3.5 stars. There were three potential ships and I misidentified the endgame ship TWICE, lol. My skills are getting rusty.

I just couldn't get past Peri loving a man who was so tormented, who gave her nothing in return--was incapable of giving her any of himself. But she was still in love with him & pined for him when he was gone. Just not my favorite message for the target audience. Save the angst for the older crowd--I prefer children's books when the girl falls for a boy who is actually nice to her and thinks of her and not just poor, poor him.

An emotionally rich, well-plotted sea yarn from a generally excellent fantasy author. The half-human/half-otherwordly love triangle reminds me more than a little of Robin McKinley's Hero and the Crown, particularly in the way the afterlife is evoked to allow for a layered resolution; the debonair young wizard character has a whiff of Diana Wynne Jones's Howl about him, and the rustically witchy protagonist a whiff of Jones's Sophie, with her talent for "talking life into things"; the heart-tugging minor chords of the story's emotional palette, revolving around the inexorable power of the sea to take and keep what it pleases, put me in mind of John Allison's The Case of the Fire Inside, among other great selkie stories. This is a book with something to say about bereavement, mourning, and closure, and also about literature/storytelling/writing, which seems to be the true subject of this passage that is nominally about magic:

n  He smiled, his eyes, facing the sun, full of light. “Magic is like night, when you first encounter it.” “Night?” she said doubtfully. She skipped a beat with one oar and the Sea Urchin spun a half-circle. “A vast black full of shapes . . .” He trailed his fingers overboard and the Sea Urchin turned its bow toward the horizon again. “Slowly you learn to turn the dark into shapes, colors. . . . It’s like a second dawn breaking over the world. You see something most people can’t see and yet it seems clear as the nose on your face. That there’s nothing in the world that doesn’t possess its share of magic. Even an empty shell, a lump of lead, an old dead leaf—you look at them and learn to see, and then to use, and after a while you can’t remember ever seeing the world any other way. Everything connects to something else....”n

This was my third McKillip novel after Winter Rose, which was very formative for me, and The Book of Atrix Wolfe, which I honestly don't remember at all. I would rank it somewhere between the two -- quite satisfying.

เรื่องของเวทมนตร์ พ่อมด มังกร รัชทายาทที่ถูกสลับตัว กับหญิงสาวชาวบ้านคนหนึ่ง

เพริสูญเสียพ่อของเธอให้กับทะเล มันไม่เพียงพรากชีวิตของพ่อ แต่มันพรากเอาจิตวิญญาณของแม่เธอไปด้วย

ด้วยความโกรธแค้น คืนหนึ่งเพริจึงปาของสาปแช่งลงไปในทะเล สิ่งที่ย้อนกลับมาไม่ใช่ความกราดเกรี้ยวจากผืนน้ำ แต่เป็นมังกรทะเลตัวใหญ่ที่มีโซ่ทองเส้นยักษ์ล่ามอยู่

เมื่อข่าวเรื่องมังกรแพร่สะพัดออกไป ชาวบ้านเกิดอยากได้ทองจำนวนมหาศาลที่พันธนาการมังกรเอาไว้ จึงได้จ้างพ่อมดเพื่อมาทำลายมนตราที่อยู่บนโซ่

หลังจากปลดปล่อยมังกรแล้ว เพริก็ต้องพบกับเรื่องราวประหลาดจากทะเลที่มาพบกับเธอทุกค่ำคืน

เขียนย่อมาอยากกับเรื่องสยองขวัญ แต่ที่จริงแล้วบรรยากาศเรื่องมันใสๆ เหมือนกับปกนั่นแหละค่ะ ไม่มีผีหลอกแน่นอน

อ่านได้เแป๊บเดียวจบ แต่บางจุดจะงงๆ หน่อย คิดว่าเป็นเพราะสำนวนแปล

Goodreads ให้ 4 เราให้ 3.8

คุณ McKillip เขียนฉากกุ๊กกิ๊กได้น่ารักดีจังเลยแฮะ ชอบตั้งแต่เล่ม The Forgotten Beasts of Eld แล้วน่ะ แกเขียนได้มีเสน่ห์แบบซอฟท์ ๆ ใสๆ ดี --- เล่มนี้พออ่านได้เพลิน ๆ เลย เสียดายที่เนื้อหาสั้นไปหน่อย (ไม่ถึงสองร้อยหน้า) เรื่องราวจึงไม่ได้เข้มข้นลึกซึ้งมากนัก

Wonderfully sweet little story. Great things happen in even the smallest of sleepy fishing villages where the locals have nothing better to do than hang out in the local bar after a hard day’s work and dream of catching the silly sea monster. It loves to watch them work, and they want the gold chain around its neck.

I think I need to devote a shelf primarily to books that stir that old magpie instinct within me.

This is definitely one of them. There are spools and strands of words underlined in my Kindle. I feel beautiful words and fantastic images down to my very bones.

Mini-review will be coming up soon on my Flights of Fantasy progress post.

See oli tõesti tore muinasjutulugu.

"... There’s nothing in the world that doesn't possess its share of magic. Even an empty shell, a lump of lead, an old dead leaf—you look at them and learn to see, and then to use, and after a while you can't remember ever seeing the world any other way. Everything connects to something else."

a mesmerizing, heartwrenching—yet comforting—tale. i feel overcome with a sense of hazy drowsiness, as if i'm slowly emerging from a dream i'm not quite yet ready to wake up from.

the only thing keeping me from rating this magical little book a full, sparkling 5 stars is the fact that it took me a while to feel connected to the characters. sadly, i found the romance between peri and kir rather forced and unbalanced, due to kir being so distant and unreachable (even if i understand and feel his pain as if it were my own, and wish for nothing but his freedom and happiness). i found the platonic relationship between peri and the sea-dragon, for example, much more impactful and emotionally charged.

The sea has always fascinated me, mayhap because I was born near one and usually went to sleep lulled by the sound of its waves. It could also be because I have loved its might, which made me feel totally insignificant in the entire realm of things or maybe because I always stood tall before the sea, almost as if I were challenging it to do its worst, while it gently responded to me by lapping at my feet, almost caressing me and soothing away my pain and anger. I will never know the exact reason but I believe that it is a combination of all this and more, which makes the sea a special entity in my life.

Are you wondering why I am waxing poetry about the sea? Don’t worry, I have not gone completely nutty, it’s just that this book is set in a place by the sea and deals with both the magic as well as the mysterious nature of the sea. This is my first book by the author and I must take time to point out that she definitely writes a lyrical story, one that is both high on imagination as well as story building. A true page turner that leaves you spellbound at every moment. It was almost as if the author had a magical romantic tryst with herself while writing this book, her love and passion flows through the pages and the story, leaving the reader feeling warm and yet seeking an unknown that is both within reach as well as beyond.

The story is about a girl, Peri or Periwinkle, a floor scrubber in an inn, who loses her father to the sea. Her mother, devastated by this loss is almost like a mute sculpture, which adds to the loss felt by Peri. She hates the sea for the loss of her loved ones and with the help of an old woman in the village, she manages to hex the sea. Of course, she doesn’t believe that her hexes will come true and goes about her work as usual. During this period, she meets the Prince Kir, son of the King of that country, who truly yearns for the sea as no one else can. The story moves onto include a magician Lyo, a sea dragon and some wonderful twists and turns, ultimately leading to a wonderful story, which is both romantic and poignant.

Where the story starts with a very light and sweet note, it quickly takes its turn to the mysterious and magical. What made me really like this book was the fact that the twists and turns do not seem to be forced or a farce. You move with it, experiencing the pain, angst, love, magic and all other elements that are thrown in together and faced by the characters. Each character is extremely believable and well developed. Whether it is the anguished Prince Kir or the lost sea dragon or the beguiling magician or even Peri, the main heroine, they are all believable and definitely characters that you can relate to.

I loved the writing, which as I mentioned earlier is totally magical. I usually don’t have favourite quotes or passages from the books I read or rather don’t usually mention them but there were two in this book that really struck me, which makes me want to share it here to explain just how poetic the writing can be. Of course, I can be accused of liking cheesy writing by some, but honestly to me it was magical.

When asked to explain what magic was, the magician Lyo says these words:
“Magic is like night, when you first encounter it. A vast black full of shapes… slowly you learn to turn the dark into shapes, colors… it’s like a second dawn is breaking over the world. You see something most people can’t see and yet it seems clear as the nose on your face. That there’s nothing in the world that doesn’t possess its share of magic.”

And at a later stage when explaining how he knows when Peri calls him, he tells her this
“I listen,” he said obscurely. “If you listen hard enough, you begin to hear things… the sorrow beneath the smile, the voice within the fire dragon, the secret in the young floor-scrubber’s voice, behind all the talk of gold…”

Overall this is a simple story that is told beautifully, full of magic that makes you feel as if you are being soothed and rioted by the waves of the sea. So if you are in a mood to relax and enjoy a simple story, with some magic and beautiful presentation, do pick this one up and I can guarantee that you will enjoy it.

My daughter and I both enjoyed this book about magic, loss, loneliness, and people wishing for things they can't have and to be things they can't be.

There were some pretty heady concepts in here, and some nicely complex language. The little one ate it up like shrimp chowder with a spoon. And, y'know, I kinda did, too.

Il romanzo è molto datato — del 1988 — ma io adoro la penna elegantemente "vecchio stile" della McKillip. Come suggerito dal titolo originale — The Changeling Sea — la storia ruota intorno allo scambio di due bambini, uno dei quali venuto dalle profondità del mare e a questo legato indissolubilmente. È una vicenda semplice, in fin dei conti, pensata per un pubblico giovane, ma piena di belle suggestioni e scritta in modo talmente scorrevole che la si legge tutta d'un fiato. C'è una ragazza un po' selvaggia, che odia il mare per aver portato via suo padre. Ci sono prìncipi in cerca di sé stessi. Un re amato e odiato con un'intensità che non conosce tempo. Un drago incatenato fra le onde. Un giovane mago dal sorriso pronto, un mago vero, che cercherà di placare quel mare pieno di segreti. Tutti elementi classici del fantasy — è vero — ma raccontati e intrecciati con rara grazia.

Insomma, una piacevolissima scoperta fatta in biblioteca. E un libro di cui comprerò una copia alla prima occasione.