Patricia McKillip

One of my favorite fantasy authors is Patricia McKillip. I first saw The Riddle-Master of Hed in a bookstore in the late 1970s, but I did not start reading her books until The Book of Atrix Wolfe.  It is the story of a powerful mage and how his magical creation destroyed both the invading army threatening Pelucir and the soldiers defending the land.  It also cost the Queen of the Wood her daughter Saro when the fairyworld was torn asunder by Atrix's magic.  He disappears and is not seen for twenty years, but circumstances will soon evolve that will bring him back to solve the mystery of what happened all these years ago.  It is not a very long book, but the prose is quite beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It went on to be nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Literature in 1996. 

Since then every book she has written has either been nominated, a finalist or a winner for the Mythopoeic Awards, a Nebula Award nominee, a World Fantasy Award winner and a Locus Award nominee.  While many fantasy authors write long, epic novels, Patricia's books are small, compact and powerful.  Highly recommended!

While a majority of her titles are adult, she has also written some young adult and children's novels and the library catalog has the following books:

The Riddle-Master trilogy (published in the late 1970s)

• The Riddle-Master of Hed
• The Heir of Sea and Fire
• The Harpist in the Wind

The Cygnet Duology (published in the early 1990's)

• The Sorceress and the Cygnet
• The Cygnet and the Firebird

Some individual works include:

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Winter Rose

Song for the Basilisk

The Tower at Stony Wood

Ombria in Shadow

In the Forests of Serre

Alphabet of Thorn

Old Magic

Harrowing the Dragon

Solstice Wood

The Bell at Sealey Head

The Bards of Bone Plain


Also, the cover art for a lot of her recent works is by renowed fantasy artist Kinuko Y. Craft and you can find more information about her here.