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The Essential Patricia A. McKillip
World Fantasy Award winner Patricia A. McKillip (The Forgotten Beasts of Eld) has inspired generations of readers with her enchanting, and subversive fiction. This lovely hardcover career-retrospective edition offers McKillip’s finest short stories. Featuring an original introduction by Ellen Kushner (Swordspoint) and cover art from frequent McKillip illustrator Thomas Canty, The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is a must-have for fans of classic fantasy.
Patricia A. McKillip has been widely hailed as one of fantasy’s most significant authors. She was lauded as “rich and regal” (the New York Times), “enchanting” (the Washington Post), and “luminous” (Library Journal).
Within McKillip’s magical landscapes, a mermaid statue comes to life; princesses dance with dead suitors; a painting and a muse possess a youthful artist; seductive sea travelers enrapture distant lovers, a time-traveling angel endures religious madness; and an overachieving teenage mage discovers her own true name.
Patricia A. McKillip has been widely hailed as one of fantasy’s most significant authors. She was lauded as “rich and regal” (the New York Times), “enchanting” (the Washington Post), and “luminous” (Library Journal).
Within McKillip’s magical landscapes, a mermaid statue comes to life; princesses dance with dead suitors; a painting and a muse possess a youthful artist; seductive sea travelers enrapture distant lovers, a time-traveling angel endures religious madness; and an overachieving teenage mage discovers her own true name.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published October 28, 2025
About the author
Patricia A. McKillip
94 books3,001 followersPatricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 8, 2025
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tachyon for allowing me to review an advanced copy of this book. I had read several of McKillip's novels in the past, including The Book of Atrix Wolfe, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (which is one of my all-time favorite fantasy novels), but I had never read any of her short fiction until now. What a wonderful selection and what a great introduction to her shorter works this book was! I did not expect that her world-building would be as engaging and feel as complete in her short fiction as it does in her novels, but I was very pleasantly surprised that was not the case. Somehow, even in her short fiction, her world-building is just so beautiful and self-contained and detailed. She's never overly wordy, yet manages to completely draw the reader into other places and times.
There's a very good balance of stories in this volume, from fantastic-uncanny to fantastic-marvelous. From societies that are very different from our own and have impossible creatures living in their worlds, to the intrusion of magic in what appears to be our own world. I did feel that some of the writing was stronger and a few stories felt a little unfinished or left me wanting more, but I think these were also a pleasure to read, as they left me imagining what happens to the characters next. My favorite stories were "Lady of the Skull," and "The Lion and the Lark." I also particularly enjoyed "Mer" and "Undine," as I really love mermaid stories!
Full disclosure (those who know me know I read a lot of books for the purpose of using them to teach!), I hope to adopt this book for my introduction to fantasy fiction course and I may also use it in future creative writing modules. McKillip is immensely important to fantasy writing, and to the writing craft more generally. (I'm also going to buy a copy for myself, of course!) I sincerely hope that generations of young people will be introduced to Patricia McKillip's work as it is reissued in these beautiful editions and her work will be enjoyed for years to come.
There's a very good balance of stories in this volume, from fantastic-uncanny to fantastic-marvelous. From societies that are very different from our own and have impossible creatures living in their worlds, to the intrusion of magic in what appears to be our own world. I did feel that some of the writing was stronger and a few stories felt a little unfinished or left me wanting more, but I think these were also a pleasure to read, as they left me imagining what happens to the characters next. My favorite stories were "Lady of the Skull," and "The Lion and the Lark." I also particularly enjoyed "Mer" and "Undine," as I really love mermaid stories!
Full disclosure (those who know me know I read a lot of books for the purpose of using them to teach!), I hope to adopt this book for my introduction to fantasy fiction course and I may also use it in future creative writing modules. McKillip is immensely important to fantasy writing, and to the writing craft more generally. (I'm also going to buy a copy for myself, of course!) I sincerely hope that generations of young people will be introduced to Patricia McKillip's work as it is reissued in these beautiful editions and her work will be enjoyed for years to come.
June 27, 2025
Before I knew who Patricia McKillip was, before I had enough awareness of the sci-fi and fantasy greats, I was a kid with a volume of FIREBIRDS RISING, a short story anthology. And in this collection was a story called “Jack O’Lantern.” I was OBSESSED with this story. It was my favorite from the collection and inspired/shaped a number of short stories I wrote in college.
Sophomore year I would go home at Thanksgiving with a friend and find a book on their shelf—Harrowing the Dragon and Other Stories. I would read it and realize the author’s name sounded familiar. BING! She wrote that short story I loved. And here were more! I hunted up another short fiction collection of hers, Wonders of the Invisible World, and took it with me in ebook form to my senior spring break trip to the beach.
Later, I would stumble across The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, read it, and love it. I would fall into absolutely confounded love with the Riddle Master books and Winter Rose and many of her other novels. But I knew McKillip’s short fiction first. In this collection are some of my favorites— Jack O’Lantern, of course, The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath, and Lady of the Skulls, to name a few bangers, but even here there were a few I either had forgotten but hadn’t read before and ended up loving—Knight of the Well and The Lion and the Lark and others. Even the short stories that strike me as off the wall or “weird” are fascinating in conversation with the rest of her work.
If you want an intro to Patricia McKillip’s short fiction, I definitely recommend this collection. Her worlds are numinous, full of light and color and words, drawing you into enchantment and mystery, entirely spellbound. These stories ring with deep magic like a struck bell, and the echoes will stick with you for a long, long time.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this ARC copy; this is my honest review.
Sophomore year I would go home at Thanksgiving with a friend and find a book on their shelf—Harrowing the Dragon and Other Stories. I would read it and realize the author’s name sounded familiar. BING! She wrote that short story I loved. And here were more! I hunted up another short fiction collection of hers, Wonders of the Invisible World, and took it with me in ebook form to my senior spring break trip to the beach.
Later, I would stumble across The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, read it, and love it. I would fall into absolutely confounded love with the Riddle Master books and Winter Rose and many of her other novels. But I knew McKillip’s short fiction first. In this collection are some of my favorites— Jack O’Lantern, of course, The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath, and Lady of the Skulls, to name a few bangers, but even here there were a few I either had forgotten but hadn’t read before and ended up loving—Knight of the Well and The Lion and the Lark and others. Even the short stories that strike me as off the wall or “weird” are fascinating in conversation with the rest of her work.
If you want an intro to Patricia McKillip’s short fiction, I definitely recommend this collection. Her worlds are numinous, full of light and color and words, drawing you into enchantment and mystery, entirely spellbound. These stories ring with deep magic like a struck bell, and the echoes will stick with you for a long, long time.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this ARC copy; this is my honest review.
October 31, 2025
Weaving magic!
Patricia McKillip has been a magical writer whom I’ve enjoyed for more years than I care to count, starting with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld in 1974 and continuing down through the decades.
This collection of short stories brings her craft forward for all to enjoy. An introduction by the fabulous Ellen Kushner adds acclamation and biographical interest.
McKillop’s word smithing is brilliant, full of beautifully turned phrases imbued with riddles like, “The Amaranth that never dies but only lives forever to watch men die.”
“ I have seen this tower before and I have seen in it the woman we all expected, the only woman some men ever know . . . And every time we come expecting her, the woman who lures us with what’s most precious to us and kills us with it, we build the tower around her again and again and again. . . .”
Populated with peoples such as Ryd Yarrow, a Dragon Harrower, the Scholar habiting an old cottage in the woods, and so many more.
Stories that are indeed the essential McKillop.
A Tachyon ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Patricia McKillip has been a magical writer whom I’ve enjoyed for more years than I care to count, starting with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld in 1974 and continuing down through the decades.
This collection of short stories brings her craft forward for all to enjoy. An introduction by the fabulous Ellen Kushner adds acclamation and biographical interest.
McKillop’s word smithing is brilliant, full of beautifully turned phrases imbued with riddles like, “The Amaranth that never dies but only lives forever to watch men die.”
“ I have seen this tower before and I have seen in it the woman we all expected, the only woman some men ever know . . . And every time we come expecting her, the woman who lures us with what’s most precious to us and kills us with it, we build the tower around her again and again and again. . . .”
Populated with peoples such as Ryd Yarrow, a Dragon Harrower, the Scholar habiting an old cottage in the woods, and so many more.
Stories that are indeed the essential McKillop.
A Tachyon ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Read
September 14, 2025Lady Of The Skulls opens proceedings in suitably grand manner, a tale you're sure you've heard before but definitely want to hear again about a citadel in the desert, its untold riches, its guardian and its curse. That's followed by Wonders Of The Invisible World, whose title could describe the high I get from McKillip's work, and which tells of a time traveller posing as Cotton Mather's angel, "in the long, long night of history, when no one could ever see clearly after sunset, and witches and angels and living dreams trembled just beyond the fire." It's the only SF here, I think, yet still feels like fantasy; it's an image, a moment and its doubts, more than a story per se, but none the worse for that. Out Of The Woods, another highlight, is at once magical and desperately sad, a woman gradually becoming a neglected housekeeper as legend happens around her, barely noticed because she's busy with the cooking and cleaning and everyday stuff of life. And the collection carries on, dancing elegantly in the territory between fairytale, high fantasy and revisionist but never reductive reworking, for its first half, until we hit the longest and for me least successful thing here, The Gorgon In The Cupboard. This is a whimsical yarn of artists and models whose musings on muses only deepened my sense that it was a Peter Beagle idea which had been misdelivered and, if nothing else, thus clarified the difference between two brilliant writers with overlapping audiences and appeal. And after that broke the spell, nothing that followed quite sang to me in the same way, the more modern settings fine but something plenty of writers can do, as against that incredible balancing act of impossibly high fantasy that nevertheless resists tipping into insubstantiality, which the earlier stories here share with the two McKillip novels I've read and loved. It's all still good – it's just that good is a comedown after great. The collection wraps up with two short non-fiction pieces, one of which goes a little way towards showing how McKillip pulled off the remarkable things she did in a field as strewn with pitfalls as fantasy, and the other making her life sound nearly as grand an adventure as her fiction. She will be missed.
(Netgalley ARC)
(Netgalley ARC)
October 27, 2025
Patricia McKillip is a giantess in the world of fantasy writing. She has influenced so many writers (myself included) and gifted us with dozens of works of magic over the course of 45 years. This book is a collection of some of her best-known short stories. I was delighted to see that my favorite story "The Lion and the Lark" was included. "The Lady of the Skulls" was incredible (somehow I had never read that one before); however I don't feel that the rest of the selections really reflect her brilliance. Short story writing is different from novel writing, and this may be why I did not find this collection as captivating as I expected to. Regardless, she remains one of my favorite fantasy writers, and I recommend this to all fantasy fans.
January 29, 2026
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip was my introduction to this author. She comes highly recommended, having won several top awards for fantasy novels and was hailed as “one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre” by Brian Stableford. I’m impressed by the fact that she wrote standalone novels rather than series. She also dabbled in short stories which have been collected here for your delectation and delight. Mine, too.
After an introduction by Ellen Kushner about how much she likes McKillick, the stories kick off with ‘Lady of the Skulls’. Six warriors ride across a plain seeking treasure. A lady watches from the parapet of a tower, which is the “only water source on the entire barren, sun-cracked plain.” She grows plants in skulls using a dragon’s claw for a trowel and “the bronze helm of some unfortunate knight” as a watering can. The door to the tower is only visible at night. On entry, the men must choose what to take from the treasure but if they choose wrongly, they die. The ending was obscure but the prose is definitely stylish. That sums up a few stories here.
‘Wonders of the Invisible World’ is science fiction, though you wouldn’t think so at the start. Disguised as an angel, a time-travelling researcher goes back to visit Cotton Mather in Salem, Massachusetts. Mather has been starving himself to provoke visions and so expects one. This was an interesting piece in both the past history and the portrayal of the future.
A rich merchant is tricked into handing his youngest daughter over to a vampire in “The Lion and the Lark”, a long fairy tale that wasn’t really my cup of tea.
Next up is “The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath”. In Hoarsbreath, gold miners toil inside a dark mountain that’s freezing for eleven months of the year, yet they seem content. Dragon Harrower Ryd Yarrow tells them that the reason for the perpetual winter is the dragon wrapped around them, so they are caught in his freezing breath, except for that one month of the year when he swims away to look for a mate. He can drive the dragon away, but should he? Setting is important in fantasy and this had a fascinating one with good characters too.
“Out of the Woods” is about Leta, “not as pretty as some, but strong and steady as a good horse”, who goes to work as housekeeper and cleaner for Ansley, a scholar practising to be a great mage. He lives in a cottage in the woods left to him by his great-grandmother. Leta works hard for long hours and her husband Dylan, a woodworker, seems to grow distant, spending more time in the tavern. Magical events occur. I enjoyed the prose and the characters again but the ending left me unenlightened.
Merle, a pickpocket and petty thief, steals a set of cards from an old lady collapsed in an alleyway and uses them to tell fortunes for rich customers. “The Fortune Teller” was a pretty little tale with a neat conclusion.
“The Witches of Junket” has a modern American setting. A bunch of women are witches and get called together by Granny Heather when a trout tells her to send for Storm’s children because the thing inside Oyster Rock isn’t going to stay there. Storm is Granny Heather’s daughter, and her children are so special that “hands fly to mouths, coffee cups are dropped and prayers muttered” at the prospect of their arrival. A fine story with many interesting characters.
“Byndley” is a village. The wizard Reck has to find Byndley because it’s meant to be an entrance to the Otherworld and he needs to go back there to make atonement for a youthful sin. A heartwarming fairy tale with a nice ending.
“Jack O’Lantern” is about the lives of women before their liberation and the misleading information about sex. To procreate, “you just lie still and think of the garden.” The closeness of sisters is also a theme and it’s all wrapped up in a story about a village wedding. Jack O’Lantern, who leads the unwary into a swamp, supplies the fantasy element.
“The Stranger” makes music that conjures up huge fire-breathing birds in the sky and brings trouble to farmers on a small island. He offers to stop the attacks for a price. The story is about a lady named Syl, creative in her own way, and her fascination with the stranger. I didn’t quite know what to make of it but the prose and descriptions are beautiful.
“The Gorgon in the Cupboard” isn’t so much in the cupboard as in a painting which is kept in a cupboard. Harry Waterman is one of a group of painters in a town and he’s obsessed with Aurora, the wife of his friend and mentor Alex McCallister. From memory, he paints her mouth on a canvas and it starts to talk to him, telling him it’s the Gorgon and appears when invoked, having some sort of immortal spirit form despite Perseus cutting her head off long ago. Harry begins a new painting with a street girl called Jo as a model. She’s had a very hard life. All the artists seem to be fairly well off and have cooks, servants, and so on, even if they’re not successful. This is not at all the sort of story I would have picked up voluntarily but I really enjoyed it. Moving and poignant. Painters aren’t such a bad lot, really.
In “Mer”, a witch is possessed by a goddess for a hundred years and when released, moves her spirit into a wooden mermaid in Port Dido, which three lads try to steal, so she turns into human form and wanders into town. A roller coaster of strangeness and imagination.
“Weird” starts with a man and a woman in a bathroom eating snacks while there’s some noisy commotion going on outside. He wants to know the weirdest thing that ever happened to her and she tells him. The meaning eluded me but many modern stories do not fulfil my old-fashioned yearning for a clear plot and conclusion. It’s deliberate.
Dawn Chase and her brother Ewan are city folk lost in the wilds in “Hunter’s Moon”. They’re on holiday at Uncle Ridley’s cabin and he’s a hunting, shooting, fishing kind of guy. They meet a strange young man with bright red hair who doesn’t say much. Many Americans are mad for hunting but I get the impression Patricia McKillip is not so keen.
“Undine” is a charming little story about a water nymph. Her kind take mortals as husbands, briefly, but when her turn comes, the world of men has changed and she gets involved with an environmentalist.
Perhaps the best story in the book is the last one, “Knight of the Well”. The Knights of the Well come to the port of Luminium in their pale green and ivory barge as part of the royal procession for the Ritual of the Well, which will honour and placate the waters of the world, especially those in the Kingdom of Obelos. A tale of kelpies, water nymphs, naiads, nereids and undines causing trouble, but no one knows why. The Knight of the Well is Garner Slade, who’s madly in love with Damaris, the Minister of Water. She will soon belong to another. I liked the magical setting and the clever point of view switches that carried the tale along.
To conclude, there are two non-fiction essays by the author: “What Inspires Me”: Guest of Honor Speech at WisCon, and “Writing High Fantasy” both of which will be of interest to fans. I think I am one now. Some of the stories are rather whimsical and not as plotty as old men prefer but there are plenty of plot-thick epic fantasy novels for that sort of thing. Short stories offer a chance to do something different and McKillip’s prose is enchanting enough to carry off almost anything. I might check out her novels, too. The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is well worth a look for fantasy fans.
After an introduction by Ellen Kushner about how much she likes McKillick, the stories kick off with ‘Lady of the Skulls’. Six warriors ride across a plain seeking treasure. A lady watches from the parapet of a tower, which is the “only water source on the entire barren, sun-cracked plain.” She grows plants in skulls using a dragon’s claw for a trowel and “the bronze helm of some unfortunate knight” as a watering can. The door to the tower is only visible at night. On entry, the men must choose what to take from the treasure but if they choose wrongly, they die. The ending was obscure but the prose is definitely stylish. That sums up a few stories here.
‘Wonders of the Invisible World’ is science fiction, though you wouldn’t think so at the start. Disguised as an angel, a time-travelling researcher goes back to visit Cotton Mather in Salem, Massachusetts. Mather has been starving himself to provoke visions and so expects one. This was an interesting piece in both the past history and the portrayal of the future.
A rich merchant is tricked into handing his youngest daughter over to a vampire in “The Lion and the Lark”, a long fairy tale that wasn’t really my cup of tea.
Next up is “The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath”. In Hoarsbreath, gold miners toil inside a dark mountain that’s freezing for eleven months of the year, yet they seem content. Dragon Harrower Ryd Yarrow tells them that the reason for the perpetual winter is the dragon wrapped around them, so they are caught in his freezing breath, except for that one month of the year when he swims away to look for a mate. He can drive the dragon away, but should he? Setting is important in fantasy and this had a fascinating one with good characters too.
“Out of the Woods” is about Leta, “not as pretty as some, but strong and steady as a good horse”, who goes to work as housekeeper and cleaner for Ansley, a scholar practising to be a great mage. He lives in a cottage in the woods left to him by his great-grandmother. Leta works hard for long hours and her husband Dylan, a woodworker, seems to grow distant, spending more time in the tavern. Magical events occur. I enjoyed the prose and the characters again but the ending left me unenlightened.
Merle, a pickpocket and petty thief, steals a set of cards from an old lady collapsed in an alleyway and uses them to tell fortunes for rich customers. “The Fortune Teller” was a pretty little tale with a neat conclusion.
“The Witches of Junket” has a modern American setting. A bunch of women are witches and get called together by Granny Heather when a trout tells her to send for Storm’s children because the thing inside Oyster Rock isn’t going to stay there. Storm is Granny Heather’s daughter, and her children are so special that “hands fly to mouths, coffee cups are dropped and prayers muttered” at the prospect of their arrival. A fine story with many interesting characters.
“Byndley” is a village. The wizard Reck has to find Byndley because it’s meant to be an entrance to the Otherworld and he needs to go back there to make atonement for a youthful sin. A heartwarming fairy tale with a nice ending.
“Jack O’Lantern” is about the lives of women before their liberation and the misleading information about sex. To procreate, “you just lie still and think of the garden.” The closeness of sisters is also a theme and it’s all wrapped up in a story about a village wedding. Jack O’Lantern, who leads the unwary into a swamp, supplies the fantasy element.
“The Stranger” makes music that conjures up huge fire-breathing birds in the sky and brings trouble to farmers on a small island. He offers to stop the attacks for a price. The story is about a lady named Syl, creative in her own way, and her fascination with the stranger. I didn’t quite know what to make of it but the prose and descriptions are beautiful.
“The Gorgon in the Cupboard” isn’t so much in the cupboard as in a painting which is kept in a cupboard. Harry Waterman is one of a group of painters in a town and he’s obsessed with Aurora, the wife of his friend and mentor Alex McCallister. From memory, he paints her mouth on a canvas and it starts to talk to him, telling him it’s the Gorgon and appears when invoked, having some sort of immortal spirit form despite Perseus cutting her head off long ago. Harry begins a new painting with a street girl called Jo as a model. She’s had a very hard life. All the artists seem to be fairly well off and have cooks, servants, and so on, even if they’re not successful. This is not at all the sort of story I would have picked up voluntarily but I really enjoyed it. Moving and poignant. Painters aren’t such a bad lot, really.
In “Mer”, a witch is possessed by a goddess for a hundred years and when released, moves her spirit into a wooden mermaid in Port Dido, which three lads try to steal, so she turns into human form and wanders into town. A roller coaster of strangeness and imagination.
“Weird” starts with a man and a woman in a bathroom eating snacks while there’s some noisy commotion going on outside. He wants to know the weirdest thing that ever happened to her and she tells him. The meaning eluded me but many modern stories do not fulfil my old-fashioned yearning for a clear plot and conclusion. It’s deliberate.
Dawn Chase and her brother Ewan are city folk lost in the wilds in “Hunter’s Moon”. They’re on holiday at Uncle Ridley’s cabin and he’s a hunting, shooting, fishing kind of guy. They meet a strange young man with bright red hair who doesn’t say much. Many Americans are mad for hunting but I get the impression Patricia McKillip is not so keen.
“Undine” is a charming little story about a water nymph. Her kind take mortals as husbands, briefly, but when her turn comes, the world of men has changed and she gets involved with an environmentalist.
Perhaps the best story in the book is the last one, “Knight of the Well”. The Knights of the Well come to the port of Luminium in their pale green and ivory barge as part of the royal procession for the Ritual of the Well, which will honour and placate the waters of the world, especially those in the Kingdom of Obelos. A tale of kelpies, water nymphs, naiads, nereids and undines causing trouble, but no one knows why. The Knight of the Well is Garner Slade, who’s madly in love with Damaris, the Minister of Water. She will soon belong to another. I liked the magical setting and the clever point of view switches that carried the tale along.
To conclude, there are two non-fiction essays by the author: “What Inspires Me”: Guest of Honor Speech at WisCon, and “Writing High Fantasy” both of which will be of interest to fans. I think I am one now. Some of the stories are rather whimsical and not as plotty as old men prefer but there are plenty of plot-thick epic fantasy novels for that sort of thing. Short stories offer a chance to do something different and McKillip’s prose is enchanting enough to carry off almost anything. I might check out her novels, too. The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is well worth a look for fantasy fans.
April 20, 2026
“Why write fantasy? Because it’s there. Fantasy is as old as poetry and myth, which are as old as language…Fantasy changes with the changing times, and yet it is still the oldest kind of tale in the world, for it began once upon a time, and we haven’t heard the end of it yet.”
This might be a collection of essential Patricia A McKillip short stories, but McKillip in general is essential fantasy reading in my opinion.
Her books found me in the end, sitting innocuously on the shelves of my high school library. I picked one up on a whim and I haven’t been able to stop going back for more since.
This was my first foray into her shorter fiction and stirred up my love of fantasy yet again. She does so much in a single story. Half of these stories could have been the kernels of full-length novels but exist happily on their own, hinting of greater worlds behind the curtain. I want to explore McKillip’s imagination forever.
Some new favourite 5-star stories within this collection include: Lady of the Skull, The Lion and the Lark, The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath, The Stranger, Mer, Hunter's Moon, and Knight of the Well
Notes for my reference or yours:
October 29, 2025
Patricia A. McKillip was the renowned and award-winning author of twenty-seven fantasy novels. She received the inaugural World Fantasy Award for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and later received the World Fantasy lifetime achievement award. She was also a three-time Mythopoeic Award winner.
If, like me, you somehow never read her work, this collection is a great starting point. It's a collection of her short stories and has an introduction by Ellen Kushner, who had known her personally. Terri Windling is also mentioned in the introduction, if you recognize that name. They were all huge in fantasy for the time period, with amazing heroines, magic, and stories that lingered long after you finished them.
We open with "Lady of the Skulls." Knights are drawn to a tower full of treasures in the middle of a desert, and die if they choose to leave with the wrong treasure. It's a riddle posed that many failed to answer, but the thoughts a genre-savvy reader would have aren't clearly answered either. It rather sets the tone for the collection. Many stories raise philosophical questions and make you think about morality, especially when there's an ambiguous ending.
"Out Of The Woods" feels like a glimpse into Arthurian legend from the perspective of an ordinary outsider, and in "Witches of Junket," the heroes are old women who have to beat back an old darkness together, using everyday skills and ancient knowledge. There's fairy magic like in "Byndley" or ordinary magic like in "Jack O'Lantern," and a reverse seal wife situation in "Undine." The stories all carry that thread of magic, and each little world is one to treasure as you read it.
If, like me, you somehow never read her work, this collection is a great starting point. It's a collection of her short stories and has an introduction by Ellen Kushner, who had known her personally. Terri Windling is also mentioned in the introduction, if you recognize that name. They were all huge in fantasy for the time period, with amazing heroines, magic, and stories that lingered long after you finished them.
We open with "Lady of the Skulls." Knights are drawn to a tower full of treasures in the middle of a desert, and die if they choose to leave with the wrong treasure. It's a riddle posed that many failed to answer, but the thoughts a genre-savvy reader would have aren't clearly answered either. It rather sets the tone for the collection. Many stories raise philosophical questions and make you think about morality, especially when there's an ambiguous ending.
"Out Of The Woods" feels like a glimpse into Arthurian legend from the perspective of an ordinary outsider, and in "Witches of Junket," the heroes are old women who have to beat back an old darkness together, using everyday skills and ancient knowledge. There's fairy magic like in "Byndley" or ordinary magic like in "Jack O'Lantern," and a reverse seal wife situation in "Undine." The stories all carry that thread of magic, and each little world is one to treasure as you read it.
January 3, 2026
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is a nice collection of shorter fiction for readers with a selection of the author's works from 1982 - 2012. Released 28th Oct 2025 by Tachyon, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
The author is a classic staple of speculative fiction over the last 40+ years. Best known for her long-form novels, she's nevertheless adept at shorter forms and this is a solid retrospective with a selection of stories from over 30 years of her illustrious career. Even experienced fans will likely find some new gems in the collection. All of them are quality top shelf short stories and shorter novellas.
For completists, the stories have all been previously published elsewhere (but never collected together before); there is no new material for this volume outside of the excellent foreword by editor Ellen Kushner.
Four stars. Solid collection for fans new and old. It would be an excellent choice for public or home library acquisition.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is a nice collection of shorter fiction for readers with a selection of the author's works from 1982 - 2012. Released 28th Oct 2025 by Tachyon, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
The author is a classic staple of speculative fiction over the last 40+ years. Best known for her long-form novels, she's nevertheless adept at shorter forms and this is a solid retrospective with a selection of stories from over 30 years of her illustrious career. Even experienced fans will likely find some new gems in the collection. All of them are quality top shelf short stories and shorter novellas.
For completists, the stories have all been previously published elsewhere (but never collected together before); there is no new material for this volume outside of the excellent foreword by editor Ellen Kushner.
Four stars. Solid collection for fans new and old. It would be an excellent choice for public or home library acquisition.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
October 27, 2025
This magical book of short stories is filled with all the poetic prose and attention to detail her fans have come to love, even small ones that create the most vividly immersive mental pictures, such as: “...how the sunlight you’ve ignored all day lies on the yellow leaves like beaten gold and how threads of gold drift all around you in the air. Cobweb, you think. But you see gold.”
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is, like all her books, an immersive fantasy, with some stories high fantasy, some stories low and just slightly off our world in a way that makes you wish it were real, but all the stories within are beautiful and ponderous as she weaves words like delicate spiderwebs. The only frustration is that each short story ends so quickly, leaving the imagination clamoring for more.
No one has ever written fantasy like the great Patricia A. McKillip, and this book of her short stories is satisfying to the end, leaving your mind still wandering the echoes of its magical lands and characters’ lives, even long after the book is closed.
Read this book only if you want “...to remember that once I had been in that secret, gorgeous country just beyond imagination, and to possess in this drab world a tiny part of that one.” The land of magic, of Faerie.
I received this book in exchange for my honest review from Net Galley. All opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the publisher or its affiliates or the author.
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is, like all her books, an immersive fantasy, with some stories high fantasy, some stories low and just slightly off our world in a way that makes you wish it were real, but all the stories within are beautiful and ponderous as she weaves words like delicate spiderwebs. The only frustration is that each short story ends so quickly, leaving the imagination clamoring for more.
No one has ever written fantasy like the great Patricia A. McKillip, and this book of her short stories is satisfying to the end, leaving your mind still wandering the echoes of its magical lands and characters’ lives, even long after the book is closed.
Read this book only if you want “...to remember that once I had been in that secret, gorgeous country just beyond imagination, and to possess in this drab world a tiny part of that one.” The land of magic, of Faerie.
I received this book in exchange for my honest review from Net Galley. All opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the publisher or its affiliates or the author.
October 24, 2025
**I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley.**
I'm not entirely sure why I struggled so much with these stories. On the sentence level they're absolutely gorgeous and there's a lot of nice variety here. I think it comes down to the way I read fantasy: it takes me some time to find my feet in the world, which is fine in a novel, but in a short story means that just when I've gotten settled it's over. It also made the stories read slow to me because I kept having to recalibrate. But I recognize that that is very much a me thing, and again the writing is really beautiful.
I do think there is a little sameyness in terms of the characters you find here: expect a beautiful woman who is magical in some capacity; expect a handsome het couple. It's telling to me - and I guess to my tastes - that the most stand-out couple here was the one where the husband was obviously cheating. Everyone else kind of blends.
That said, if you're able to dive right into a fantasy story, or you love the short story format in any genre this collection is without a doubt worth your while. The writing is really stellar, and even if it sometimes seems that the characters repeat, McKillip always has something interesting to say with them.
I'm not entirely sure why I struggled so much with these stories. On the sentence level they're absolutely gorgeous and there's a lot of nice variety here. I think it comes down to the way I read fantasy: it takes me some time to find my feet in the world, which is fine in a novel, but in a short story means that just when I've gotten settled it's over. It also made the stories read slow to me because I kept having to recalibrate. But I recognize that that is very much a me thing, and again the writing is really beautiful.
I do think there is a little sameyness in terms of the characters you find here: expect a beautiful woman who is magical in some capacity; expect a handsome het couple. It's telling to me - and I guess to my tastes - that the most stand-out couple here was the one where the husband was obviously cheating. Everyone else kind of blends.
That said, if you're able to dive right into a fantasy story, or you love the short story format in any genre this collection is without a doubt worth your while. The writing is really stellar, and even if it sometimes seems that the characters repeat, McKillip always has something interesting to say with them.
November 9, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.
TLDR: A lovely collection of fantastical and occasionally surprisingly subversive stories.
My first real experience with Patricia McKillip was just last year when I read her first novel, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. It’s one of those timeless, magical books that I should have read decades ago but I’m so glad to have encountered it. I’d categorize The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn in this category as well. It has a wistfulness and engages– with irony, sometimes hidden anger, sometimes resignation– the difficulties that women experience.
While I didn’t enjoy the whole collection of stories as much as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (talk about a high bar), this collection was a treat. The language is remarkable– McKillip had sucha gift of painting a picture with few words and leaving so much unsaid. I especially loved the tale about the mermaid statue and the possessed painting. After restarting it several times, I ended up skipping the story about the seductive sea travels– I couldn’t get into it. Loved the rest though.
TLDR: A lovely collection of fantastical and occasionally surprisingly subversive stories.
My first real experience with Patricia McKillip was just last year when I read her first novel, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. It’s one of those timeless, magical books that I should have read decades ago but I’m so glad to have encountered it. I’d categorize The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn in this category as well. It has a wistfulness and engages– with irony, sometimes hidden anger, sometimes resignation– the difficulties that women experience.
While I didn’t enjoy the whole collection of stories as much as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (talk about a high bar), this collection was a treat. The language is remarkable– McKillip had sucha gift of painting a picture with few words and leaving so much unsaid. I especially loved the tale about the mermaid statue and the possessed painting. After restarting it several times, I ended up skipping the story about the seductive sea travels– I couldn’t get into it. Loved the rest though.
November 2, 2025
My thanks for the ARC goes to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications. I'm voluntarily leaving a review.
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Short stories
THE ESSENTIAL PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP captures the fantastical.
I feel like I am spun into these tales as I read because I'm so invested. McKillip has been a favorite for years, and these are stories I've never read.
This would be a great book to use as an introduction to fantasy because of the many types of subgenres. Every story is approachable. The language is enthralling without being overly ornate but is still unique. It's hard to believe these stories are older because the themes feel contemporary.
If you're a fantasy aficionado, this is a must read. If you want to find out what all the fuss is about over fantasy, here's a great introduction. If you just want to explore authors that changed fiction—here you go.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will read it again.
Happy reading!
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Short stories
THE ESSENTIAL PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP captures the fantastical.
I feel like I am spun into these tales as I read because I'm so invested. McKillip has been a favorite for years, and these are stories I've never read.
This would be a great book to use as an introduction to fantasy because of the many types of subgenres. Every story is approachable. The language is enthralling without being overly ornate but is still unique. It's hard to believe these stories are older because the themes feel contemporary.
If you're a fantasy aficionado, this is a must read. If you want to find out what all the fuss is about over fantasy, here's a great introduction. If you just want to explore authors that changed fiction—here you go.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will read it again.
Happy reading!
May 11, 2026
I received this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This was exactly what I was hoping for when I picked this up. I adore Patricia's stories and this really brought me back to my childhood.
Some of the stories shone more brightly than others, but overall most of them were very good. If I had to pick a favorite, it is a tie between "Knight of the Well" and "Undine". I have always adored books with water fae in them.
This is one of those books that you might not read straight through, and instead pick up and read a story or two as the mood hits you. I think it would make a good travel book too. I also liked that not all of the stories were fantasy, and there was some scifi and nonfiction essays as well. It was a nice mix overall.
This was exactly what I was hoping for when I picked this up. I adore Patricia's stories and this really brought me back to my childhood.
Some of the stories shone more brightly than others, but overall most of them were very good. If I had to pick a favorite, it is a tie between "Knight of the Well" and "Undine". I have always adored books with water fae in them.
This is one of those books that you might not read straight through, and instead pick up and read a story or two as the mood hits you. I think it would make a good travel book too. I also liked that not all of the stories were fantasy, and there was some scifi and nonfiction essays as well. It was a nice mix overall.
August 3, 2025
If you’ve never read her stories before or just want to revisit the magic, The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is a great place to start. Collecting some of her best short stories, including her speech about what inspires her work, readers can peruse fairy tales, science fiction, modern fantasy, and everything in between. Endlessly inventive, McKillip never fails to surprise and delight. My favorite stories were “The Lion and the Lark,” “Jack O’Lantern,” and “Mer,” but there is not a bad story among the bunch. Highly recommended for readers of fantasy or literary fiction.
Thank you to Tachyon and Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy.
Thank you to Tachyon and Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy.
December 24, 2025
Over the years I have read a lot of McKillip's novels, and earlier this year I re-read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld after many years. There is no doubt in my mind that she is one of the major fantasy writers of the past 50 years. But when I finished the last story in this collection, I felt somewhat disappointed. While there are some VERY good stories in this collection, overall I didn't find it as strong as McKillip's novels, particularly the ones that have garnered the highest praise. I don't think the short fiction format shows her strengths to the same extent that a novel does.
July 19, 2025
I might be biased, but I have never read a Patricia A. McKillip story that I didn't immediately love. This collection was no exception. Patricia had a mastery of the English language that few authors can even come close to; her worldbuilding (even in short stories!) is both extensively detailed and mysterious all at once; her characters are flawed and loveable and everything in between. Patricia and her writing continue to hold a special place in my heart.
November 4, 2025
A cross sampling of the best of the best short stories by Patricia A. McKillip, an author who is closest to literary royalty as you can find. These stories have been 5 star reads for so many readers, how could I rate them as anything except 5 stars. As with all collections, some resonate more than others, but they are all great.
October 22, 2025
Incredible and fantastically put together. The love and care put into this edition is plain to see from the first page. A must for any Patricia A. McKillip fan and frankly a must for anyone new to her work.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 18, 2026
An excellent collection of classic fantasy stories. Enjoyed it very much.
May 25, 2026
No one writes as beautifully as McKillip.
February 10, 2026
One of the early authors who shaped how I view and read fantasy is the talented Patricia McKillip. I loved her fantasy stories and when I saw this available, I had to pick it up and read it. It is definitely a beautifully and lovingly put together collection of some of her best works. Some of them were new to me. Some of them I had seen before. What moved me was the foreward as well as the afterwards. There is more to this author than we knew.
To read the rest of my review, click on the image below to see it on my website.
*provided by NetGalley
To read the rest of my review, click on the image below to see it on my website.
*provided by NetGalley
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