This book does have a plot, but I think it's more effective to just lay the pieces out: Terra killed over a thousand people seven years ago, and now she's locked in her strange, inexpressible visions on a prison colony; a musician who reads minds sometimes; a cop looking for someone who can explain the unspeakably horrible; a curious scientist with a machine that can project thoughts, who takes it upon himself to wonder if Terra might be sane after all.So I keep reading McKillip, because -- well...

One great line. Loved it as a kid. Not sure it aged so well.

This book was a bit mystifying. Bits of it were familiar, bits of it were sort of a lyrical science fantasy, and bits of it seemed to be almost surreal. First off, let's say right up front that it's not really McKillip's fault that Terra (one of the main characters) seemed eerily familiar. I'm not saying she would definitely be played by Summer Glau in the movie, I'm just saying that the distant, deadpan, psychic woman who babbles apparent nonsense that actually isn't, and knows (and is terribly...

this is McKillip's only sf work, and the publisher hedges all bets by describing it as "science fantasy". and it does in some odd way belong in a genre category all by itself - though possibly Samuel Delany's early sf works, of which this book reminded me, might scootch in there beside it. the book doesn't entirely work, i think, but it's full of marvellous ideas, and often beautiful language to describe the indescribable. a poet's work, really. or a musician's. and it's worth the ride, to see w...

“It makes me uneasy because sometimes I have a hunch that things rarely happen by chance. They happen because events tug each other, because people’s loves and hates and desires are constantly overlapping, because unfinished business, no matter how forgotten it is, is always asking to be finished.”as all of McKillip’s books do, this fucked me up, I think more than I expected it to. it reminds me a lot of Samuel Delany (both stylistically and thematically), which makes sense to me in retrospect b...

A re-read - but I'm fairly sure I read this way back, around when it came out, before I was actually a huge fan of Patricia McKillip specifically. I'd just grab all the sci-fi that turned up at the public library.I was delighted that I liked it this time around as much as I'd hoped. While, in a way, 'Fool's Run' is quite different from most of McKillip's books, being sci-fi, not fantasy, it shares many of the themes that run though a great deal of her work.The story enmeshes a convicted mass-mur...

Probably about a 2.5 stars... this book was well written but I wasn't super into the plot, there were a lot of characters and not enough time to get to know each one as much as I would have liked, and at times it was extremely confusing. The story was interesting at a surface level but once you actually were reading each chapter sometimes it was hard to follow. The ending also only kind of wraps things up, like I'm still not sure why this vision was so important in the first place.That said, McK...

This is one of Patricia A. McKillip's earlier efforts, and it shows. While still filled with her trademark dreamy prose and lyrical weaving, the plot is ultimately confusing and unsatisfying. We are never given an explanation for Terra's strange vision - we are told it is important, but it is never explained why. Give this one a miss, and try her other beautifully written fantasy novels, which therein lies her true talent.

An amazing book. While I enjoy just about everything McKillip has written, this book made me weep it was so beautiful.

This was one of the first few books I read this year, and I have to say how much I enjoy this author. I remembered her , as lyrical, a poet, but this book was both that and a sock in the jaw. It was written in the 80's wen the author was living in San Francisco, and so was I. I have no memory of ever meeting her, but it's clear that the dance club scene was an influence. A musician starts having uh...fugue states...of consciousness while playing, not unusual for musicians. It seems to settle dow...

One of the few books by McKillip I hadn't read as they came out. This may be her only SF book and it is not one of her best, but it does have a lot of the features that I have enjoyed in her books. I like the way that her characters are unraveling riddles instead of fighting evil. In McKillip's worlds there isn't evil but rather misunderstanding and danger that arises from the misunderstanding or the state of not knowing all the facts. Spoiler alert. The story revolves around a horrible crime co...

Hoo boy, I need to get through these. I am grading this one on a curve, I'll happily admit; McKillip is one of my favourite ever authors and have written many books that hit me harder than most things I can think of, so reading a novel of hers (sci fi instead of fantasy, even) that just seems okay is a bit of a let down. Honestly the setting is interesting enough, the writing good enough, and the ending moving enough that from almost anyone else I'd probably bump it up to 4 stars, but you'd be s...

3.5: A rare dip into sci-fi for McKillip. Its plot is fairly straightforward, but the mysterious motivations of the character around which the story revolves is nebulous and never really fully explained. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and If you’re able to appreciate that there will be ambiguity and opaqueness, I suspect it will be a more satisfying read. I’m not certain it works completely (since it’s such an important element) but I found the last few chapters rather pulled the nose up fo...

An enjoyable readMy rating might have been higher if the author had been anyone but Patricia McKillip, whose fantasy novels have long been favorites of mine. This is a solid sci-fi book, packed with action that supports a twisty music-based plot. As always, her worldbuilding is brilliant, and her character development kept me involved even when I felt confused about what was happening.Then again, the unresolved questions about Terra Viridian's vision might have kept me from giving even four star...

I love the way McKillip manages to blend very down to Earth with magic. This novel throws in another theme that attracts me, music. Fool’s Run involves an imprisoned woman that slaughtered an entire settlement because of a vision. A psychologist has developed a machine that shows a person’s ideas, and wants to try it out on the inmate. Meantime , a magical musician and his band are invited to play at the prison the murderer is held in. Plus, the murderer has a twin sister that seems to have disa...

I read this one (again - I read it many many years ago) right after reading He Who Shapes by Roger Zelazny. Together, they tweeked my mind. I really enjoyed this book because it is so different from her fantasy stories. It is tense and full of strangeness. It is, perhaps, not as atmospheric as her fantasy works, but I like the musical elements tied into the unknown. I will read this again.

Read this when I was young and loved it. I've been thinking about it occasionally for my whole adult life, especially when playing cards and seeing the Queen of Hearts. Re-reading it about 30 years later, I found it weird and still pretty interesting. Not an amazing book, but one that I will also have a lot of fondness for.

I did not enjoy this as much as some of her other books. Her style suits fantasy more than it does sci fi, in a way. I found this book rather disjointed and it was hard to keep all the strands of the narrative in my head for any length of time; which is why it tkkk me ages to finish!

I just absolutely loved it. The Magician has to be my favorite character and I breathed a sigh of relief by the end of the book (whew - kind of. He’s okay but... what a last line!). As usual, McKillip has the ability to make you connect with every character, no matter how big or small to the plot.

My cover is red lettering and red faux seal, not the gold shown hear

Probably the best book I've read all year. Easily the most amazing thing I've read since Riddle Master of Hed, with the significant advantage of being much shorter. I thought I understood Mckillip, her style and her strengths, but Fool's Run proved that she can do things with fiction that I never even dreamed possible. I didn't know what to expect from her in a science fiction genre and I started it looking for it to be science fantasy, but it isn't. It's magical, for it's a story of light and m...

As expected, McKillip's lush dreamy prose is here, but in a science fiction setting, rather than a fantasy setting. At first, that kind of threw me, but once I'd immersed myself in the sheer poetry of her language, it didn't bother me so much. One of the things that McKillip does, I think, is create tiny "mysteries" or puzzles for her characters to solve and then she fully involves you in the dialogue created as those puzzles are solved. It can sometimes be confusing, but there's something very

This is the first book of Patricia A. McKillip's that I didn't like that much. I still liked the style and the characters, but the plot was minimal even for her, and she lost a lot of the things she's usually best at. She normally flows several different characters and storylines together in this fabulous tapestry of fairy-tale wonder, but this one fell a little flat. I never quite got my feet under me. I liked the obvious sci-fi bits - the spaceship and the prison - but I just couldn't get thro...

It was fascinating to read Patricia McKillip doing sci-fi. And, as always, her writing was fascinating and almost painfully insightful. This is the first McKillip book that left me feeling unsatisfied, though. She didn't quite manage to make the world seem complete. I dislike it when authors introduce a concept (in this case, an alien) that is unfamiliar or implausible to both the reader and the characters, and then don't give it a reason for having been there. I wanted to know more about the le...

McKillip does sci-fi... Though even still, it has a fantasy feel to it, with emphasis on hunches, dreams and visions. The characters felt like sketches to me; as a reader you were supposed to recognize a type and fill in the blank. The plot itself is strangely paced, a lot of development in the first part, then all of a sudden we are into something that feels action-y but yet with no end goal. The ending is satisfying on a character level but unfortunately I still don't understand the *why* of t...

Well written and pretty good - I've only read her fantasy before but this is science fiction. A group of musicians play a gig at a secure off world prison that is home to a mass murderer subject to apocalyptic visions.I've only read a little of her work but she seems to prefer her stories to be driven by the rubbing up against each other of two initially at least incompatible systems rather than a straight forward goody/baddy, good/evil tension. That is harm may happen even though nobody particu...

I loved everything about this book except the last chapter or so. It's not that they're bad, necessarily. The story just feels incomplete. Everything came together, but it didn't have the weight or gravity I've come to expect from McKillip's stories. All the same, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. The story is pretty short, but she manages to create a whole lot of interesting characters, an intriguing world, and a well paced plot. It is kind of a page turner, but it still has a

I reread this book mostly because the writing is beautiful. The plot is all right; the characters are ok; but the words themselves overpower everything. In this book, McKillip's style is beautifully balanced, lucid and lyrical. It seems all wrong to do so (especially since the plot and characters are nothing special) but I can only compare it to the first chapter of "A Tale of Two Cities." It's so beautiful, it made me cry.

I love McKillip's books. I love her imagery, her writing style, her plots, and her characters. I had never read one of her books that I didn't fall in love with... until I read this one. The characters and writing are still incredible, but the plot lost me. If there actually was one, it was chaotic at best. I could give you a summary of what happened, but I couldn't tell you why. I would highly recommend any of McKillip's work - just skip this particular novel.

It wasn't as good as McKillip's fantasy novels. I liked The Underworld and the conflict between magic and science, but I ultimately didn't understand the lynch-pin of the plot, the strange visions which Terra Viridian was experiencing. I don't think the reader was supposed to fully understand, but I found myself more in the dark than I would have liked, especially given the build up of the novel was basically leading there.