Rating: 
Summary: A confusing knightly quest
Review: Patricia McKillip brings us a good old knightly quest. I was reminded of reading Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur as a child, except that this being McKillip, she adds an extra level of confusion to the story. Well, the protagonists in the three main threads of the tale (reminiscent of the braided stories in Le Morte D'Arthur where the knights have separate adventures before coming together again) seem equally confused. None of them find what they thought they wanted. The knight, Cyan Dag, faces a bewildering proliferation of towers, as foreshadowed by the three golden towers on his coat of arms. His only guide is his generous heart. He follows his instincts as he is sent on a quest to rescue a damsel presumed in distress. His journey intersects those of Melanthos, the selkie's daughter, and Thayne Ysse, heir to a conquered kingdom. Their fates seem to get woven together by mysterious sorcerous sisters. As usual, McKillip takes us through a lovingly depicted, shifting landscape full of odd people and enigmatic magic: a dragon, a bard, a baker who is also a selkie, towers, mirrors, and the difference between weaving and embroidery. Read her for her poetry, not her world-building: I never got the sense that her world was somewhere I could live in, outside this one dreamlike bubble. Her characters are real enough, though, with believable motivations and anxieties. I enjoyed reading this novel, but found myself not entirely satisfied at the end. A little too much confusion, not quite enough resolution at the end, leaving me with a sense of ``That's it? So what did it all mean! '' Yes, she provided explanations, and everything more or less made sense, but it didn't connect with me in a visceral way. Maybe it was that Cyan Dag's attachment to his lover was so important to the plot, but since she does not go on a quest, we never really see her. I recommend this book, but it is not my favorite McKillip.
Rating: 
Summary: "You are the Measure of What I Win or Loose in Gloinmere..."
Review: Patricia McKillip is one of the most unique fantasy writers out there, blending echoes of ancient stories in with intricate and elegant poetic-prose that may surprise those new to her writing style. I must admit that her work is an acquired taste, it took me a few tries to fully understand and appreciate her work; to grasp the story underneath the many-layered poetic language that she invokes.
"The Tower at Stony Wood" is no exception to this style, so if you are a first-time reader to McKillip, and find this book incomprehensible; don't give up - try another of her books and you'll most likely become attuned to her way of writing and become as big a fan as I am. In this case, McKillip borrows two ideas from Celtic folklore: the legend of the selkies, half-seal, half-fish women that sometimes abandon the seas to live on the earth, and the famous image of "The Lady of Shallot" (best known through the works of poet Alfred Tennyson) - the lonely woman who weaves the images she sees in her mirror, imprisoned in a stone tower.
In Arthurian legend, this woman is Lady Elaine, who died of her unrequited to Sir Lancelot, but here McKillip gives her a new identity. Cyan Dag is a loyal knight of the King of Gloinmere, who also rules over the isle of Skye and the Northern Isles of Ysse. King Regis Aurum has just taken a bride from Skye, but a bard that has travelled with the bridal party shares with Cyan a terrible revelation: that the new queen is an imposter, and the real Lady Gwynne is imprisoned in a tower, forbidden from seeing the world in its reality.
Meanwhile, Thayne Ysse, the heir to the throne of the Northern Islands broods over his country's defeat at the hands of Regis's men, which resulted in his father's madness, his younger brother's crippling, and the terrible penalties of tribute and taxes that followed. He is determined to right the wrongs placed against him, and so goes out in search of a dragon guarded tower which is said to contain a treasure that will certainly provide for an army marching on Gloinmere.
And finally, on the island of Skye, in the Stony Wood, in a sea-tower sits Melanthos, who spends her days weaving and watching the images in a small mirror, that reveals another woman, watching another mirror... Melanthos and her mother Sel are entranced by this vision, steadily rejecting the real world in favour of this strange sight.
Before the story is over, each of these tales will find each other, woven together by the arts of three mysterious sisters and connected by three very different towers.
Ultimately, I don't think "The Tower at Stony Wood" is McKillip's best work - she instigates two plot twists during the course of the story, and whilst the first one is rather intriguing, it isn't followed up properly, making the second twist rather irksome. Perhaps it warrants a second read, but it just didn't seem entirely convincing to me.
As a sidenote, if you own Loreena McKinnitt's album "The Visit", then you might be interested in reading this book whilst listening to the track "The Lady of Shallot" - it's what inspired McKillip to write this novel, and its lyrics are based on Tennyson's original poetry.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost when i opened it and still am
Review: The book was detailed and lovely with the setting. To tell you the truth, the setting was the only thing that made sense to me. I was lost from the first page on. The book went on forever and seemed pointless. I enjoyed it though, it was lovely, All the authors book are, and thats why I LIKE this book, but The Forgotton Beasts Of Eld is still my favorite
Rating:
Summary: Intricate
Review: The reader below gave up on _The Tower at Stony Wood_ after the fight with the "monster" in the woods, which is too bad, since it doesn't really get good until that point. It took me a couple of weeks of sporadic reading to get to that point (maybe 1/3 of the way in), and an day of fanatical reading to finish the rest. I started the book because I wanted to see what McKillip, with her talent for wordplay and complicated magic, would do to get the "Lady of Shalott" out of her predicament. How do you save a woman who will die if she leaves her prison? But _Tower_ goes far beyond that seed of a story, meandering through subplots that don't seem relevant until the end, weaving a complex tapestry of old grudges, old debts, love, and magic. For along the way to save the Lady, the knight Cyan Dag must sort out several other problems. (See the editorial review for a darn good plot summary.) In the end, _Tower_ is a deeper and more complicated story than it seemed on the surface, and richer than _Ombria in Shadow_ , which is prettily written but relies on cardboard Good and cardboard Evil to carry the plot. Not quite as enchanting as _Winter Rose_, IMHO, but in the same league as _The Sorceress and the Cygnet_. Fairly standard McKillip, and "standard" for her means "very good".
Rating:
Summary: Intricate
Review: The reader below gave up on _The Tower at Stony Wood_ after the fight with the "monster" in the woods, which is too bad, since it doesn't really get good until that point. It took me a couple of weeks of sporadic reading to get to that point (maybe 1/3 of the way in), and an day of fanatical reading to finish the rest. I started the book because I wanted to see what McKillip, with her talent for wordplay and complicated magic, would do to get the "Lady of Shalott" out of her predicament. How do you save a woman who will die if she leaves her prison? But _Tower_ goes far beyond that seed of a story, meandering through subplots that don't seem relevant until the end, weaving a complex tapestry of old grudges, old debts, love, and magic. For along the way to save the Lady, the knight Cyan Dag must sort out several other problems. (See the editorial review for a darn good plot summary.) In the end, _Tower_ is a deeper and more complicated story than it seemed on the surface, and richer than _Ombria in Shadow_ , which is prettily written but relies on cardboard Good and cardboard Evil to carry the plot. Not quite as enchanting as _Winter Rose_, IMHO, but in the same league as _The Sorceress and the Cygnet_. Fairly standard McKillip, and "standard" for her means "very good".
Rating:
Summary: McKillip Shifts Her Setting To Courtly Space
Review: The setting of this tale is somewhat of a departure for Patricia McKillip, a shift to the courtly and non-courtly space of French romance, and reminiscent in structure to the works of Chretien de Troyes. Beginning in the knightly court of Yves, the hero, Cyan Dag, is forced on a quest to protect the realm and his king from sorcery brought into the court from outside in the form of the king's new wife. Like many of the early tales of Arthurian romance, this alien influence threatens the stability and welfare of the court. Much of the tale revolves, in the best romantic tradition, allegorically and metaphorically around the questing knight's adventures, fraught with magic, with the visible world rarely being what it seems. Actually three stories in one, existing separately and yet reflections of one other, intertwined around the richly laden implications of this number and woven with McKillip's lyrical and vivid prose, this is without doubt the author's most complex and least accessible tale to date, requiring close attention and probably additional reading for full enjoyment. This is not difficult, given the author's often beautiful prose and compelling imagery, yet in some ways I feel this is also, despite its many rewards, McKillip's least successful work to date. The opening chapters begin rather perfunctorily, compared to the author's earlier work, somewhat self-consciously and artificially shifting back and forth between the lady in the mirror and the events taking shape at the court of Yves. While this serves the story's romantic (read as French or Arthurian, not Harlequin) structure, it is somewhat awkward in composition compared to McKillip's previous introductions. And the conclusion is rather summary and contrived, leaving the reader, regardless of the marvelous final paragraph---as some others have noted---dissatisfied. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious work, again exploring themes present in her earlier books: the meaning behind words, the dual nature of perception and magic, the world that exists just beyond our glimpse. And, despite my complaints regarding the book's structure, which lends at times an artificial and rigid construction to the story, it exists as an essential and intentionally informing element to the narrative. You will have to decide whether its contribution justifies the occasional abandonment of story elements in favor of a more strict and consciously referential plot construction.
Rating: 
Summary: A bardic adventure
Review: The Tower at Stony Wood is more adventure-ish than most of McKillip's work. Two heroes at cross purposes travel through a land based loosely on Celtic Myth and Tennyson's wonderful poem, "The Lady of Shallot". A fisherman's widow lives in the land one of the heroes is being driven to; her importance is slowly revealed to herself and the others. The land they inhabit is absolutely real, and a sense of myth and destiny pervades their journeys. Like all of McKillip's work, this book is mysterious; but it feels more open and light than most of her other books. Perfect, as usual.
Rating:
Summary: Silken prose and prickly knights!
Review: There are a very small number of writers who are extraordinary literary stylists. Patricia A. McKillip is one such and this latest novel reads like honey-coated silk. Her stories, always larger than life fairy tale romps in darkened woods, while maintaining a certain strength of characterization and intricate plots, become, at times, almost secondary to the beautiful prose in which they are written. This particular story, based loosely on Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott and more specifically on Loreena McKennitt's song of the same name, tells of a woman, cursed half-mad with love who is locked away in a tower to observe the happenings of the world from her magic mirror, not the window of her chamber. The hero is of course a knight in the grandest of Lancelotian traditions, full of angst and some self-doubt, all kept well-hidden beneath the virilest exteriors. The tale is truly great fun, but again it is the magnificently wrought prose that makes reading such a divine pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: Let's get lost!
Review: This book is beautifully written, but it is rather a challenge to follow the plot. This is the case with many of McKillip's books: the prose is imaginative and lyrical, but the plots are convoluted. Too much thinking, dammit! (Actually, this is good, but thank goodness there are also books where the sentences can only have one possible meaning.) There are three basic plotlines in the book: the quest of the knight Cyan Dag to rescue the Lady of Skye, the quest of Thayne Ysse (any guesses at pronunciation?) to capture a dragon and free his impoverished island from thralldom, and my favorite, the quest of Sel the selkie to recover the lost magic/strength within her. (Sel is not introduced until about a third of the way through the book, which is somewhat annoying.) Up until then, there are a bunch of loose threads, told from the perspectives of different characters. More and more perspectives are added, until one begins to feel that they are just reading a bunch of short stories with no endings. However, just as Sel patches together her knowledge, the author patches the tales together. In fact, in the end, everything is "patched-up", all hunky-dory and neat. If you like the picture on the cover, you'll probably like what's in the book. Kinuko Craft and Patricia McKillip are a great match-up for those of us who may not entirely judge, but are often attracted to a book by initially looking at its cover.
Rating:
Summary: Good plot, characters are a little hard to get to know
Review: This book is not what it seems. The king is getting married, but one of his knights is tipped off to look at the kings wife while she dances. As he sees her shadow move to the music he learns there is more to this "girl" than meets the eye. Confronted by the monster the king married, he goes off to find the real girl who he learns is being kept in a tower. A woman is in another tower, sewing scenes no one but her seems to see. She too has a secret. Another man goes off looking for yet another tower to find a hidden treasure guarded by a dragon. This man has issues because his country has been taken away. These three people have little in common, except the towers that are so part of why they are where they are. It is strange how they are all put together. The plot is good, the charcters are blah. Patricia A. McPhillips has a problem getting the reader to care about the characters, such as in "The book of Atrix Wolfe" but the book is worth the read, plot is wonderful. I enjoyed it.
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