"Song for the Basilisk"
Aug. 10th, 2004 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowAs I expected, I've gone on a McKillip binge, and I'll be reviewing some of her books as I go along. First, Song for the Basilisk.
At first, this book seems like one of the old standards, the Lost Heir story. A ruling family is massacred by its enemies; the sole survivor, an infant boy, is snatched away by loyal retainers and taken to a place of refuge. There he grows, and eventually comes into his power, after undergoing a fateful journey into a mysterious land where he encounters, among other things, the dead, and the truth about his heritage. Seeking vengeance, he returns to the capital to face those who slaughtered his kin. The author of the massacre is still alive and still in power, and he is truly monstrous, Borgiaesque, a dealer in subtle sorceries and poisons. His two elder children are dullards, but the youngest, a daughter, shows every sign of following in her father's footsteps. There is even the obligatory evil servitor, who skulks in and out of the palace on his master's villainous orders.
But the story deviates from the traditional Lost Heir plotline. The hero, Caladrius, is trained not in warcraft and rulership, but in music, and he has no interest in taking power after achieving his vengeance. He learns of a conspiracy, hatched by collateral relatives of his family, to overthrow the tyrant, but he does not join them (though he does what he can to protect them). There is a clash with the ruler, but it is inconclusive. Other elements intrude, including a playwright who - all oblivious to what is really happening around him - inadvertently triggers a crisis by writing a too-nearly true opera. In the end the situation is resolved in a quite satisfying way, but from an unexpected direction. (Indeed, if there is a common theme in much of McKillip's work, it is that Things Are Not As They Seem; the obvious good guys and bad guys, in the end of many of her works, shift, exchange places, and morph into surprising shapes. So they do here.)
McKillip's prose is vivid, and strikingly visual. I don't usually visualize as I read, but it seems unavoidable here. Let one of the first lines of Song for the Basilisk stand for all: "The ash, born out of fire and left behind it, watched the pale light glide inch by inch over the dead on the floor, reveal the glitter in an unblinking eye, a gold ring, a jewel in the collar of what had been the dog." Her imagery is hard to resist, sometimes glittering, sometimes haunting. Her books are not particularly profound, but at her best they are exquisite, gemlike; and Song for the Basilisk is one of her best.
At first, this book seems like one of the old standards, the Lost Heir story. A ruling family is massacred by its enemies; the sole survivor, an infant boy, is snatched away by loyal retainers and taken to a place of refuge. There he grows, and eventually comes into his power, after undergoing a fateful journey into a mysterious land where he encounters, among other things, the dead, and the truth about his heritage. Seeking vengeance, he returns to the capital to face those who slaughtered his kin. The author of the massacre is still alive and still in power, and he is truly monstrous, Borgiaesque, a dealer in subtle sorceries and poisons. His two elder children are dullards, but the youngest, a daughter, shows every sign of following in her father's footsteps. There is even the obligatory evil servitor, who skulks in and out of the palace on his master's villainous orders.
But the story deviates from the traditional Lost Heir plotline. The hero, Caladrius, is trained not in warcraft and rulership, but in music, and he has no interest in taking power after achieving his vengeance. He learns of a conspiracy, hatched by collateral relatives of his family, to overthrow the tyrant, but he does not join them (though he does what he can to protect them). There is a clash with the ruler, but it is inconclusive. Other elements intrude, including a playwright who - all oblivious to what is really happening around him - inadvertently triggers a crisis by writing a too-nearly true opera. In the end the situation is resolved in a quite satisfying way, but from an unexpected direction. (Indeed, if there is a common theme in much of McKillip's work, it is that Things Are Not As They Seem; the obvious good guys and bad guys, in the end of many of her works, shift, exchange places, and morph into surprising shapes. So they do here.)
McKillip's prose is vivid, and strikingly visual. I don't usually visualize as I read, but it seems unavoidable here. Let one of the first lines of Song for the Basilisk stand for all: "The ash, born out of fire and left behind it, watched the pale light glide inch by inch over the dead on the floor, reveal the glitter in an unblinking eye, a gold ring, a jewel in the collar of what had been the dog." Her imagery is hard to resist, sometimes glittering, sometimes haunting. Her books are not particularly profound, but at her best they are exquisite, gemlike; and Song for the Basilisk is one of her best.
