The Line Between - Softcover

Beagle, Peter S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1892391368 ISBN 13: 9781892391360

Publisher: Tachyon Publications, 2006

Synopsis

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for "Two Hearts"
Winner of the Washington Science Fiction Small Press Award for "El Regalo"
Nominee for the Mythopoeic Award

The beloved author of The Last Unicorn returns with the signature elegance and originality that has earned him comparisons to J. R. R. Tolkien, Fritz Leiber, and Kurt Vonnegut. Readers seeking magic, wonder, and mystery need look no further. In these resonant new stories, some appearing for the first time, you will find bold adventure, sly humor, and resounding depth.

In the thrilling and beautiful "Two Hearts," return to the extraordinary world of The Last Unicorn. Observe the World's Most Annoying Eight-Year-Old bend time, fate, and household chores to his sorcerous will. Learn how Soukyan met the Fox, and why a stolen dream might be more dangerous than an unstoppable assassin. Discover the price of a merman's treasure, match wits with the man who saw right through Sherlock Holmes, and redefine feline style with Gordon, the self-made cat.

The Line Between is a captivating blend of traditional and contemporary fantasy, crafted by the field's most remarkable imagination. It is a collection you will return to again and again and treasure forever.

About this title

About the Author

Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song, and Tamsin. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire awards as well as the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Reviews

This story collection from fantasy legend Beagle offers a sublime mix of reprints and original works. "Two Hearts," the coda to his masterwork, The Last Unicorn, is a sweet, slight story sure to leave fans hungry for the novel's promised sequel. Yet even Beagle's lesser efforts contain delicate shadings and subtle prose. The brief selections grouped as "Four Fables" pay tribute to George Ade and James Thurber, while the tantalizing "El Regalo," a bittersweet tale of two Korean-American children with strange powers, deserves to be expanded to novel length. The volume closes with "A Dance for Emilia," which Beagle in his introduction calls "as autobiographical as anything I've ever written" (quite a statement from the author of the autobiographical I See by My Outfit). It is a tapestry woven of love, friendship, art and a very special cat. This book is a fitting tribute to a beloved author who one hopes has several more novels left in him. (Aug.)
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*Starred Review* When Beagle's A Fine and Private Place (1960), a story of two ghosts in love, emerged virtually simultaneously with other brilliant debuts by Philip Roth, Reynolds Price, and Wendell Berry, he was hailed as one of their cohort of promising American novelists. The Last Unicorn (1968), however, disclosed him delving more deeply into fantasy (the unicorn is the protagonist, not a metaphor), and he was critically drummed out of the troop. He hardly lost his talent, though, and ever since Last Unicorn, one of the most beloved fantasies ever written, fantasy critics and readers have treasured his work, all the more so because he isn't prolific. For all their variety--four fables, a children's story for all ages, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, an old tar's tall tale, a sequel to one novel (Last Unicorn) and a prequel to another (The Innkeeper's Song, 1993), and the germ of a prospective witch novel--all 10 stories in this book are lucid and refreshing as spring water, full of amusement, humanity, and wisdom. Perhaps Beagle is incapable of writing genuinely dark fantasy, but his tall tale "Salt Wine" touches the tonalities of R. L. Stevenson in "The Bottle Imp" and W. W. Jacobs in "The Monkey's Paw," while on the other end of the spectrum, the Last Unicorn follow-up "Two Hearts" is like Kenneth Grahame's "Reluctant Dragon" with greater gravitas. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Tachyon Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1892391368
• ISBN 13: 9781892391360
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 231