The High One turned to flame in his hands, and then into a memory

[sovay]

Patricia A. McKillip has died. I read her so early, I can't remember the first time. Her influence on my writing and on some of my thought is incalculable. We met twice at different conventions. I shared readings with her husband. She wrote the sea like I could breathe it. I was re-reading one of my favorites of her mid-career novels idly last week, hoping that whatever she wrote next would be something I liked. At the moment the stones are still falling out of the sky.

Comments

[julian]

...Damn.

I didn't feel like she was *done* yet, unlike Le Guin. I wanted more.

I'm glad for what she shared with us, though. Very glad.

[sovay]

I wanted more.

I was expecting more. If anything had happened to her health in recent years, I hadn't heard about it. I figured there would be a new novel presently. Kingfisher (2016) had differed so strongly from her long run of secondary worlds, I was really curious what the next thing would be.

I'm glad for what she shared with us, though. Very glad.

It's not just that I would be different. The field would. She had just blurbed a novel by a friend of mine! Damn.

[muccamukk]

Oh wow. I wasn't expecting that. It's hard to imagine fantasy without her.

[sovay]

Oh wow. I wasn't expecting that. It's hard to imagine fantasy without her.

Once Beagle got into his eighties, I started to brace to lose him, but I thought McKillip was just there. I thought I might run into her at another convention, assuming I ever attended one in person again. It makes it feel especially unfair.

[asakiyume]

Just saw this on Twitter :(

[sovay]

Just saw this on Twitter

It's a shock.

[princessofgeeks]

I am so sorry. Wishing you all peace.

[sovay]

I am so sorry. Wishing you all peace.

Thank you. She was not someone who felt old enough to lose.

[sartorias]

Met her once. What a sweet, lovely person! I hate that we don't have any more from her. But at least we've got what we do have.

[sovay]

Met her once. What a sweet, lovely person! I hate that we don't have any more from her. But at least we've got what we do have.

It is true that the work is not nothing. I just miss when the person behind it goes out.

[grammarwoman]

What sad news! The Riddle-Master series is on my list of regular re-reads; she shall be missed. :(

[sovay]

What sad news! The Riddle-Master series is on my list of regular re-reads; she shall be missed.

As far as I can tell, those books were my introduction to her. Pieces of them are just embedded in my head. I thought of like three different lines when I heard the news. By definition, you can't tell someone that sort of thing when they're alive.

[minoanmiss]

Aw dammit.

*raises a light to her memory*

[sovay]

*raises a light to her memory*

*hugs*

[thistleingrey]

Ah, damn.

[sovay]

Ah, damn.

That.

[nineweaving]

Oh no. The sweetest, shyest visionary I have ever met. She had worlds yet to write.

Nine

[sovay]

Oh no. The sweetest, shyest visionary I have ever met. She had worlds yet to write.

I didn't love all of them, but the ones I did love, I can't imagine being without.

*hugs*

[teenybuffalo]

I'm so sorry.

[sovay]

I'm so sorry.

*hugs*

[sara]

She wrote some of my favorite books. And was born the same year as both my parents, so it feels far too soon for her to be gone.

[sovay]

She wrote some of my favorite books. And was born the same year as both my parents, so it feels far too soon for her to be gone.

She was not older than both of my parents. It is part of my shock. The rest is the loss. At least she was not like Lloyd Alexander, who I never had the chance to tell was so important to me, but still.

[starlady]

She wrote so many good books, and so many of them standalones. I need to do some rereads, deeply sad that they are now memorial rereads.

[sovay]

She wrote so many good books, and so many of them standalones. I need to do some rereads, deeply sad that they are now memorial rereads.

Yes. I wasn't ready for them to be.

[pameladean]

I am so sad. Nobody wrote exactly as she did. Her humor was so sly. I once, at the first World Fantasy Convention I ever attended, watched her wind up Stephen R. Donaldson by demurely contradicting his (all very sensible, to my surprise) every remark about the process of writing. They got into an extremely convoluted sidetrack, using traffic lights as a metaphor, that I am sure she knew exactly how to get out of.

It took me a very long time to realize that she was winding him up. I was quite wound up myself at how a writer I admired so much could have such starkly barking daft ideas of the process, while the writer whose work I didn't like had such sensible ones.

Stephen Donaldson twigged to what was going on long before I did and at some point, I think, was uttering the most anodyne remarks he could produce just to see what she would do with them. But he was really wound up for a while.

P.

P.

[sovay]

I am so sad. Nobody wrote exactly as she did.

I learned a lot from her language. Sometimes by disagreement, but mostly not. It took me years to notice the physicality of her prose.

I once, at the first World Fantasy Convention I ever attended, watched her wind up Stephen R. Donaldson by demurely contradicting his (all very sensible, to my surprise) every remark about the process of writing.

That's wonderful.

I was just talking with rushthatspeaks about the scene at the start of Heir of Sea and Fire where the entire massive pig herd of Hel is panicked by the Great Shout of its herder who turns out to be Nun and scatters to the winds, which is an incredible image and also, really, funny.

[choco_frosh]

:(

[sovay]

:(

*hugs*

[davidgillon]

I'm astounded to find I've apparently never read anything of hers. Her name is just so familiar I always assumed I must have read her at some point, but running through the list in Locus there's not one title that actually rings a bell. Seemingly I'm just so used to seeing her name in bookstores and other places - and probably since not long after she started publishing - I just assumed she must have been someone I'd read.

My brain is currently throwing up book titles, then shooting them down again with "No, that's MacAvoy. No, that's McKinley." And so on.

[sovay]

Seemingly I'm just so used to seeing her name in bookstores and other places - and probably since not long after she started publishing - I just assumed she must have been someone I'd read.

Well, I recommend her very highly. This list is still viable.

[rosefox]

Thank you for sharing the news. I'm glad we were able to make her a Readercon GOH; she deserved it.

[sovay]

I'm glad we were able to make her a Readercon GOH; she deserved it.

I was thinking of that. She really did.

[labingi]

Sad to hear this. She was a very talented writer.

[sovay]

Sad to hear this. She was a very talented writer.

She was.

[ranalore]

I could have written most of this post. I do remember the first time I read her; I was fourteen, and a friend offered me the choice of either starting the Riddlemaster trilogy or reading The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. It was a sleepover, so I chose the book I knew I could finish in less than two hours, and we could then geek out. I had no idea that book would change my life and writing forever. When I finally did read Riddlemaster, it was to me what Lord of the Rings is to other people, what I had wanted Lord of the Rings to be when I read it (half read it, I never could finish it, and I tried every year for a decade).

People ask me who my favorite author is, and I say Patricia McKillip, but that word's not big enough. It doesn't hold enough things for what she means to me. I feel like some of her words are written on my bones, like she got the sea the way it flows in my blood. I, too, met her twice at different conventions, though both were before I began to publish as an adult. We talked a little about the San Francisco Bay area and coastal versus eastern Oregon, and a little about language choices. I always wanted to meet her again to let her know having my writing compared to hers was the greatest compliment any reviewer ever paid me.

She was only my father's age. That doesn't feel old enough.

[oracne]

This.

[oracne]

You are extremely right about how she wrote the sea. It's one of the reasons I loved THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD so much.

[sovay]

You are extremely right about how she wrote the sea.

The sea, and time. Deep time, layers of time. I can't imagine that didn't leave an imprint on me, either.

[thanate]

Oh no.

I have been brain-foggy and utterly exhausted this week, and the smattering of nursery rhymes that wander about in my head include a few from The Changeling Sea.

I guess I am very glad to be starting to gather up a few authors of my own age whose work I want to buy immediately upon release, as I am nearly out of the ones from my parents' generation.

[sovay]

I have been brain-foggy and utterly exhausted this week, and the smattering of nursery rhymes that wander about in my head include a few from The Changeling Sea.

*hugs*

I guess I am very glad to be starting to gather up a few authors of my own age whose work I want to buy immediately upon release, as I am nearly out of the ones from my parents' generation.

I think growing up with books confuses one's sense of continuity anyway.