King of Morning, Queen of Day (Mass Market Paperback)

by Ian McDonald (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
The dangerous allure of the faerie lover manifests itself through three generations of women in this tour-de-force by the author of Desolation Road ( LJ 2/15/88). The spirits that haunt Ireland's Bridestone Wood first claim Emily Desmond in the early 1900s; in the 1930s, working girl Jessica Caldwell follows the man of her dreams into a dreamlike world; and in the near future, writer Enye MacColl battles the invisible forces of faerie. McDonald's power as a storyteller lies in his stylistic versatility and intensity of language as well as in his capacity to create vivid and memorable characters. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Spectra (May 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553290495
• ISBN-13: 978-0553290493
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #614,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fairy tale of unforgettable power, June 2, 2005

By	Melusine (www.FantasyLiterature.net) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I knew, just by reading the back cover blurb, that this book was right up my alley. Women with mystical powers? Check. Faeries? Check. Ireland? Check. In fact, I think the only reason I didn't discover this book earlier is that it was published in 1991, and I only started reading fantasy sometime in the late nineties.

The story begins with Emily, a bratty but endearing girl of fifteen, poised on the edge of adulthood in the early 20th century. Emily knows she is special, set apart-and when she sees the faeries in the wood by her family's home, she knows she will never be satisfied with ordinary life. Emily makes a colossal mess of things, as bratty fifteen-year-olds will do, and sets in motion events that will affect generations to come.

What follows is a fairy tale, but not precisely a tale of faeries; it's more of an exploration of the nature of reality and of myth, as seen through the eyes of Emily and two other women: Jessica, a glib-tongued teenager of the 1930s whose tall tales have an uncanny way of coming true; and Enye, a woman of the late 1980s, torn between everyday life and a battle with supernatural forces from the world beyond.

This is a stunning story and one that I'll probably reread over and over again. It doesn't suffer one bit from the ailment that afflicts so many multigenerational novels-the tendency for one or more of the intertwined stories to lack luster. All three of the women, and their lives and times, are vivid and passionate. And I must say, there are few male authors who can write such nuanced and three-dimensional female characters. Get your hands on a used copy of this. I wish they'd reprint it...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original and unusual, January 4, 2006

By	Semioticghost "Semioticghost" (London, UK) - See all my reviews

= Original and unusual
Reviewer: cont1nuity from Ipswich, Suffolk United Kingdom
King of Morning, Queen of Day is tracking the lives of three generations of women born to the ability to see and manipulate human mythoconsciousness. From the age of Yeats to a period not far past modern day, we travel with the women as they discover their powers and face the parallel world opened by their perceptions. Each has a unique take on what they are dealing with and each finds her own rite of passage, encountering those that help and those that hinder along the way. Characters are vividly described and the plotting becomes tighter and more accomplished as the novel progresses, with the last, science-fiction third standing out as most original and unusual.

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheesy Cover, Good Read, May 13, 2007

By	Trilby Busch "melodymancer" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don't be deceived by the silly romance cover. This is a good sf/fantasy novel. McDonald has fun parodying Victorian and cyberpunk fiction in this story tracing three generations of Irish women's interaction with the "mygmus" (mythoconsciousness).