In The Forests Of Serre
by Patricia A. McKillip
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Book Summary Information
Author: Patricia A. McKillipEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-01
ISBN: 0441011578
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Ace Trade
Book Reviews of In The Forests Of Serre
Book Review: A keeper
Summary: 5 Stars
My first 2010 review is about my last reading of 2009: In The Forests Of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip, another fairytale retold directed preferably to young adults. According to my Google research there are several versions and adaptations of this Russian tale involving the firebird, but the premise is always the same: this creature beyond wonderful, with all its supreme beauty, mystery and unreachability, symbolizes, invariably, a demand. But in In The Forests Of Serre there isn't only a prince, wandering through the forest trying to catch a bird of fire, while a beautiful princess makes her appearance at the end of story as the prize for the hunter and they both live happily everafter. No, in In The Forests Of Serre, we do have a prince wandering the forest deluded by the firebird's excellence, and its singing, but also and especially, we have a poor guy disturbed by the recent deaths both of his wife and newborn baby. And as if that wasn't enough, Ronan, the prince, is caught in the enchantment of the old witch who inhabits a hut made of human bones in the forest, and the tasks he has to complete to get out of it seem unattainable. And if at the beginning Ronan had nothing to continue to live for, this meeting with Brume, the witch, will, against all odds, make him wake to life and smell the morning air, because Sidonie, the beautiful princess, enters in action, and they are a funny duet to watch. Among other characters, I have to praise the wizard Gyre, who starts by having a neutral role, then awakens the wrath (or consent) of the reader, as that third person who threats a possible love story, only to win our good thoughts again both with his intangibility, like the firebird itself, which is always appropriate in these cases where innocent princes and princesses need help to escape from evil witches; and with his pragmatism, which I dare to set as hilarious. With an extremely beautiful, coherent, satirical and addictive writing style, McKillip is definitely a keeper.
With an extremely beautiful, coherent, satirical and addictive writing style, McKillip is definitely a keeper.
Summary of In The Forests Of Serre
In the tales of World Fantasy Award-winning author Patricia McKillip, nothing is ever as it seems. A mirror is never just a mirror; a forest is never just a forest. Here, it is a place where a witch can hide in her house of bones and a prince can bargain with his heart...where good and evil entwine and wear each others' faces... and where a bird with feathers of fire can quench the fiercest longing...
Like Ursula K. Le Guin and Jane Yolen, World Fantasy Award winner Patricia A. McKillip (author of Riddle-Master, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and Ombria in Shadow) is one of the great fantasy authors working at the turn of the millennium. In her beautifully written novel In the Forests of Serre, McKillip again demonstrates her intimate understanding of the mysteries of magic and the human heart.
Everyone in the kingdom of Serre avoids the Mother of All Witches, an ugly, powerful, and dangerous woman who lives in the Forest of Serre. But then the grief-blinded Prince of Serre rides down the witch's white hen and earns her curse. Prince Ronan believes nothing can be worse than what he has already experienced: the death of his wife and their newborn. But soon the curse destroys what little the prince has left, and he wanders lost and half-mad through the Forest of Serre, pursuing a beautiful, elusive firebird that may be an illusion, or his doom. His only hope may be the young Princess Sidonie of Dacia, to whom his brutal father betrothed him against his will... and hers. But Princess Sidonie may have no interest in helping a man she's never met. And her powerful, mysterious magician-guardian, Gyre, has secret intentions and desires of his own. --Cynthia Ward
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