This review is for the 50th Anniversary edition of Patricia McKillip’s eerie and at times disturbing story of the wizard Sybel, who is collector and caretaker of a menagerie of magical and legendary animals. This edition has an introduction by Marjorie M. Liu (Monstress, Dark Wolverine) and a foreword by Gail Carriger (The Parasol Protectorate, Tinkered Stars). This edition also has artwork by Stephanie Law (Dreamscapes).
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a book I have kept going back to since I was a teenager, and I was extremely excited to get a galley copy of this book from Net Galley. Our Protagonist had been seeking a white bird called Liralen when her search is interrupted when a man comes to her door with a baby who turns out to be her cousin. Sybel’s aunt had apparently had an affair with the young man’s brother, and the king wants the baby dead. The man, a young and strangely knowledgeable noble named Coren is not quite knowledgeable enough to realize that isolated young women who have very little contact with the outside world are not expert baby minders. She is however willing to add the baby to her collections of creatures she takes care of.
(Sybel is one of those characters who give me neurodivergent feelings. Sybel has a somewhat flat affect, and does not realize that saying something like, “oh, he’ll make a nice addition to my collection” is not the most reassuring thing you could possibly say to someone. She doesn’t understand social interactions, very well and Coren is initially so offput by this he thinks she’s being unkind/cruel instead of having immediately slotted the baby into “something I need to figure out how to care for because I know nothing about babies.” This is a big reason why I like this book so much and keep coming back to it.)
Sybel raises her cousin Tamlorn with the help of a witch who lives down the road. Years pass, and it’s discovered that Tam is really the king’s son and not a bastard. Coren attempts to get her on the side of his brothers but this goes poorly.(She doesn’t want Tamlorn to end up a political pawn, and wants nothing to do with the outside world and politics in general.) Sybel, who has only the very vaguest concept of personal boundaries summons the king and interviews him to see if he’d be a good parent for Tam. This turns out to be a very large mistake! The king decides to try luring and then coercing Sybel into marrying him. This goes very poorly for all concerned!
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a fairy tale about agency and consent, love and devotion, hatred and revenge. I generally have a somewhat mixed reaction to it. It’s undeniably a favorite, but there is a tiny bit of fridge horror in certain aspects of the story. (Sybel’s family history at the beginning of the book–especially where you find out that Sybel’s father kidnapped her mother–kind of highlights her terror when something similar happens to her. ) So, I go through stages where I find Eld to be too upsetting to read. At the same time I find Sybel’s journey toward greater human interaction to be compelling. McKillip’s work has a thoughtful, introspective and dreamlike feel, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is just a powerful and thought-provoking as the first time I read it in my teens.
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