The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

The "wondrous" beasts, "called" by the wizards of Eld to the top of their mountain and now kept by young Sybel the white-haired witch who lives there alone beneath her crystal dome, include the Black Swan of Tirlith, the singing white-tusked Boar Cyrin, the green-winged dragon Gyld, the Lyon Gules, the huge black Cat Moriah and the blue-eyed Falcon Ter. Into this enchanted menagerie comes King Drede's motherless infant son whom Sybel rears and loves and calls "my Tam," and with him the man Coren, Drede's enemy, whom Sybel later marries in order to use him in her private vendetta against Drede. It's all set forth in charged and resonating (and, to us, self-infatuated) prose that makes everything seem momentous, and though Sybel in the end confronts the most fearsome beast of all - the Blammor who forces her to look inward (thus releasing her for love although the same experience has killed kings and wizards) - there really isn't much to see beneath the opulent verbal surface. (Kirkus Reviews)