25 November, 2001
The Tower at Stony Wood
Patricia McKillip
2000
294 pp (PB)
This review was posted to the Usenet Newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written. Read the discussion here.
This is a typical McKillip outing: not so much a fantasy novel as a novel-length fairy tale. This is an important distinction, I think. Modern fantasy novels generally feature a lot of concrete world-building, complete with geography, politics, natural philosophy (a "magic system" and such), and all sorts of bumps and warts. A fairy-tale, on the other hand, just suggests such things, or smooths them over altogether. Fairy tales strip out all the extraneous bits, and focus on the essential elements, resulting in something which is simultaneously less realistic and more fundamental than a regular novel. All of McKillip's books (or at least all the ones I've read) have this quality, even her scifi-esque FOOL'S RUN.
The Tower at Stony Wood is no exception: you've got your enchanted Lady in a tower, a king, a loyal knight, and a kingdom with just the barest sketch of geography. In a standard novel, such features would be serious detriments: one-dimensional characters, confusing geography. But, for McKillip's style, it works.
The strengths of this book are the characters and the prose. After Bored of the Rings and The Eyes of the Overworld, I was really happy to read a book with likeable protagonists. They're not perfect, but they're well-intentioned, and I really wanted to see them succeed, even when their individual goals were in conflict. And, as usual with McKillip, the prose itself is excellent. One very nifty thing is the description of magic. As is often the case in McKillip, it's really MAGICAL magic: an art, not a science. I was very taken by the whole embroidery-magic business.
But, despite all the good bits, I was disappointed in the book as a whole. The problem was the plot. Not only are the twists and turns kind of confusing, the ultimate explanation of what's been going on is deeply unsatisfying. (Explained below the spoiler warning.)
Overall, its not a bad book, and certainly not my least favorite McKillip, but I didn't like it nearly as much as her other recent works (Song for the Basilisk, Winter Rose and The Book of Atrix Wolfe).
Now for the bit I didn't like:
SPOILERS
At the end, it turns out that everything was set up by the mystical Three Sisters, and that the characters were all pawns acting to bring about the Sisters' goal. It's a good goal, and everything turns out for the best, but I just didn't appreciate the likable characters being manipulated by this mysterious force. I prefer characters who bring about plot resolution through their own volition, not because the Mastermind was able to control her pawns well.