McKillip, Patricia A. - Solstice Wood

[oyceter]

I really wanted to like this, but it just didn't end up working for me. It probably doesn't help that Winter Rose is one of my favorite McKillips.

The closest I came to liking this was the first description of the Fiber Guild, of power in thread and needle, of bindings and stitches. Dude! Why can't I do magic knitting?

Anyway, that is probably because I have a Pavlovian response to yarn, so that entire chapter, I bounced up and down with delight and glee and recognition.

Sylvia Lynn is the descendent of Rois Melior of Winter Rose. Her grandfather has just died, and her grandmather has called her back to Lynn Hall, a place that Sylvia has been trying to avoid for most of her adult life. Fairy gets in the way, there are a whole bunch of mix-ups and really not all that much plot.

Normally I would not mind the no-plot factor, as McKillip's prose and imagery and characters usually make up for it. This time, the more contemporary language didn't work for me, and the imagery really didn't. There were moments of loveliness, as expected, but I just can't wrap my head around the modern setting. Sometimes it works for me, but in this case, Winter Rose felt so removed from this world, and none of the characters in Solstice Wood seem to be living in the same world I live in. They didn't really feel like modern people, so every time they used cell phones or talked about CDs, it was incredibly jarring.

I also wasn't too impressed by the conflict of the book, especially since one of the things I loved about WR was the otherworldiness of the Fae, how different and frightening they were. So the conclusion of SW sort of ruined that for me. And I find that in general, I am getting sick of stories of the Fair Folk/Fae/Faery/Fairy/Titania/Oberon/The Queen of Darkness/and assorted other Celtic variants. They just don't hold the same fascination for me anymore, and as such, I'm already resisting some of the magic of the book.

Links:
- jinian's review (halfway down the page)
- gwyneira's review
- cofax7's review

I swear I've seen more people's write-ups, but I can't seem to find them...

Comments

[cofax7]

I did a review too. I didn't love it either, but for different reasons than you didn't love it.

[cofax7]

Ah, here's my review. And yes, like others, the lack of sense of place was a big issue for me.

[oyceter]

Ah, thanks! I'll link to that.

Yeah, I think you're right; part of the "characters don't feel like modern people" was because there wasn't that sense of place.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Reason why I didn't read enough of it to notice whether there was a plot: No sense of place.

The setting is supposed to be somewhere in Upstate New York. There was nothing to tell me which part of Upstate. And if it hadn't been mentioned that it was somewhere Upstate, I wouldn't have guessed it. Not from the dialog, not from the scenery.

[cliosfolly.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction to it, too. I've lived Upstate longer than I've lived in any single place in my life, and I was excited at the possibility that I might find some of what I like about it in SW, or at least find the fascination of another's view of a place familiar to me. But nada. The strongest clue of place I got was from the book flap informing me it was set Upstate, and I kept waiting for more, but there was nothing there.

[oyceter]

Yes, I think that was a part of why the characters never felt real. cofax7's review (link in comments) touches on that too.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

This makes me sad. I normally detest sequels, having read far too many mediocre to bad ones. Winter Rose was my first McKillip. I read it in the store (back in the day when Chapters still had comfy chairs), bought it immediately, and walked home in a good story daze that lasted quite a while. Since then, I've read as much of hers I could get my hands on. Alas, I have grown & changed, but I don't know if her writing has. :/ I still haven't read Od Magic.

All that said, I've requested it from the library. I wanna read it, of course. ^_^

[oyceter]

I know, I was so excited about it too! I'd also heard the mediocre reviews beforehand, so I was prepared. Ah well.