• Complain

Robin McKinley - Water

Here you can read online Robin McKinley - Water full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2002, publisher: Firebird, genre: History. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    Water
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Firebird
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2002
  • ISBN:
    9780142402443
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Water: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Water" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Robin McKinley: author's other books


Who wrote Water? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Water — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Water" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication MERMAID SONG THE - photo 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

MERMAID SONG

THE SEA-KINGS SON

SEA SERPENT

WATER HORSE

KRAKEN

A POOL IN THE DESERT

Highly respected authors in their own right, husband and wife Dickinson and McKinley collaborate for the first time on a collection of enchanting tales linked by an aquatic theme. The tales possess a consistently compelling, rhythmic tone, despite the fact that the authors alternate in the tellings . . . these creative interpretations brim with suspenseful, chilling, and wonderfully supernatural scenes.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Steeped in the lore of merfolk and creatures of the sea . . . The writing is lyrical and the characterizations are remarkably well developed . . . A bountiful collection for fantasy lovers. Despite the differences in themes and characters, the stories fit so nicely together that the collection will be very hard to put down.Booklist (starred review)

The masterfully written stories all feature distinct, richly detailed casts and settings, are free of the woodenly formal language that plagues so much fantasy, and focus as strongly on action as on character. Theres plenty here to excite, enthrall, and move even the pickiest readers.

School Library Journal (starred review)

McKinley and Dickinson are each justly celebrated for fantasy writing; this collection of alternating short fantasies, first in a projected series, is a successful joint endeavor . . . Diverse and satisfying . . . Readers versed in these writers work will recognize familiar themes and references; newcomers will find scope for imagination; and all will be richly rewarded.

The Horn Book Magazine

This is a work of fiction Names characters places and incidents either are - photo 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or

are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2002 by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson.

eISBN : 978-0-142-40244-3

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without

permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the

Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is

illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic

editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted

materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

For information address: G. P. Putnams Sons,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

Check out the ACE Science Fiction & Fantasy newsletter!

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ACE

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ACE and the A design

are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

http://us.penguingroup.com

TO ANNE WATERS

MERMAID SONG

Her name was Pitiable Nasmith Her grandfather had chosen Pitiable so that she - photo 3

Her name was Pitiable Nasmith.

Her grandfather had chosen Pitiable so that she and others should know what she was, he said. All the People had names of that kind. He was Probity Hooke, and his wife was Mercy Hooke. Their daughter had been Obedience Hooke until she had married Simon Nasmith against their will and changed her second name to his. Because of that, the People had cut her off from themselves, and Probity and Mercy had heard no more of her until Simon had come to their door, bringing the newborn baby for them to care for, and told Probity of his daughters death. He said he was going away and not coming back. Probity had taken the baby from him and closed the door in his face without a word.

He had chosen a first name for the baby because she had neither father nor mother. She was pitiable.

The Hookes lived in a white wooden house on the edge of the town. Their fields lay a little distance off, in two separate odd-shaped patches along the floor of the steep valley, where soil deep enough to cultivate had lodged on the underlying granite. The summers were short, but desperately hot, ending usually in a week of storms, followed by a mellow autumn and then a long, bitter winter, with blizzards and gales. For night after night, lying two miles inland in her cot at the top of the ladder, Pitiable would fall asleep to the sound of waves raging along the outer shore, and wake to the same sound. Between the gales there would be still, clear days with the sun no more than a handsbreadth above the horizon, and its light glittering off mile after mile of thigh-deep snow. Then spring, and thaw and mud and slush and the reek of all the winters rubbish, rotting at last. Then searing summer again.

It was a hard land to scrape a living off, though there was a good harbour that attracted trade, so some of the People prospered as merchants. Fishermen, and others not of the People, came there too, though many of these later went south and west to kinder, sunnier, richer places. But the People stayed in the land the Lord has given us, as they used to say. There they had been born, and their ancestors before them, all the way back to the two shiploads who had founded the town. The same names could be read over and over again in their graveyard, Bennetts and Hookes and Warrens and Lyalls and Goodriches, but no Nasmiths, not one.

For eight years Pitiable lived much like any other girl-child of the People. She was clothed and fed, and nursed if she was ill. She went to the Peoples school, where she was taught to read her Bible, and tales of the persecution of her forebears. The People had few other books, but those they read endlessly, to themselves and to each other. They took pride in their education, narrow though it was, and their speech was grave and formal, as if taken from their books. Twice every Sunday Pitiable would go with her grandparents to their church, to sit still for two hours while the Word was given forth.

As soon as she could walk, she was taught little tasks to do about the house. The People took no pride in possessions or comforts. What mattered to them in this world was cleanliness and decency, every pot scoured, every chair in its place, every garment neatly stitched and saved, and on Sundays the mens belts and boots gleaming with polish, and the womens lace caps and collars starched as white as first-fall snow and as crisp as the frost that binds it. They would dutifully help a neighbour who was in trouble, but they themselves would have to be in desperate need before they asked for aid.

Probity was a steady-working, stern old man whose face never changed, but Mercy was short and plump and kindly. If Probity was out of the house, she used to hum as she worked, usually the plodding, four-square hymn tunes that the People had brought with them across the ocean, but sometimes a strange, slow, wavering air that was hardly a tune at all, difficult to follow or learn, but once learnt, difficult to let go of. While Pitiable was still very small, she came to know it as if it had been part of her blood, but she was eight before she discovered what it meant.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Water»

Look at similar books to Water. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Water»

Discussion, reviews of the book Water and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.