Even though this is my first Patricia A. McKillip book, I have known her reputation as a writer and I have had her on my to-read list for a long time. This book is one of her best-known ones, and the critical reception was very positive. According to the Wikipedia:

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld has been reviewed by Locus as "a mythical kingdom fantasy with a marvelous heroine, satisfying strange beasts and chilling sorcery". Publishers Weekly wrote "this magical moonlight fantasy has dignity and romance, heartstopping suspense, adventure, richness of concept and language." Lester del Rey praised the novel as "a true fairy tale in its telling and its development," citing the "marvelous subtlety" of McKillip's storytelling and her "inevitable but unexpected" resolution of the story.

Before reading it, my expectation was that it would be well-written, lyrical and fairy-tale-like. And, to tell you the truth, I respect and I can enjoy that kind of books, but I prefer a more straightforward, epic narration. Above all, I enjoy it when I get to care deeply about the characters, and that usually does not happen with lyrical/poetical books.

The book was better than I had expected, and I ended up loving it unreservedly. Yes, it's lyrical and well-written, but it also tells a rich, very human story, beautiful and terrible, and I cared a lot about the main characters. I highly recommend the novel and it certainly will not be the last one I read by this author. ( )

Sybel, descended from a long line of wizards, lives alone on Eld Mountain with only her magical beasts for companionship. But one day Coren of Sirle brings her a baby boy to care for, the son of Sybel's aunt Rianna who has married Drede, the king of Eldwold. But the child is not Drede's, his father was Norrel, Coren's brother, with whom Rianna had had an affair. And now both Rianna and Norrel are dead, killed by Drede in his jealousy, and Drede is searching for the baby boy, to kill him as well. Eld Mountain seems the only place that the child can be safe, but the sixteen year old Sybel is not enamoured of the idea:

She woke the Lyon, asleep in the garden, with a touch of her mind, and sent it padding to the gates to cast a golden, warning eye at the intruder. But the shouting continued, urgent incoherent. She sighed, exasperated, and sent the Falcon Ter instructions to lift the intruder and drop him off the top of Eld Mountain. The shouting ceased suddenly, a moment later, but a baby's thin uncomforted voice wailed into the silence, startling her. She rose finally, walked through the marble hall in her bare feet, out into the garden, where the animals stirred restlessly about her. She reached the gates, of thin iron bars and gold joints, and looked out.

An armed man stood with a baby in his arms and Ter Falcon on his shoulder. The man was silent, frozen motionless under the play of Ter's grip; the child in his mailed arms cried oblivious. Sybel's eyes moved from the still, half-shadowed face to the Falcon's eyes.

'I told you' she said privately, 'to drop him off the top of Eld Mountain'.

Time passes and the boy, Tamlorn, grows. Until one day Coren returns to Sybel's gates and it seems that the story of Tamlorn's birth is not quite the true one. And the more Sybel tries to keep herself and Tam separate from the world, the more difficult this becomes.

This is a book that reads very like a fairy tale and for that reason it took me a little while to warm to the story. But at its heart are real human feelings and I ended up enjoying it a lot. At the end of last year I enjoyed Patricia A. McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn as well, so I'll be looking out for more by this author. Recommended. ( )

I have a new book-type. It’s the swamp-witch, forest-witch, queen-witch type. I just added The Forgotten Beasts of Eld to my favorites stack!
I’d describe this book as Ursula K Leguin writing Circe. Delicate prose,strong character development, enticing story, pearls of wisdom in every page. A must read if you are into fantasy! ( )

I love how McKillip's stories fall between the wildly fantastical and a meditation on humanity's place in the world. I love the strength of her wizards, and the fact that so many of them are women. Powerful story, glad it's being re-released. ( )

This was an interesting book to read. It feels reminiscent of an epic, like The Odyssey or Beowulf, with lines of repetition, descriptions and comparisons of mythical or powerful beings, and full names interspersed in a simple story. Descriptions of the world are lacking in the pages, but that didn't seem to hinder it--the world just is, accepted without a second thought. Some characterization was a bit thin and this did throw me off a few times, but overall I think the effect was done very well. It's still a bit hard to describe this one so I may need to edit my review once I've let it sit in the back of my mind for a bit. ( )