The Unlikely Ones

I am glad I persevered with The Unlikely Ones - the opening chapters don't give an accurate impression of what this book is like. They're like an extended prologue - and then you meet Thing, the first-person narrator of the rest of the story. However, it takes a few more chapters work out who Thing is and just where is this story going anyway...

Thing is the prisoner of a very nasty witch. Thing has a hunchback, hides her face behind a mask and suffers stomach cramps if she strays too far from her captor, and beyond that she doesn't quite know who she is. She cannot remember her name, her past, or even how long she's been enslaved. She struggles to recall human speech, finding it easier to communicate with her fellow prisoners: a crow, a show more toad, a kitten and a fish.
Thing and her friends manage to escape the witch's house, and set out to properly free themselves from the witch's spells. They are joined on this quest by a unicorn and a knight, both of whom have fallen afoul of the witch.

The Unlikely Ones is written like a fairytale. A fairytale for adults, even though Thing begins with a somewhat child-like naivety. (It's a bit of an unexpected juxtaposition but there you go.) There are some odd moments of humour and an element of tropes being subverted, and an understandable vagueness about the worldbuilding. Stylistically, it reminds me a little of Patricia A. McKillip or Robin McKinley - and it reminds me more of Mary Stewart's fantasy. Which makes sense - they were writing in a similar era.

It's a coming-of-age story for Thing. And it's also about what happens after a quest is over, and dealing with your companions of the road going in different directions.

It's a strange story, but once I got past that oddness, I read it all in one go. I might read more in this series (I gather it's a loosely connected series), if I can find them.

One of my favourite parts about The Unlikely Ones was the physical book itself, simply because it was a hardback edition purchased in 1987 - not very old, all things considered, but I am convinced my local library has sold off or thrown away most of the books they had on their shelves ten years ago, so it was fun to borrow a book that had a sense of history about it. show less

A long time ago, when I first read this (I was 9 or so) a lot went over my head. Mostly the sex stuff (there's quite a bit, all things considered, about sex in here), but also I remember how fiercely I sobbed because Thing lost all her friends.

Not to death, this book had surprisingly little death in it (I say surprisingly because most of my fantasy books of that time involved heroic sacrificial death as a means to winning), though it wasn't completely absent. No, she lost them to life. And I sobbed because it didn't seem fair to me--the me who had really no close friends at that time and had the vaguest of memories of what it was like to have a friend who I shared everything with--that Thing had to lose her friends.

I think if I'd read this book back in 1986 when it first came out, I would have enjoyed it more. Yes, I'd have been much younger, and not as picky about what I think makes a good book. But also, what we expect from fantasy novels has changed over the years. I thought the story dragged far too much. For instance, an entire story line in which the party faces seven challenges seemed unnecessary—nothing happened that affected the main goals of the story—but it took up almost a third of the book. Nowadays, we expect plots in which everything major ties into the main story line. I did enjoy the unconventional plot—the story really gets going after the villain perishes fairly early in the book. Also, the author does a fine job of giving show more each of the animals and people their own distinctive voice. But generally, there are tighter, more gripping fantasy novels out there. show less

first line: "The cave itself was cosy enough as caves go: sandy floor, reasonably draught-proof, convenient ledges for storing treasure, a rain/dew pond just outside, a southerly aspect and an excellent landing strip adjacent, but the occupant was definitely not at his best and the central heating in his belly not functioning as it should."

This is a fantasy novel that relates the quest for freedom of five unlikely companions: a girl, a raven, a cat, a toad, and a fish. Each have suffered related enchantments from the same witch: in each of their bodies, the witch has embedded a jewel that binds them (allowing them to communicate with one another) but also physically cripples them. It sounds cheesy, but I've always had a soft spot for show more this book; it's one of my guilty pleasures.

The first time I read it, I was a kid, scandalized by the sex and enamored by the relationship between the heroine and her animal companions. It made me cry.

The second time I read it, I was an adult: amused by the sex and enamored by the relationship between the heroine and her animal companions. It still made me cry.

....Incidentally, this book is one of the reasons I prefer to buy books rather than borrow them. The copy I read in childhood was a library book. Years later, I had forgotten the title and author but not the characters and their story. One day, in a used bookstore, I found myself thinking about it. I approached the fantasy section, looked up, and there it was. Ah, serendipity! show less

I re-read this one after many years of sitting on my shelf (my mother gifted it to me when I was about 18). I was surprised that I could remember as much of it as I did (some of the details I had forgotten). A straight forward plot and good cast of characters - probably young adult (though towards the older end with some of the sexual references). I do find the ending of the 'fellowship' bittersweet.

I can't believe my mother got this for me when I was eight years old (not the most child-appropriate book ever written), and it took me until I was nine to finish reading it, at that. I was shocked when I was browsing on Amazon and saw what a tawdry-looking cover the paperbacks have--the hardback has a really beautiful, restrained, mysterious dustjacket that does more justice to the actual tone and quality of the writing. I think this one affected me, in terms of the way it launched my imagination, almost as much as the Chronicles of Narnia did.

I should have known it was bad; both Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey are quoted as liking it. Various creatures captured and mistreated by a witch escape and seek their fortunes together. And of course the main character is secretly a beautiful young maiden convinced of her ugliness, and of course she falls in love with someone she thinks far above her station, and of course the two slowly grow to understand each other, and I assume that at the end, she turns out to be beautiful. I don't know, I never bothered to finish it.