DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES by Patricia A. McKillip │Review

Hey Bookworm friends! Today’s review is a bit different because it’s for a short story collection so I will be sharing my quick thoughts on each short story and maybe a few quotes. I picked up Dreams of Distant Shores for two reasons and the first is that I was browsing at my library and this cover jumped up at me. I’ve been wanting to borrow books from the library without knowing too much about them in advance and this fit the bill. And secondly, Patricia A. McKillip is one of the authors featured on my priority list of authors I need to try so it allows me to make a bit of progress on this goal!

Book Details

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Blurb

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Bestselling author Patricia A. McKillip (The Riddle-Master of Hed) is one of the most lyrical writers gracing the fantasy genre. With the debut of her newest work, Dreams of Distant Shores is a true ode to her many talents. Within these pages you will find a youthful artist possessed by both his painting and his muse and seductive travelers from the sea enrapturing distant lovers. The statue of a mermaid comes suddenly to life, and two friends are transfixed by a haunted estate.

Review

Weird – 10 pages – Originally Published in 2014

The first story was very short but the concept was intriguing. A couple is talking and one of them asks the other “what’s the weirdest thing that happened to you?” She answers by telling him stories. It was a fun little framing device and I thought it was very atmospheric. Kind of creepy but also kind of romantic. I would read a whole novel based on this idea.

Mer – 20 pages – Originally Published in 2016

This is my favourite story of this collection. It’s about a witch, a missing mermaid statue, and a cormorant. I really enjoyed the small seaside town setting! For just 20 pages, it had a fantastic sense of place. I also really liked the writing style, it was so whimsical and enchanting. I was impressed with its wide scope and felt it was rich in symbolism.

The Witch, napping amid the thorny prickles through the months of the sea journey to the Pacific Northwest, had lost track of her name when the vessel finally docked and she woke.

The Gorgon in the Cupboard – 64 pages – Originally Published in 2004

This short story is about inspiration, art, and outside perceptions of a person vs their perceptions of themselves. It’s the story in this collection that I felt the most mixed emotions about. There were some really beautiful parts but overall I felt distanced from it. I found one of the main characters so petulant and pretentious, so distant from humanity even though he’s an artist and thus I couldn’t connect with him. Interesting premise though.

Which Witch – 18 pages – Originally Published in 2012

I loved the concept of this one: A musical band of witches and they fight demons/monsters via their music. Each witch also has a familiar and the main character’s crow has been trying to communicate with her to send her a message. Another one with a strong sense of place and time. Younger me would have loved the descriptions of all the gothic and witchy outfits from the 2000s! Heck, adult me loved them! This was just plain fun and again, I’d read a full novel with this concept.

Edith and Henry Go Motoring – 14 pages – Originally Published in 2016

This one is about two friends that are bored so they go for a drive, looking for adventure. It has really pretty descriptions of nature but as the story went on it became more and more surreal and dreamlike. I did not know what to make of it nor do I typically enjoy this kind of tone in stories. I was left kind of underwhelmed and confused.

…he smiled even as the warm wind buffeted him, and the bees and grasshoppers from passing fields and hedgerows performed death-defying skids through his hair.”

Alien – 13 pages – Originally Published in 2016

This story strangely feels more grounded than the others in its tone because it had a lot of family drama. It’s about a family where the grandmother is adamant that she’s been taken by aliens and now that she’s back on Earth, she waits for years to see them again. No-one in the family believes her and they instead think she needs help. This story is a great example of why I don’t reach for short stories often. It had really interesting ideas but I wanted much more from it. I wanted to hear more from the grandmother character. The ending felt abrupt to me because I was invested, again I wish it had been longer.

Something Rich and Strange – 121 pages – Originally Published in 1994

Something Rich and Strange is the only story in this collection that I had heard of before and I had been wanting to read it for years! It’s also the longest story of the collection, actually more of a novelette. It’s another story about mermaids but it’s also about obsession and about the dying environment (especially the ocean). It follows a couple, Jonah and Megan, who live right by the ocean. Megan is a painter and Jonah owns a shop that sells ocean-related souvenirs for tourists. One day, a really attractive and mysterious stranger comes to the shop to try to sell his art, which starts to pull Jonah and Megan towards the ocean and apart from each other.

I really hated following Jonah’s POV, he’s such an unfriendly and cowardly wet blanket of a man. For a guy who reads books all the time, he was not very clever; He makes a deal with a fae creature without knowing what he was paying nor what he was getting in return. He also kept eating earrings and what the heck was up with that? It was clearly related to his obsession but I hated it. I preferred the sections that were in Megan’s POV but even then, I’m sorry to say I was overall disappointed with this story. It was also way too dreamlike, the messaging was about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and I found the ending extremely unsatisfying.

The journey was more important than the place; most important was to return home, with crumpled maps, salt and pepper shakers shaped like clamshells, a sweatshirt with whales on it, and to be able to say: I have been there, I have gone on a journey, I have come safely home.

Final Thoughts

The main thing that I got from reading this short story collection as my first entry into Patricia A. McKillip’s work, is that she has very beautiful and fantastical prose. And another one of her strengths is her creative ideas. Several of her short stories made me feel like I went to a fancy restaurant and tried delicious dishes but the portions were tiny and I left hungry. Between the few highs and multiple lows, I ended up giving this book a rating of 2.75 stars. I now want to try her novels next as I have a feeling I’ll have more success with them!

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