Book Of Atrix Wolfe (Paperback)

The story follows the chain of events that occur one cold winter night during the bitter siege on the castle of Pelucir, the night that the Great Mage Atrix Wolfe breaks the laws set down by the Mages of Chaumenard and in his attempts to end the war creates a creature of the darkest emotions and most destructive magic...the legendary Hunter. That is the same night when the mysterious being known as the Queen of the Wood's consort and their daughter disappears into the human world by the rent in the realms the Hunter's creation has caused. Now years later, both the horrors of that night and the mage seem to have disappeared into the realm of legend and bitter memory...until the discovery by the Prince-mage Talis Pelducir of a book whose words are not what they appear to be and the attempts of the Queen of the Wood to find her long-lost daughter Saro cause the return of the Hunter and the final confrontation between Atrix Wolfe and the nightmare he has been running from for the last twenty years...

The sleeping beauty on the Kinuko Craft cover may do justice to the loveliness of the princess-turned-scullery-maid (at least prior to her transformation by the mage), but it doesn't capture her incredible will to survive after she is torn from her parents and dumped, naked and alone, into an alien universe. Yes, she ends up as a scullery maid, thought to be mute and retarded by her fellow kitchen workers. Yes, she scrubs pots from dawn to midnight. But the prince's kitchen turns out to be lively and warm, and filled with an eccentric hierarchy of cooks, sauce makers, plate washers, mincers, pluckers, boners, choppers, and spit-boys. McKillip goes into loving detail over the making and serving of food fit for a King's table, and when the princess Saro finally leaves the washing cauldron to fulfill her destiny, I for one felt a faint tinge of regret.

Who would have thought that a medieval kitchen could be a more interesting place to linger than a fairy forest where "water flowed, silver and sweet as honey among ancient roots"?

"The Book of Atrix Wolfe" stands many fairy tale truisms on their heads, including the character of the evil, all-powerful mage. In this story, the mage Atrix Wolfe creates the deadly Hunter that almost destroys the prince's family, but he does so with the intention of stopping a war. The Hunter himself is Death, but even he is not precisely evil. The prince rescues the princess, but only after she steals his book of spells in an attempt to teach herself how to read.

Patricia McKillip may have started out with a fairy tale in mind, but what she wrote was ornate, fascinating, and completely her own.

First, let me say that this book is simply not my type; it didn't capture my interest. But I still feel obliged to give an opinion because there are undoubtedly others out there who share my own interests. I pretty much agree with the review above entitled "Charming but not engaging." The writing here is top notch and the imagery is evocative, but the whole thing seems a little vacuous. I can't seem to get into the story because when I look behind all of McKillip's beautiful prose there really isn't much there. It's a very nice story about mages and princes and enchanted forests, but when all is said and done I didn't feel any real connection with the characters of Talis, Atrix or anyone else.

When I read a book I want my characters to be grounded in some sort of solid reality. In other words I want the reality-the framework and internal logic of the world-to control the characters, not vice versa. The characters should be at the mercy of their environment (even if fanciful, it still has rules!) and they should react and struggle against it. In Atrix Wolfe (as well as in Riddle Master), however, I find myself in scene after scene where the characters themselves are the center of the universe. They possess magical powers far too immense in comparison to their rather puny environment and they control their surroundings seemingly at will. For an example, see the description on page 217 where Atrix Wolfe (via his shape shifting abilities) goes into a pebble and down into the Earth and into an underground stream and pops out of a tree some distance away in order to avoid the enemy. Now I know this is fantasy and fairytale but doesn't that sound a little ridiculous? When characters start popping out of holes in the ground is when I come to the conclusion that an Earth-like setting is a little too small for these guys: there need to be more restrictions. Toward the end of the book I began to think to myself "Well, since apparently ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING can happen in this book, I really don't care what is going to happen."

Overall, I enjoyed this book more than Riddle Master (I have to admit though, not least of all because it is shorter). But its biggest fault is a lack of logical development. There are too many unexplained magical powers and mystical descriptions. When McKillip is given the opportunity in the story to explain certain developments she invariably resorts to a sort of mystical-psycho-babble answer that sounds nice but leaves me feeling empty inside. At least I can say I've given her books a try. Don't get me wrong, I think she is a fine writer. She's just not quite my style.