Finished reading all of what I have up on Ao3. I really just dropped off on updating with no warning on a cliffhanger lol.
But I’ve done the full read-through, now. Imma have to look back and see how long it took me… a week? Two weeks? Not long to read 365k words, though. I still love this story.
Now, to decide where it goes next. Probably won’t be able to write again until break/the summer.
-I don’t think part 9 needs much editing. I’ll have to reread the remaining chapters, but most of it can probably just get posted.
-however the progressing plot needs work. But I think I am in a better frame of mind now. The story needs to start working down to its conclusion. I need to make sure I finish arcs, bringing a satisfying conclusion for all 13ish main characters, and hit the most important story beats that I’ve imagined. In the right order. So that the arcs are arcs and progress and not just random.
-but I have a conference today and I need to go get ready for that lol so further plot and character work is for another day.
Peter S. Beagle is such a fine writer, and grows finer with age
For B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG, Ceridwen Christensen delivers a loving profile of Peter S. Beagle and his most famous work in Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, Immortal at 50.
Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn was first published in 1968—50 years ago!—but my entrance into the narrative was via the 1982 Rankin/Bass film adaption. Probably best known for stop-motion holiday perennials like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the animation studio briefly had a sideline in adapting fantasy classics, among them J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Beagle’s (then and now) most revered work.
In the U.S. (and particularly in the ’80s), animation meant “for kids.” While neither The Hobbit nor The Last Unicorn were written for children, precisely, they both have charming, conspiring narrators, and are the kind of tales that can be read aloud beautifully. The script for The Last Unicorn was written by Beagle himself, and what resulted is lovely film, and a terrifying one, for children and their inevitable parents. It’s especially striking in the ambiguity of its conclusion—a happily-ever-after more than tinged with melancholy and regret.
When I finally picked up the novel, some years back, I thought I knew what to expect, and was wholly unprepared to be left poleaxed by its delicate beauty.
The Last Unicorn was only Beagle’s second novel, published when he was in his late 20s, but it is an unbelievably accomplished work; both winsome and wistful, happy and sad, longing and fulfilled. My notes, jotted down during that first reading, are just lines of oppositional adjectives, dichotomies that somehow resolve to wholeness within the text.
The ending of the novel feels final and true, but Beagle has written well more into the unicorn wood since The Last Unicorn was published half a century ago—even as he has adapted the original novel into new forms; see the film’s screenplay, as well as a quite beautiful graphic novel. IN CALABRIA details a pair of unicorns who are almost an inversion of first and last unicorn: wholly bestial, without speech, but with the glimmering immortality that does not and cannot know regret.
Last year’s THE OVERNEATH, a collection of short stories about a bestiary of topics, tells the stories of three unicorns, several other monsters, and two anecdotes in the life of Schmendrick, the last of the red-hot swamis. The first elucidates how he ended up with such a horrible name; in Yiddish, a language of the most nuanced insults, schmendrick means something like “one who is out of their depth.” The second finds Schmendrick just after his release from Nikos’ tutelage.
“Two Hearts,” a novelette that won both the Hugo and the Nebula the year it was published, and can be found in the collection THE LINE BETWEEN, is a sort of coda to The Last Unicorn—a telling Beagle resisted for decades. This fall arrives THE LAST UNICORN: THE LOST JOURNEY, 96 pages of pages of musings and ephemera that provide a glimpse of an early draft of the novel, written when Beagle was just 23; the promotional copy promises an encounter with a dragon.
Since I first read The Last Unicorn, I’ve fallen into other of Beagle’s works, and every time I read him, I am floored by his command of language, his sly sense of humor, his almost casual profundity. Just this year he honored by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer’s of America’s as a Damon Knight Grand Master, an award for lifetime achievement. Unfortunately, many of his books have gone in and out of print. Boy, but I would love to see lush, newly illustrated editions of his prodigious catalog, beginning with The Last Unicorn, his most enduring work. He is such a fine writer, and grows finer with age.
For more info about THE LAST UNICORN: THE LOST JOURNEY, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Thorsten Erdt
Design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about IN CALABRIA, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about THE OVERNEATH, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about THE LINE BETWEEN, visit the Tachyon page.
Happy 80th birthday to the incomparable grandmaster Peter S. Beagle
*In celebration of the iconic Peter S. Beagle turning 80, we’re having a sale! ALL titles written by Peter are 20% off through Wednesday, April 24 midnight PST. Use coupon code BDAYBEAGLE1*
Photo: Rina Weisman
A Recipient of the prestigious World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award and creator of the iconic The Last Unicorn (1968), Peter S. Beagle's has thrilled and entertained multiple generations of fans. His other book length works include A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE (1960), The Folk of the Air (1986, winner of the Mythopoeic Award), The Innkeeper's Song (1993, winner of the Locus Poll Award), The Unicorn Sonata (1996), Tamsin (1999, winner of the Mythopoeic Award), SUMMERLONG (2016), IN CALABRIA (2017), and THE LAST UNICORN: THE LOST JOURNEY (2018).
Beagle's numerous award-winning short fiction films have been collected in Giant Bones (1997), THE RHINOCEROS WHO QUOTED NIETZSCHE AND OTHER ODD ACQUAINTANCES (1997), THE LINE BETWEEN (2006), Strange Roads (2008), WE NEVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER (2009), Mirror Kingdoms: The Best or Peter S. Beagle (2010), SLEIGHT OF HAND (2011), and THE OVERNEATH (2017).
He edited several acclaimed anthologies: Peter S. Beagle's Immortal Unicorn (1995 with Janet Berliner and Martin H. Greenberg), THE SECRET HISTORY OF FANTASY (2010), THE URBAN FANTASY ANTHOLOGY (2011 with Joe R. Lansdale), THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY(2017 with Jacob Weisman, winner of the World Fantasy Award), and THE UNICORN ANTHOLOGY (2019 with Jacob Weisman).+
Everyone at Tachyon wishes the beloved Peter a special 80th birthday. May it be magical.
For more info about THE UNICORN ANTHOLOGY , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Thomas Canty
Design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about THE LAST UNICORN: THE LOST JOURNEY , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Thorsten Erdt
Design by Elizabeth Story
For more info on A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Ann Monn
For more info on SUMMERLONG , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover art by Magdalena Korzeniewska
Design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about IN CALABRIA , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
For more info on THE RHINOCEROS WHO QUOTED NIETZSCHE AND OTHER ODD ACQUAINTANCES , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Michael Dashow
For more info on THE LINE BETWEEN, visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Ann Monn
For more info on WE NEVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Ann Monn
For more info on SLEIGHT OF HAND , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Ann Monn
For more info on THE SECRET HISTORY OF FANTASY , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by Ann Monn
For more info on THE URBAN FANTASY ANTHOLOGY , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover by design by Elizabeth Story
For more info on THE OVERNEATH , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY , visit the Tachyon page .
Cover art by Camille André
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
