Category Archives: Peter S. Beagle

“Slight of Hand” with Peter S. Beagle

Peter S. Beagle

Okay, I’m making another exception to may practice of only doing birthday posts on authors, artists, and editors who have passed on.  Peter S. Beagle (b. April 20, 1939) is one of those few authors who I will buy in trade hardcover.  (David Drake, Jack McDevitt, Larry Niven, and Patricia McKillip are among the few exceptions.)  Limited hardcover editions are a different matter. But I digress.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting Peter several times over the years.  The most recent was when he was in town for a showing of The Last Unicorn.

Today’s story is “Sleight of Hand”.   It was first published in Eclipse 3.  I read it in Sleight of Hand.  The book is only available in trade paperback. Unfortunately the price is $29.95, which is a bit steep for a nine year old paperback that’s only 287 pages long, even if it is Beagle. Sadly, there is no electronic edition. Eclipse 3 is available in print for $14.95 and ebook for $9.99.

“Sleight of Hand” is a moving meditation on grief and life and the choices we make. There were times I thought I was reading Ray Bradbury.  That’s both a compliment and a good thing. Continue reading

Beagle and Wandrei

About four years ago, there was a showing of The Last Unicorn at the local Alamo Drafthouse.  The is of course based on the novel by Peter S. Beagle.  I had seen it in the theater years ago upon its release.  I took my son, who at the time was about the same age I had been when I saw it.  He got to meet Peter, whom I had met on several previous occasions.  My son and I both had a great evening.  If you’re interested, you can read about that here.

Today (April 20, 2019) marks Peter’s 80th birthday.  I’d like to wish him a very happy birthday.  Beagle is a true gentleman and one of the best stylists working in the field.  His work is filled with warmth and humor, and I highly recommend it.

The other birthday I want to acknowledge is that of Donald Wandrei, who was born in 1908.  In addition to writing for the pulps, including Weird Tales and Black Mask, Wandrei co-founded Arkham House with August Derleth.  There are no electronic collections of Wandrei’s fiction, but Fedogan and Bremer have brought out several nice hardcover collections of his short fiction.  I’ve read a little of his work, and I intend to read more.  Anyone who can hit both Weird Tales and Black Mask is a writer I want to read.

Happy Birthday, Avram Davidson

avram_davidsonIn addition to being Talbot Munday’s birthday (see previous post), today, April 23, is also Avrm Davidson’s birthday.  Born in 1923, Avram Davidson was one of the most original and uinque writers of fantasy in the mid-20th Century.

Davidson won multiple awards in variety of genres, including the Hguo (“All the Seas with Oysters”), an Edgar Award, and three World Fantasy Awards as well as a World Fantasy Lifetime achievement Award.  He was the editor of F&SF from 1962-1964.

He wrote novels, but I’ve always thought of him as primarily a short story writer.  His work is characterized by wit and erudition.  It’s not fluff and requires concentration.  One of his books I need to revisit is Adventures in Unhistory, a collection of essays in which Davidson speculated on the origins of myths and legneds.  I’ve never read anything else quite like it.

Unfortunately in this age five, six, or more volume “trilogies”, the type of fiction he wrote is out of style and his work is largely forgotten.  This is a shame, because he was one of the most original writers the field has ever produced.  I once heard a panel on “What Writers Will We Be Reading 100 Years From Now?” in which Neil Gaiman listed Davidson.  And when I visited with Peter S. Beagle last year, he told me how he used to visit with Davidson and listen to him.  Beagle encouraged him to talk about whatever was on his mind because it would be fascinating and educational.  I must admit I was a bit jealous when he told me that.

It’s late, but tomorrow I’m going to read some of his work.  If you would like to give him a try, much of his work is available in electronic form in reasonably priced editions.

An Evening with Peter S. Beagle and The Last Unicorn

20150415_185732If you’ve not read any of the works of Peter S. Beagle, what are you doing wasting your time reading this?  Go get some.  Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

If you have, then you’ll understand what a pleasure it was to visit with him and watch a screening of The Last Unicorn a couple of nights ago.  That’s him in front of the screen taking questions from the audience.  The Last Unicorn is the novel that made his reputation, but he’s written other works, especially short fiction in the last 20 years, that are all fantastic.

The Last Unicorn was published by Ballantine Books in 1968.  It wasn’t part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, but it’s generally considered a precursor of the series, and later editions have the unicorn head colophon. Continue reading

A Look at Weird Tales #361

Weird Tales #361
PDF $2.99

Before we get started, I’d like to thank Doug Draa for the review copy.  Doug, who blogs at Uncle Doug’s Bunker of Vintage Horror Paperbacks, is a new contributing editor at Weird Tales, and we wish him a successful run in that capacity. 

Weird Tales has adopted the policy of giving each issue a theme.  The previous issue was Cthulhu Returns, and according to the ad in the present issue, the next issue’s theme is the Undead.  There are rumors of a sword and sorcery issue in the works as well.  In addition to having stories around a specific theme, each issue will also have unthemed stories.  As you can see from the cover, the present issue has the theme of Fairy Tales.

Fairy Tales as a theme is pretty broad.  That can encompass retellings or deconstructions of established fairy tales, new stories which read like fairy tales in they way they are structured and/or the themes they address, and stories in which (often contemporary) characters interact with the realm of fairy.  All of those and more are included here.

I also need to say a few words about personal taste.  One of the things I try to do, although I’m not sure how successful I am, is to distinguish between what I consider flaws in a work I’m reviewing and what simply isn’t to my taste.  There’s quite a bit of fiction in this issue, and I’ll try to distinguish between what doesn’t work for me and what I think isn’t very good by more objective standards.  I have to admit that I’ve never cared much for the elves/fairies/fae in the modern world type of story (unless the author has the last name of de Lint).  I prefer my fairy tale oriented fiction to be either variations on established tales or stories with fairy tale sensibilities, like the Beagle story herein.  I especially like them if they are dark, have a strong element of horror, and/or don’t always end happily.  Think the Datlow/Windling original anthologies from the 90s, and you’ll have a good idea of where my tastes run. 

By far the standout of the issue is the lead tale by Peter S. Beagle, “The Queen Who Could Not Walk”, in which a queen learns the meaning of sacrifice and forgiveness along with a lesson about love.  This one clearly falls into the new fairy tale category, like so much of Beagle’s work does.  In the last decade, give or take a few years, Beagle has been one of the top practitioners of the short story form in the field.  This story is an excellent example of why that is.

Tanith Lee follows Beagle with a twist on an old fairy tale with “Magpied”  Close scrutiny of the title should give you a clue as to which tale she’s dealing with.  Many of the old fairy tales are fairly short, and this one was no exception.  The story she works with is one of my favorites, and Lee does an excellent job with it.

One of the longer stories is “Fae for a Day” by Teel James Glenn.  It’s a modern-human-encounters-the-fae-in-a-bar-and-proceeds-to-have-adventures kind of story.  This one was well written, and people who like this subgenre will probably like it.  I’ve seen the cop wounded in the line of duty, discharged from the force, and crawls into a bottle scenario enough that I had a hard time warming to this one.  It didn’t help that much of the attempted humor fell flat for me, such as referring to Titania as Titty.  Still, there’s a good audience out there for this type of thing, and I’m sure a number of readers will like it.  As for me, while I wasn’t crazy about it, I didn’t think it was the worst story of the lot, either.

“I am Moonflower” by Nicole Cushing and “Blind Alley” by Morgan Llewellyn are both short.  Of the two, I think I prefer the Cushing, which concerns the life of bees and flowers.  That may not sound appealing, but I liked the ending.  Llewellyn’s tale describes how the world will end.

The next story was “Suri and Sirin” by Court Merrigan.  It’s a story within a story, in which a father tells a tale to his children on a Christmas eve.  It’s a variation of a folk tale from Thailand, and as such had a different rhythm to it from the European folk tales I’m more familiar with.  Even though the twist at the end was no great surprise, it was a nice, sweet story, and I liked it.

J. R. Restrick’s “The Flowers of Tir-na-nOg” takes us into Dunsany territory.  A young man wanders through the lands of the fae hoping to find the girl who jilted him.  It’s a bittersweet story reminiscent of an earlier era and provided a good contrast to most of the other stories.

The one story I absolutely hated was Caitlin Campbell’s “The Miracles of La Guardia Airport (Delta Terminal).”  In this one a guardian angel seduces a man so that she won’t be promoted to a more important assignment.  I found it distasteful on more than one level.

“A Gnomish Gift” by Alex Shvartsman is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view.  While this one was neither dark nor horrifying, I really liked the way Shvartsman’s interpretation of the story placed a positive spin on things.

Jane Yolen gives us “Enough” insight into a sect of Judaism that is both educational and entertaining.

Lauren Liebowitz provides a sequel to Rumpelstiltskin with “Gold” that is completely incompatible with the interpretation in “A Gnomish Gift”.  This maintains the tragic air of the original and carries it one step further.  Short, sharp, and to the point. 

We’re back to longer works with “The Brown Man of Glen Gardens” by Frank Aversa.  A biologist revisits his childhood home and discovers something about one of the homeless people he feared as a kid.  This one didn’t end up the way I expected it to.

The next group in the Fairy Tale section were pretty short.  I liked Mark Bilgrey’s “The King’s Enemies” and found it to be a good example of a new fairy tale, although the ending was a little weak.  “The Crimson Cloak” by Zach Shephard had some good ideas, but the twist wasn’t very surprising.  Dick Baldwin’s “The Lute Player and the Mask” had a nice punch, although you could see it coming as well.  “Payment”  by Alfred J. Vickers III was flash fiction, dealing with a fairy tale we’d seen in an earlier story.

“Out of Time” by Manny Fishberg closes out the fairy tale section.  It’s a longer story, and offers a chilling twist on what a mother would do for her dying daughter.  It was one of the stronger stories in the issue.

There were two nonthemed selections.  Both were disappointing.  “As Fleas” by John Koons is a preachy little vignette that hits you over the head with the message.  Coming in a what would probably be considered short story length is “Black Poppy” by David W. Amendola.  Set in the 1920s or thereabouts, it concerns a brilliant professor of history who gets his hands on some dried and ground black poppy and tries to recreate a series of experiments described in one of his grimoires.  Of course he comes to a bad end.  Although competently written, there was nothing here that we haven’t seen multiple times before and certainly nothing original.  The most interesting character to me was the shop keeper who procured the poppy for the professor.

Additional features included some mini-interviews about fairy tales with Ramsey Campbell, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Elizabeth Bear, and Orrin Grey, full interviews with Tessa Farmer and J. David Spurlock (this one concerning Margaret Brundage), and poetry by Carole Bugge`, Jill Bauman, Andrew J. Wilson, and Arinn Dembo.  I enjoyed the poetry, but because the poems were all short, I won’t comment on them individually.  There was an editorial, a book review column, a look at how the cover design for this issue evolved (a feature that should be kept), and a brief history of the magazine by Darrell Schweitzer that probably won’t appeal to fans of Ann Vandermeer.  Many of the stories were illustrated, by a variety of artists.  The only complaint I had about the illustrations was I couldn’t resize the font on my ereader without it freezing up when I came to an illustration, forcing me to read on a backlit screen.

So how do I rate this issue of Weird Tales overall?  It’s certainly worth reading, even if I did find aspects of it disappointing.  I expect Peter Beagle’s story to be included in some of next year’s Year’s Best anthologies.  The nonfiction and poetry are good and should be kept, but they aren’t why most people read the magazine.  With that in mind, please indulge me the liberty to make a few comments in general.

Weird Tales # 360

First, I preferred the previous issue to this one.  A large part of that is a matter of personal taste.  Not all of the fairy tale treatments were my cup of tea, although there was only one I completely disliked.  I also thought a couple of them stretched the definition of fairy tale a bit, but that’s a minor quibble.  I realize that any fiction publication has to appeal to a broad base of readers, and as a consequence needs to have a diverse selection of fiction.  I consider an editor to have done his/her job if that’s the case regardless of how many stories I personally like.  For the most part I think that’s the case here.

However, I hope the high number of short-shorts and flash fiction is a function of the fairy tale theme rather than an indication of the direction Weird Tales is going.  This many in one place, they start to feel gimicky.  I thought most of the stronger stories were the longer ones.

Second, while I like the idea of each issue having a theme as well as containing unthemed stories, it’s a pretty tricky tightrope act to pull off.  On the one side, a particular theme may cause someone to buy the magazine who wouldn’t otherwise.  On the other, the editor risks alienating some potential readers if the theme isn’t to their tastes, especially if this is the case for more than one issue.  This is where a strong selection of unthemed stories comes in, to provide that balance.  I don’t think this issue succeeds in the balance.  There were only two items in the unthemed section, and really, only one of them was an actual story with things like characters.  In my opinion, for what little it’s worth, the number of stories that relate to the theme and those that don’t should be about equal.  That way if a particular theme doesn’t appeal to some readers, they will still feel they are getting their money’s worth.  The same for those who are drawn to a particular theme but aren’t fond of some of the unthemed tales. 

I think the fantasy field needs a publication like Weird Tales. The magazine has always defined itself as the place where fiction that couldn’t find a home anywhere else could be published.  Some people have accused it of straying from that to publish the type of fiction it published during its heydey while ignoring some of the more innovative work being done now.  I submit that while there is some truth in accusation, there aren’t many major markets carrying on the tradition begun in the classic issues of Weird Tales.  There’s room for stories in the vein of Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, and Quinn, and there’s room for new and innovative weird fiction as well.  The key, as I said earlier, is balance.

I haven’t agreed with every decision Marvin Kaye has made since taking the editorial reigns, but I still support the magazine.  I want it to survive and prosper and thrive.  To that end, I will speak up when I think it isn’t up to the level it should be.  As I will when I think it is. This issue falls in the middle.  By and large, I think the magazine is heading in the right direction with its theme approach.  Hopefully the business side of things will improve to the point that we’ll be able to read it more often.