m determined to give it another shot sometime (since I own a copy of it). I tried twice and could not at all get into The Sorceress and the Cygnet, though I did manage to wade through it.

But despite my often mixed reactions to McKillip’s books, I keep going back because, when I do like her books, I really love them.

So The Bards of Bone Plain falls somewhere in the middle for me. McKillip goes back to her harpist/bard well here, with the story of a kingdom where the best bards have magical powers. The chapters alternate between the story and struggles of the harpist Nairn in ancient times, and Jonah Cle and his son Phelan, bards Zoe and the mysterious Kelda, and Princess Beatrice in modern times – a steampunk/early industrial era, which I found amusing but a little of an odd fit in a McKillip work.

Princess Beatrice is an archaeological digger, much to the Queen’s dismay (she pales every time she sees Beatrice in her dirty dungarees); Phelan is researching for a paper that he needs to write in order to finish up his schooling. Both of them digging in the past for some answers, or at least a nifty find to display/write about. Eventually past and present come together in the book as the various pieces start to tie together.

Bards of Bone Plain is poetic and ambiguous, like most of McKillip’s works. There’s (of course) a lot of lovely language and imagery:She couldn’t read the bard’s expression, but she could guess at it. He had unraveled his heart for them, spun it into gold and woven gold into a web. The two flies buzzing obliviously on the outermost strand of it would cause the bard dissatisfaction greater than his pleasure in all the trapped and motionless morsels within the shining strands.

He exuded ambiguities, she decided: that was his fascination. His mouth spoke; his eyes said something other; his smile belied everything.But the meandering plot wasn’t very compelling, and too many questions were left unanswered for me at the end. (view spoiler)[Who was Welkin/Kelda? What was he trying to achieve? Why was the big musical test so different the second time? Why didn’t Phelan fail? (hide spoiler)] I’m big on understanding context in my reading, and sometimes McKillip leaves me feeling a little lost.

Also, in the last 50 pages: (view spoiler)[BAM! Instalove – which totally came out of left field, especially since the couple had known each other for years and there were no yearning glances or snarky comments to make me think that either of them was harboring any kind of secret feelings for the other one. (hide spoiler)] I can’t say it was an unnecessary plot development, but McKillip really needed to lay a little better groundwork for it.

Not bad, but not a McKillip book I plan on revisiting.[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]>[“br”]> …more