#Ombria in Shadow

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Ombria in Shadow | Author: Patricia A. McKillip | Publisher: Ace (2003)

#books #Ombria in Shadow #Patricia A. McKillip

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#fantasy #books #Ombria in Shadow #Patricia A. McKillip #poll #result: no #l: English

[pocketwish]

"You raven-eyed hag, some bitter bird ate your heart out so long ago you don’t even remember how to be human. I may be a fool-headed limpet with nothing left to cling to and about to be done to death for my shoes, but if I hear you’ve set your bleak eyes at harming Kyel Greve, I’ll come shoeless out of my grave to put you in my place, you ugly foul mausoleum."

— Patricia A. McKillip, Ombria in Shadow (2002),

#ombria in shadow #patricia a. mckillip #slowly rationing my way through her works and mourning how few there are #quotes

[smakkabagms]

What, she wondered, did it hold at the heart of itself? Its past, most likely: ghosts, memories and dreams, guarded against time within passages as unnoticed as the silent, busy veins in the wrist.

Patricia McKillip

#Patricia McKillip #quote #ombria in shadow

[bellaroles]

R.I.P. Patricia A. McKillip. I love many of her books. She wrote with such dream-like wonders. My first book of hers was the Changeling sea. My favorite ones I've always drawn some doodles from and put them in my journal. I think I lost the one I drew from the forgotten beast of eld.

#patricia a. mckillip #doodles #fan art #the bell at sealey head #winter rose #in the forest of serre #ombria in shadow #the riddle-master of hed

[summer-fruits-and-cream]

oh my God am I about to find out what it is to be in a dead fandom of like 15 people 😭

#ive always seen those posts around and was like lol cant relate #AND NOW #i bought ombria in shadow from the british library bc of course i did #and the tag is deaaad #dead i tell you #my post #ombria in shadow #but buying a book red'd by the british library is WAY better than getting something from booktok #the booktok books made me forget how good writing can be

[snarp]

How the fuck has Patricia McKillip never won a Hugo or Nebula. Fake awards.

Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Ombria in Shadow didn't even get fucking NOMINATED?!

#forgotten beasts of eld would have been up against the dispossessed #so i suspect it was doomed regardless #but i've read two of the other books from that year's ballots and it should have been on there #how many forgettable-except-for-the-errors niven-pournelle collabs did the hugos fucking need #...christ ombria in shadow would have been up against leguin again + m*eville + ga*man? #and the next year elizabeth fucking moon won? unbearable. #is this how people who care about athletes feel

[logarithmicpanda]

24 in 2024

@asexualbookbird tagged me, thanks!

I'll just do a neat 8-8-8 hehe

Physical backlog

New releases

Library books

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

All the Hidden Paths by Fox Meadows

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Shadow Baron by Davina Evans

The River of Silver by Shannon Chakraborty

Ombria in Shadows by Patricia McKillip

Mislaid in Parts Half Known by Seanan McGuire

Oathbound by Tracy Deonn

The Misfit Caravan by K.D. Edwards

The Brides of High Hill by Ngi Vo

Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco

The Prisoner's Throne by Holly Black

Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

A Garden Half Built by Ruthanna Emrys

Thornedge by T. Kingfisher

Starless by Jaqueline Carey

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Next Year For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons

Tagging @the-lightbulb-and-the-octopus @blueberreads and @howlsmovinglibrary if you feel like it!

#24 in 2024 #tag games #2024 wrap up

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Ten Books to Know Me:

@chubsthehamster put out a "participate if you want to" call, and I fucking love books, so why not! 1. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke - Read this first in high school and it rewired my brain. Dense, intricate, a November day of a book, it is about the inequities of class, race, gender, and also about the dry stone wall down the lane and its intimacy with the ivy that's grown over it for the last century. There are magicians and academic confrontations.

2. Food in England, by Dorothy Hartley - Read this a year out of undergrad. This is the book that convinced me that I could actually do something worthwhile with my interest in history. It was also fundamental in kicking a few chunks out of my ivory tower, but that's probably a personal take-away rather than anything essential to the book. Learn a few hundred small practicalities that may or may not be applicable to modern life; you decide.

3. Sabriel, by Garth Nix - The first book that spoke to baby's latent goth tendencies. The worldbuilding still lives in the back of my head. Made me interested in WWI history. Read it in middle school, I think? It was such a breath of fresh air, and I admired the protagonist and her self-discipline and self-reliance so much. Probably the first book that made me really worry whether the characters would survive until the end, and boy howdy was that formative. Zombies, quests to save fathers, learning that the legacy you thought was a burden is actually your calling.

4. Ombria in Shadow, by Patricia A. McKillip - Read in undergrad, I think? I reread it a couple times a year. It's a go-to story for when I need something comforting and decadent. I love the gauzy quality of the worldbuilding, the understated approach to very real-world dangers. A royal bastard, a former royal mistress, and a sorceress' apprentice race to protect a child king and save the and the living soul of a city.

5. The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman, et al. - This story got me through my late teens and early twenties. Exactly the right flavor of tragedy to grab my brain and shake it like a maraca; fundamentally changed how I look at stories and narratives. Person-shaped cosmic mechanism denies personhood, falls face first into the hole he's been digging for himself for a billion years, hitting every consequence on the way down, and finds a morsel of peace at the end.

6. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異), by Pu Songling (蒲松齡) - I read this first while doing research for a fanfic and came away hungry for every bit of "classic" Chinese literature in English translation I could find. I've always had a fondness for supernatural anecdotes (The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, by WB Yeats, etc), but this is on the list because it was the initial experience in an ongoing foray into classic and modern East and Southeast Asian literature.

7. Underland, by Robert Macfarlane - Read this a couple years ago. Everything you ever and never wanted to know about caves and being under the earth. The texture of Macfarlane's prose is unlike anything else, and he spends 500 pages leading you in and out of the dark.

8. Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett - This is my compromise instead of just listing every Terry Pratchett book. I read this when I was 12, and I mean it in earnest when I say it shaped how I think to this day. Pratchett's work is a load-bearing beam in my brain. Another grey book, but also lilac.

9. A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn - Okay look, LOOK, I know what you're thinking, but I read this when I was a teenager living in an extremely conservative pocket of a very liberal state. It made me think, which I was good at avoiding because school came easy to me and I usually didn't have to engage my brain at all to have the right answers. I wish with all my heart that I could write to the teacher who assigned it, because it was the very first time anyone had ever made me read history outside a history textbook. I resented that man so much at the time, but I owe him my current career.

10. Stiff, by Mary Roach - Read this as a teen and finally got answers about death I hadn't gotten in a lifetime of religious education. I think I actually snuck it into Mass, because I have a distinct memory of cramming it between the cushion and arm of a pew. Sparked an interest in death and human remains that lead me closer to where I am today.

Please consider yourself tagged if you'd like to participate! And tag me back so I can add more books to my tbr list, please! <3

[etherealacademia]

I just finished my first Patricia mckillip book, Ombria in Shadow, and I was utterly entranced??

it’s about hidden things — worlds, intentions, identities, rooms, capabilities. this book reignited my love for shadowy, dreamlike fantasy.

#patricia mckillip #fantasy books #book recs #personal

[valiantarcher]

2023 Book List

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Foundling by D. M. Cornish (reread)

Lamplighter by D. M. Cornish (reread) 

Factotum by D. M. Cornish (reread)

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip (reread)

Fierce Wars & Faithful Loves by Edmund Spencer (reread)

The Elfin Knight by Edmund Spencer

The Warrior Princess by Edmund Spencer

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (reread)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

(1) Reread off the To-Read Shelf, Reader’s Choice

(1) C.S. Lewis Nonfiction, Reader’s Choice

(1) Tolkien History Book, Reader’s Choice

#2023 Book List #Most of these were me pulling things out of a hat so to speak :/ #*shrugs*

[evenaturtleduck]

Tagged by @river-gale

Last song I listened to: Everybody Talks by Neon Trees

Last book I read: Gerald Poole and the Pirates by Johannes T. Evans (highly recommend!!!)

Last movie I watched: The Princess Bride

Last TV show I watched: I don't remember

Last thing I googled: foothills parkway

Last thing I ate: Slice of leftover ham, half an egg and sausage omelet, the rest of an apple that Oldest Child started and then didn't want to finish (last morning at a vacation cabin and was trying to use up all the perishables before we packed up the car)

Currently reading: Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher (also started reading Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip but was super not in the headspace for her style, which feels less like reading a book and more like contemplating a medieval triptych about an obscure saint--I love her but vacation brain cannot do it)

Amount of sleep: over 8 (because vacation)

Sweet, savory, or spicy: sweet

Tagging: @a-dash-in-the-middle , @aurorawest , @glaucuspacificus , @ace-din-djarin , and @ossified-hypothesis (no pressure y'all--just if it sounds fun!)

#tag game

[ravenya003]

A friend brought it to my attention late last night that fantasy author Patricia McKillip passed away on May 6th, and though there is an obituary in Locus, the news sadly seems to have been overlooked by other on-line fantasy outlets.

She was one of my favourite writers, having penned well over twenty novels across the course of her career and being the recipient of several awards, including the World Fantasy life achievement award in 2008.

She's perhaps most famous for her Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, though for my money her best work was written between 1995 and 2010, decades in which she wrote the likes of Winter Rose, The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Song for the Basilisk, The Tower at Stony Wood, Ombria in Shadow, In The Forests of Serre, Alphabet of Thorn, Od Magic, The Bell at Sealey Head and The Bards of Bone Plain – all standalone fantasy novels that melded her distinctive poetic-prose with stories based on fairy tales, mythology, ballads and other fantasy inspirations.

As a younger reader, there was seriously nothing else like them. The cover art featured above was done by Kinuko Y. Craft, and they’re a perfect visual compliment to McKillip’s dense, ornate prose. Oftentimes reading her books was like trying to unravel a tangled knot – but a lot more fun. No matter how complicated things got, you knew you would eventually land on solid ground.

“Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.”

― Patricia A. McKillip, Harpist in the Wind

#patricia mckillip #kinuko craft #fairytales #books

[loquaciousquark]

I just saw you recc the Riddlemaster trilogy!! I read it by chance last summer and absolutely loved it. I have to find and read the rest of Patricia's work now.

Oh my gosh, please do. She is far and away my favorite author, and I own almost all her books. Riddlemaster is my favorite, but there are so many others that made me cry & laugh & gasp. I highly, highly recommend Ombria in Shadow, The Bell at Sealey Head, Alphabet of Thorn, The Bards of Bone Plain, and Od Magic. Gosh, even just looking at the cover art again is getting me a little choked up. It’s got to be time for a bulk reread...

#patricia mckillip #quark recs

[theherocomplex]

Tomorrow I get to order BOOKS and below is my current list:

Note - these are books that I’ve read, for the most part, and loved enough that I want physical copies.

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

The Return of the Thief (I haven’t read this yet but I’m sure I will love it) by Megan Whalen Turner

Imajica by Clive Barker

Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

Beauty by Robin McKinley

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters 

...I know I’m forgetting a bunch of books because my list keeps changing (and some I took off because while they’re by authors I like, I haven’t read them, so I’ll get them from the library first), and I also want to get all of the Confederation of Valor books, and every Shirley Jackson ever wrote...yeah.

I also have to PURGE my book collection, just a bit, because there are some books I have physical copies for that I will never touch again -- so time to give them away!

#books #portrait of a bee hive

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Bookhaul June 2022

New books:

The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession

The Faceless Woman

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account

Winter Rose

In the Forests of Serre

Ombria in Shadow

Alphabet of Thorn

Riddle-Master

Royal Witches: From Joan of Navarre to Elizabeth Woodville

The Changeling Sea

When Women Were Dragons

All the Horses of Iceland

Šikmý kostel: románová kronika ztraceného města

Šikmý kostel 2: románová kronika ztraceného města

Katherine of Aragón, The True Queen

Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen

Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets

Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen

Ordinary Monsters

Lit for Little Hands: Jane Eyre

The Half Life of Valery K

Second-hand books:

Vánoce v české kultuře

Gretel and the Dark

Wise Children

A Darker Shade of Magic

A Gathering of Shadows

A Conjuring of Light

Frost in May

The House on the Strand

King Charles II

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work

The Giver Quartet Omnibus

It Ends With Us

#booklr #bookhaul #June 2022