The Cygnet And The Firebird (1995) - Plot & Excerpts
Most reviews that I've read of Patricia McKillip's Cygnet duology seem to express a strong preference for either The Sorceress and the Cygnet or the The Cygnet and the Firebird. This should not be surprising. Despite sharing characters and a fantasy world, they have separate plot lines and widely varying tones. When you come down to it, The Cygnet and the Firebird is more a companion novel than a sequel, although without having read The Sorceress and the Cygnet first, certain things won't make sense.I read the two books back-to-back over a weekend, and because the ending of the first book disappointed me, I was a little wary when I started the second, because at first it seemed like it might be more of the same. However, new mysteries and threats begin appearing in Ro Holding very quickly. First, a mage who can stop time steals into the castle searching for an ancient magical key that none of the royal family even knew existed. Not long after, a firebird appears in the sky above the castle, whose cry chills the heart and turns whatever it touches into precious stones. For a few hours each evening, he turns into a young man, but is unable to reveal anything about himself or the enchantment he is under. Nyx and Meguet, the heroines of the previous book, begin searching for answers. The mage, Rad Ilex abducts Meguet and takes her with him to his world, Saphier, which is ruled by a warlord-sorcerer named Drakken Saphier and is mostly taken up by a desert that is haunted by the memories and rumors of dragons. Nyx must find some way to get the firebird-man named Brand to tell his tale, and track Meguet into Saphier, a country that does not appear on any map she knows.The Publishers Weekly review states that "this sequel lacks the vitality of its predecessor," but I couldn't disagree more! Instead, I find it to be an unusually fast-paced McKillip novel, and probably the closest she's come to writing a fantasy adventure since the famed Riddle-Master trilogy. Her prose may not be quite as beautiful here as it is elsewhere, mostly because she doesn't take the time to luxuriate in the language, but the plot is among her strongest. It reminds me a bit of the Axis-Kane backstory from her later novel Alphabet of Thorn, which is wonderful, because their story was my favorite part of that book.This book has it all: Dragons! Traveling between worlds! Mages! Deserts! Firebirds! I found myself grinning quite a bit at various parts, just because my inner fantasy nerd was so satisfied, and as the climax approached I grew breathless.Meguet and the Gatekeeper are as wonderful as ever in this book, but the real joy and surprise is Nyx, who was such a shadowy figure in the last book but here becomes human. I like the newcomers, Rad and Brand, as well. There is a beautiful scene between Nyx and Brand in an abandoned dragon's lair filled with waterfalls—well, I'll just let you read it. The ending is perfect too ... I think it's similar to what the movie Thor tried to accomplish, but McKillip does it better.Recommended to all McKillip fans. Read Sorceress first for the background, then read Firebird for the world-building, the characters, and the rollercoaster of a story.
A mysterious mage fleetingly appears at Ro Holding looking for a magical object, closely followed by a man with no memory of the past, transformed into a firebird, whose mournful cries turns anything in its path into precious gems or gold.Convinced the two are connected in some way, Nyx, sorceress and heir to Ro holding searches all her books for knowledge and spells to help the firebird regain his memory. When the mysterious mage reappears, fights with the firebird and abducts her warrior cousin Meguet, Nyx must use all her skill to find a way to follow them and unravel the mystery. A quest that will take her to the land of Sapier where dragons slumbering in the eerie magical desert, and a plot against her homeland is in the making.An interesting tale that disappointingly fails to live up to its full potential.
What do You think about The Cygnet And The Firebird (1995)?
Sequel to "The Sorceress and the Cygnet". The continuing story of the sorceress Nyx who is heir to Ro Holding, and her cousin Meguet who is Guardian of Ro Holding. A normal day becomes surreal and mysterious as mage walks into Ro Holding, and freezes time in order to find something that Nyx did not even know existed. He is followed soon after by a magical creature whose cry is terrible and whose flames turn carts into jewelled trees. This is an example of the lyrical language to look forward to in the book: "It came straight at them; its vast shadow, flung forward, reached them first. It seemed, as the earth darkened beneath its broad underbelly, to have swallowed the sun. Then it veered, loosed the sun from beneath its wing." - I found the writing quite beautiful.
—Janice (Janicu)
I didn't like this one as much as I remembered liking it, possibly because I spent most of my reading time trying to remember the plot instead of just reading it. The Cygnet and the Firebird picks up only a few months after The Sorceress and the Cygnet, when a strange magician slips into the house of Lauro Ro without anyone but Meguet, the guardian, and Nyx, the sorceress, noticing. He's searching for a hidden key that Nyx discovers is linked to the great mage Chrysom, a key that probably opens his missing book of magic. On the stranger's heels comes a magical bird whose scream turns anyone who gets caught in it into jeweled trees. (This is, after all, a Patricia McKillip story.) Both the mage and the firebird are central to the plot, which is, like in The Sorceress and the Cygnet, divided, this time between Meguet and the mage and Nyx and the firebird. As usual, McKillip's writing is lush and evocative, though I think it may not be to many readers' taste; for me, it's as important as the story she chooses to tell. There are also dragons--I like these dragons a lot. Not my favorite of McKillip's books, but still entertaining.
—Melissa McShane
One of my favorite books of all time. Well characterized, poetically written, and surreal. She paints a unique world in bold elegant strokes without belaboring the point or over explaining. I am reading the Cygnet and am once again amazed at how good she is. The two main female characters are gracefully and simply drawn in a way that allows the audience to know who these women. The sorceress routinely walks out of her shoes and forgets to eat. Her motto is better sorry than safe. The guardian is a woman who gets dressed up in velvets and then has to casually walk over to pick an ornamental sword off a wall display and hide it nonchalantly in her skirt every time trouble strikes. They are amazing, both characters so elusive in their cognitive distance that its kind of hard to access them, but who are so complete as to be women you do and will know, that you could see in a coffee shop, or in a downtown office, they are your cousin, your best friend. You will see them in the women around you.
—Rachel
