vaznetti | Wednesday is the day we post about books (Reply)

I saw that Patricia McKillip died last week, and was unexpectedly saddened; she is (was? but the status hasn't changed) perhaps my favorite author. My tattered copies of the Riddle-Master trilogy have moved between three countries and across the Atlantic twice, and the piece of fanfic I wrote for it one Yuletide is one of the things I'm fondest and proudest of. I haven't read all of her more recent books; they're more difficult to find here. But perhaps I will look for them, or do some re-reading this week. She had a unique voice; sometimes it made her books seem a bit samey, and sometimes it made them hard for me to follow (I reread the Cygnet duology recently, and I finally, finally, think I understand what happened there, maybe.) But I really loved the way she centered women of all ages in her stories, and often relied on communication and negotiation rather than violence to resolve the conflicts in them.

I have been reading some of the earlier Rivers of London novels (and I have a lot of thoughts, especially about the Rivers and Beverly and Beverley & Peter, but I won't go into them here and now); I was going to re-read Moonwise, by Greer Gilman, but I think I will put it off in favor of some McKillip just now. Maybe Ombria in Shadow; maybe The Book of Atrix Wolfe.