Song for the Basilisk

From Publishers Weekly In most of McKillip's novels (Winter Rose, etc.) and short stories, this veteran author, a World Fantasy Award winner (for Forgotten Beasts of Eld, 1975), uses words in precisely the same way her mages do, to shape images and create fantastic visions where none previously existed. Sometimes the images are grotesque and violent, but more frequently they are ethereal and exquisite. McKillip's new novel is no exception. In it, a royal child escapes fire and certain execution by hiding in the ashes of the castle fireplace. Flame and death fill his mind and shape his thoughts so he is invisible to his enemies. After he is discovered, his rescuers rename him "Caladrius. After the bird whose song means death," and send him to the bards living on Luly, the music school on a rock at the end of the world. There he is called Rook. He masters the picochet, a peasant instrument, loves Sirina and begets Hollis, a son. Thirty-seven years pass and his family's enemy, Arioso Pellior, patriarch of the house of Basilisk, again reaches out his hand to crush any remaining members of the house of Tourmalyne. Rook remembers that his name is Griffin Tourmalyne and he journeys home. There he becomes an impetus for revolution and an inspiration for the royal opera, which draws the novel's principals together for a performance before the Basilisk and his family. McKillip is at the top of her form in this sweeping story about the redeeming powers of kindness and the potentially deadly beauty of music. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal A young man denies his past for a life as a teacher of bards until a chain of events too compelling to ignore plunges him once more into a confrontation with the Prince of Berylon, who slaughtered an entire noble family to gain his throne. The author of Winter Rose (LJ 7/96) weaves a lyrical story of passion and revenge set in a Renaissance-like world where music and magic are one and the same. McKillip's luminous prose and compelling characters combine to produce a masterwork of style and substance. Highly recommended for most fantasy collections. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Bards of Bone Plain.Something half-woke in him, and he froze on the threshold, seeing misshapen faces billow in the flames.As a child, Rook had been taken in by the bards of Luly, and raised as one of their own. Of his past he knew nothing—except faint memoires of fire and death that he'd do anything to forget.But nightmares, and a new threat to the island that had become his own, would not let him escape the dreadful fate of his true family. Haunted by the music of the bards, he left the only home he knew to wander the land of the power-hungry Basilisk who had destroyed his family. And perhaps, finally, to find a future in the fulfillment of his forgotten destiny... As a child, Rook had been taken in by the bards of Luly, and raised as one of their own. Of his past he knew nothing - except faint memories of fire and death that he'd do anything to forget. But nightmares, and a new threat to the island that had become his own, would not let him escape the dreadful fate of his true family. Haunted by the music of the bards, he left the only home he knew to wander the land of the power-hungry Basilisk who had destroyed his family. And perhaps, finally, to find a future in the fulfillment of his forgotten destiny ... As a child, Rook had been taken in by the bards of Luly, and raised as one of their own. Of his past he knew nothing -- except faint memories of fire and death that he'd do anything to forget. But nightmares, and a new threat to the island that had become his own, would not let him escape the dreaded fate of his true family. Haunted by the music of the bards, he left the only home he knew to wander the land of the power-hungry basilisk who had destroyed his family. And perhaps, finally, to find a future in the fulfillment of his forgotten destiny.( An orphan will leave the only home he has ever known to wander in the land of the basilisk, the powermad people who killed his family. Reprint.