Not all McKillip is as circular as that one — they don't all talk in blackbirds when they're telling you that a child hid in the fireplace. I know what you mean, I think; her language can be powerful when it's opaque from pure lyrical momentum. But my favorite Mckillip is plainer spoken. The Cygnet books have myth and different speech rhytms and enough epigrams in them, but they also have people with literal minds, defending the places they care about. Mckillip has a trick too of making you think you know what's going on, and who's on who's side, even when you like both sides — and then turning everything inside out in ways that shouldn't surprise me but do.

My favorite McKillip is one I didn't know existed until my dad found it at a used bookstore somewhere: Fool's Run. It's early, I think, and it has some metaphoric loose ends, but it's gripping and blunt and almost Sci Fi. It centers around a woman who has been sentenced for life in a high security orbital prison for attacking a thousand people with a laser rifle. She seems insane. And then the prison invites a band to play there on tour. It's about a cop who can't let go of the chase, an administrator who's too good to escape his job, two twins who can't look at each other, and evasions, and symbols, and nursery rhymes... but the emotions are clear, and they hurt, for all that.