The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

by Patricia A. McKillip, Gail Carriger (Preface by)

Overview

World Fantasy Award-Winner
First time available in an e-book edition

"Rich and regal."
—The New York Times

Young Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments.

But Sybel's solitude is to be shattered when a desperate soldier arrives bearing a mysterious child. Soon Sybel will discover that the world of men is full of love, deceit, and the temptations of vast power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616962791
Publisher:	Tachyon Publications
Publication date:	09/15/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	372 KB

About the Author

Patricia A. McKillip is the beloved author of twenty-seven fantasy novels, including The Riddle-Master of Hed, Harpist in the Wind, Ombria in Shadow, Solstice Wood, and The Sorceress and the Cygnet. She received the inaugural World Fantasy Award for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and later received the World Fantasy lifetime achievement award. She is also a three-time Mythopoeic Award winner. She recently published the novel Kingfisher and the collection Dreams of Distant Shores. McKillip lives in Oregon.

Internationally-bestselling author Gail Carriger's debut novel, Soulless, won the ALA's Alex Award. Her wildly popular steampunk Parasolverse contains multiple series including the Parasol Protectorate, which was also published as a graphic novel. Carriger has received the Steampunk Chronicle's Reader's Choice YA Award, the Prix Julia Verlanger, the Elbakin Award, and a Starburner Award in Literature. Her novels have been published in eighteen languages and made the New York Times list thirteen times. She lives in California.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“Rich and regal.”
—New York Times

“Before Daenerys was Mother of Dragons, Sybel commanded beasts of all kinds. McKillip offers up a powerful character full of passion, determination, obsession, and love.”
—A. C. Wise, author of The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories

“I admit it: I have been seduced by Patricia A McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld . . . gorgeous, lyrical prose.”
—Guardian

“With its elegant language and lovingly rendered heroine, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld has won the love of readers young and old alike — it’s a book that feels richer with every rereading.”
—Reedsy, The 60 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

“Like the [Lord of the] Rings trilogy or the Earthsea books . . . This magical moonlit fantasy has dignity and romance, heart-stopping suspense, adventure, richness of concept and language and—perhaps rarest of all in romantic fantasy—a sly sense of humor.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This is what great literature looks like: bold, self-incisive, powerfully feminist without drawing attention to anything but the prose, the characters, and the story.”
—Usman T. Malik, author of The Pauper Prince and The Eucalyptus Jinn

“This is my favorite book of all time. If I had to pick a desert island book, it would be this one.”
—Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author of the Parasol Protectorate

“Rich and lyric prose.”
—Bruce Coville, author of the Dragon Chronicles

“A truly great, concentrated, thoughtful, vicious, exalted fantasy, and everyone should read it.”
—Max Gladstone, author of the Hugo Award-winning Craft Sequence series

“A stunning masterpiece of fantasy. 10/10 stars.”
—Fantasy Cafe

“Gorgeous, evocative, and fragile.”
—Kirkus

“An extraordinary book, and McKillip deserves all the praise she received for creating such a masterful, brave, intricately crafted universe. 10/10 stars.”
—Starburst

“Intimate, gorgeous, quiet and deep, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld remains as resonant as ever.”
—Tor.com

“Wise and deep and lucid and crisp.”
—Antick Musings

“Fear, hope, love, hatred, and all that makes us human assume magical forms in McKillip's characteristically gorgeous prose.”
—E. Lily Yu, author of “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”

“In some ways, it feels more like a dream than like a novel, more like a spell cast over the reader than like prose. It is delicious and wise—a true classic.”
—Susan Fletcher, author of Dragon’s Milk and Shadow Spinner

“More than 40 years after it was first published, McKillip’s World Fantasy Award-winner is unquestionably a classic of the genre, and it reads as timelessly as ever in this new print and ebook edition.”
—Barnes & Noble, Week’s New Sci-Fi & Fantasy spotlight

“Soaring prose, lyrics to songs our hearts have forgotten they knew how to sing.”
—Seattle Review of Books

“A remarkable work of literature.”
—The Royal Library

“Whether you read this magical weaving as a straight fantasy or look deeper and call it allegory, I guarantee you will fall under its spell.”
—Fresh Fiction

“McKillip’s strange, enchanting stand-alone fantasy The Forgotten Beasts of Eld has been reissued...the writing is simply beautiful.”
—Washington Post

“A magical reading experience.”
—Foreword Reviews

“Full of magic, wonder and fantastic creatures.”
—Speculative Herald

“This exquisitely written story has something for almost every reader: adventure, romance and a resonant mythology that reveals powerful truths about human nature.”
—Amazon

“It feels ageless, eternal, light and perfect like a star.”
—SF Site

“The best fantasy novel of the year and perhaps of the decade.
—Locus

“Patricia McKillip weaves an incredibly rich, poetic, wise and mystical story, holding her readers spellbound.”
—St. Louis Dispatch-Post

"5/5 stars. This is one of those books that can’t come with enough high recommendation.”
—Seattle Review of Books

From the Publisher