When Molly Grue yells at the unicorn, it expresses a little how I felt on reading Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (1968) this past month for the very first time: But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. “Where have you been?” Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn’s old dark eyes that looked…
Peter S. Beagle was born on April 20, 1939. Beagle received the Nebula Award and Hugo Award for his novelette “Two Hearts,” set in the same world as his classic novel The Last Unicorn. He received the Mythopoeic Award in 1987 for his novel The Folk of the Air and in 2000 for the novel Tamsin. His collection The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances received the Grand Priz de l’Imaginaire and his story “El Regalo” received the…
Is it OK to post now on the other significant SF news from Tuesday (happier news)? Because it does seem worthwhile to mention that Peter Beagle has been named the latest SFWA Grand Master. I confess — somewhat bewilderedly — that I had not thought of him when I speculated on who the next GM might be. (I believe that’s because early in his career he was not a “core genre writer,” in that he didn’t publish in the magazines. (Yes,…
The Overneath by Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon Publications, 336 pages, $15.95 in trade paperback, November 14, 2017) The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen (Tachyon Publications, 288 pages, $15.95 in trade paperback, $9.99 digital, November 14, 2017) In 1900 Frank L. Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, arguably the first truly American fairy tale. Now, a century and counting along the Yellow Brick Road, what can be said about the current state of the fairy tale in America? We seem…
Peter S. Beagle burst on the scene in 1960 with A Fine and Private Place, the tale of a man quietly living in a cemetery for decades. Written while he was still a teenager, the novel established Beagle immediately as a major American fantasist. He followed it with The Last Unicorn (1968), which placed fifth in the 1987 Locus Poll for All-Time Best Fantasy Novel, sold more than five million copies, and was made into a popular animated film by Rankin/Bass in…
Aside from the usual crop of Best of the Year books, I’ve been disappointed with this year’s reprint anthologies. So I’m intrigued and hopeful about The New Voices of Fantasy, a very promising reprint anthology with a Table of Contents that reads like a Who’s Who of the best new voices in the genre — including Amal El-Mohtar, Sofia Samatar, Sarah Pinsker, Max Gladstone, Hannu Rajaniemi, Maria Dahvana Headley, Ursula Vernon, and many others. Kirkus Reviews calls it “Stellar… proves…
Peter S. Beagle has, by dint of his enduring classic The Last Unicorn, become the patron saint of these creatures among fantasy authors. But more than this, Beagle has become to fantasy writing a sort of patron saint of the longing that unicorns (when exhumed from the candied, polychromatic encrustations of the popular imagination) have come to embody. Beagle has resurrected the unicorn as a symbol to be reverenced, whether in his early novel or, as I have argued recently…
Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn and The Folk of the Air, is one of the finest writers we have, and a new Beagle novella is a major event. In Calabria, the tale of a lonely farmer in Italy’s scenic Calabria who finds himself a worldwide sensation when his farm becomes a haven for a host of unicorns, is a highly-anticipated return to the subject that made him famous. It’s available in trade paperback from Tachyon on Valentines’ Day….
A new novel by Peter S. Beagle is a major publishing event. His last novel, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons (2007), mysteriously never appeared in print, but The Last Unicorn (1968) was ranked the #5 All-Time Best Fantasy Novel in the 1987 Locus Poll. The Folk of the Air (1986) and Tamsin (1999) both won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and The Innkeeper’s Song (1993) won the Locus Award. He’s won virtually every accolade our field has to offer, including the Hugo,…
Peter Beagle is one of the finest living fantasy writers. His 1968 novel The Last Unicorn has long been considered a classic, and The Innkeeper’s Song (1993) and Tamsin (1999) were both nominated for the World Fantasy Award. His 2007 novel I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons isn’t as well known as some of his others, but it has its fans. It’s currently ranked at 3.88 (out of 5) at Goodreads, and it has five stars at Amazon.com. Beagle has drummed up…