One day, as she’s calling to it, she’s interrupted by the sound of shouting at her gates and sends Ter Falcon to deal with the disruption. Shortly after her father’s passing, Sybel discovers a book describing the Liralen, a great white bird, and becomes determined to add it to her menagerie. He named her Sybel and died when she was only sixteen years old, leaving her alone in the mountain with the house, a well-stocked library, and six fantastic beasts.

This son called to him three more fantastic beasts: a wise lyon from the deserts, a large black cat with a deep knowledge of sorcery, and a fierce falcon who once killed seven murderers. This mage also had a child-not a son, to his great surprise, but a daughter-who also had the mage-gift. Just a small amount of the dragon’s riches was sufficient for him to build a beautiful house of polished stone and an enclosed garden for the animals, and his son inherited all these plus his father’s magical gifts. Once, there was a mage, the son of another wizard, who left the city for a quiet existence on Eld Mountain, where he called to him three fantastic beasts: a black swan who had saved a princess, a boar who could solve every riddle except one, and a dragon who had accumulated great wealth. It’s a beautifully written story about a mage with a menagerie of legendary animals, and at its heart it’s about power, love and hate, choice-and Sybel herself, the extraordinary heroine who becomes entangled in human affairs after leading a secluded life like her father and grandfather before her. She also expresses her difficulty in finding words to properly describe the scope and brilliance of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and having just read it for the second time, I find myself in the same position. This beloved standalone fantasy was recently re-released in trade paperback and ebook with gorgeous cover art by Thomas Canty and a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger, who shares that this is her favorite book of all time and has been for more than 30 years. Among the earliest of these novels is her self-described first major fantasy, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which won the World Fantasy Award and was selected as a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award after its release in 1974. McKillip, a recipient of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, has written more than 30 novels since the publication of her first more than 40 years ago.

The forgotten beasts of eld