From Jane Espenson’s (one of Joss Whedon’s writing buddies) blog:

Make good people do bad things, make bad people do good things, make someone do an unexpected thing… and then figure out the path that gets them there. Chances are, it’ll be an interesting story.

Something Rich and Strange
by Patricia A. McKillip
ibooks, 2005

Megan is an artist who draws seascapes. Jonah owns a shop devoted to treasures from the deep. Their lives, so strongly touched by the ocean, become forever intertwined when enchanting people of the sea lure them further into the underwater world…and away from each other.

Like much of McKillip’s work, this novel reminds me of a sugar-covered confection — perfect and delicious as you bite into it, but without much to chew on. That doesn’t bother me in the least. What I expect from a McKillip novel is wonderfully evocative prose that transports me to a realm where the fantastic seems only natural. Something Rich and Strange delivers this in full. There are no real surprises in this story that resonates with myth and fairy tale, but it’s easy enough to get swept away in the tide (or drawn in by the siren’s song) of McKillip’s descriptive prowess. It’s all so very pretty down under the sea. The only false note is the ecological message — not that I disagree with it, but I thought it a little heavy-handed for the delicate coral kingdom of the undersea world that McKillip created.

Upcoming:
Vellum by Hal Duncan
Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison

“Vinkyr.” Others.

Battles upon the shore, fires that bloomed across field and home, the waters stained with the blood of the slain. It was always the same when the Vinkyr came.

The elders faced each other across the flames of the council fire, and there was no argument. “Summon Dox Imbra. It is the task of the Warrior to defend the people.”

And so Dox Imbra was summoned.

“You must make war,” the elders said to her. “You must protect the people from those who seek to drive us from Ular.”

“I will do it,” said Dox Imbra, and she took in her hands a spear, and she took a shield, and she went away from the council fire and the elders. She went to make the war they had asked of her, a war to defend the people from those who brought them ruin. The Vinkyr. The enemy.

And she was not afraid.