Alphabet of Thorn [Paperback]

The Twelve Crowns of Raine have a new queen -- very young, very timid and very unhappy. Lost in the shuffle is Nepenthe, a girl left to unravel old, mysterious alphabets. She was abandoned as a baby and raised in the library, and is quite happy there. Her knack with languages comes into play when she gets a book from student mage Bourne, the nephew of a possibly treasonous nobleman. The book is written in a language made out of thorns that no one except Nepenthe can decipher.

It tells the story of the warrior emperor Axis and the sorcerer Kane -- except that the book also shows that Kane was a woman. She was Axis's cousin, lover and right hand. What makes the book puzzling is that Kane claims to have helped Axis conquer countries that hadn't existed yet. As Nepenthe struggles to uncover the mystery of Kane and Axis -- and her own origins -- the queen of Raine is warned... about the thorns that will destroy Raine.

Patricia McKillip's novels are both predictable and unpredictable -- you can expect lots of rich language, ornate kingdoms, and enticingly weird magic. At the same time, you can never predict how that magic is going to appear. In "Alphabet of Thorn," McKillip tackles something old and something new, magicwise. On one hand, there's the floating magic school and stuff like that. On the other, there's Kane's frightening, majestic, bend-time-and-space magic.

As always, her writing is lush and slightly dreamy. McKillip includes lots of little details like peacock feathers, pearls, crumbly books, candles and pebbles. She revitalizes ideas like the abandoned person with a Hidden Identity, the long-dead king who will return in times of need (sort of a female King Arthur) or the disguised sorceress. The only downside is that when a certain part of Kane's story is revealed, Nepenthe's secret is also out in the open before it's actually revealed.

Nepenthe's a nice lead character, reluctant and confused without being self-pitying; her lover Bourne is rather less defined, but still good with his own confusion. Other supporting characters like the naive young queen, kindly librarion and the aging sorceress are nice supporting roles; Axis and Kane are rather lacking in dimension (king obsessed with conquering, and a sorceress obsessed with him) until the end. They seem as distant and weird as they do to Nepenthe.

McKillip expands her boundaries in the enticing, mysterious "Alphabet of Thorn." It's an adult fairy tale that revitalizes the ye olde kingdom genre, and tells a good story while it's at it.

The protagonist, Nepenthe, and her obsession with the book of thorns is portrayed with a vivid, clear and often startling understanding of human nature, which draws the reader ever deeper into the plot, all without loss of pace or clarity.

I loved the corresponding plotline of Axis and Kane - this added to the main storyline while simultaneously introducing two characters who deserved to be known.

This book also had a wider stage than several other McKillip novels, and as always the scenes were described with the professionalism I have come to expect from such an accomplished writer.

Overall, what I find so unique about this author is the way in which she achieves that essence of the unreal, while keeping the story very believable. I'm sure there is more I could say, but these books exude a quality which is almost undescribable. You simply have to read them yourself. Like any of McKillip's books, I reccommend these to everyone, but particularly to those who want to escape conventional fantasy and to those who love colour and the power of imagination.