From /tmp/sf.4258 Tue Feb 1 03:22:55 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:424 rec.arts.sf.written:40786 Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: merritt@provolone.bchem.washington.edu (Ethan A Merritt) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Book review of _The Innkeeper's Song_ (Peter S. Beagle) Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Message-ID: <2cn1si$s99@news.u.washington.edu> Date: 21 Nov 93 22:06:56 GMT Lines: 130 Book Review: _The Innkeeper's Song_ (Peter S. Beagle) _The Innkeeper's Song_ is a sword-and-sorcery adventure told with unusual fluency. As an adventure it is nothing special, but it is nonetheless worth seeking out. If nothing else it is a tour-de-force of stylistic control over a single tale told through many shifting viewpoints. Peter Beagle has produced some of the most innovative, if all too infrequent :-(, fantasy of the last several decades. Although his works are not all of a piece, up until now each one has succeeded remarkably in creating an atmosphere almost wholely un-beholden to other works of fantasy. Those who remember back to 1967 (or are lucky enough to have found the 1978 Viking Press collection of _The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Beagle_) may remember a first glimpse of the life and strange times of Joe Farrell, who at the time was living with _Lila the Werewolf_ in a New York City tenement. 20 years later we were treated to a much longer glimpse of Farrell's penchant for encountering unusual people, in _The Folk of the Air_. At the close of _TFotA_ Farrell was heading out of Berkeley (all right, "Avicenna") in an old VW bus named Madame Schumann-Heink accompanied by an Alsatian dog whom we strongly suspect of having once been a gryphon and a Goddess's familiar. The Goddess herself had fallen on hard times, and for that matter denied being a Goddess at all, but that's another subject and another review. In any event, since 1987 we haven't heard a peep from Farrell or from Beagle. I was hoping that _Innkeeper's Song_ would catch us up on the continuing saga of Farrell as he turns up the unusual in new corners of late 20th Century America, but in this I was disappointed. Of Beagle's other fantasy, the best known seems to be _The Last Unicorn_, which sets out deliberately to steal cliched fantasy elements stretching from the Brothers Grimm through James Thurber and recast them into a serious tale whose tone is nonetheless something half way between a serious _Snow White_ and a slapstick _13 Clocks_. However unpromising this approach sounds, it produced a lovely tale which was, and is, far far out of what passes for the mainstream of fantasy. I was therefore surprised to find that _The Innkeeper's Song_ is, unlike Beagle's previous work, very much a sword-and-sorcery yarn. A plot summary would make it sound like dozens other titles you might find on the current fantasy shelves of a bookshop. You know the line - inexperienced youth is unexpectedly caught up in the magical affairs of powerful wizard; barbarian swordsmanship triumphs over supposedly invincible magic; young peasant girl turns out to be the only one who can save the world - so never mind a plot summary. I suspect that Beagle intended to try the same approach as for _The Last Unicorn_ (there is a passing nod to _Unicorn_ in the text at one point), borrowing this time from cliched elements of current fantasy works. Unfortunately, it didn't work quite as well this time around. Where _Unicorn_ ran to Thurber-esque clanking suits of animated armour and bumbling magicians in funny hats, _Innkeeper's Song_ has *Ninja Monks* and *Female Barbarian Swordspersons* (TM). The problem comes in reconciling this with the tone of the tale, which this time approaches gritty realism. It's one thing to incorporate some random borrowed cliche for your own purposes into a brilliantly original slapstick, and quite another to paste one into a novel which hasn't diverged very far from the genre you are grabbing cliches from. On the other hand, it is only familiarity with Beagle's earlier work which leads me to analyze _Innkeeper's Song_ this way. Treated entirely on it's own the book is not a bad sword-and-sorcery tale. And what really stands out is the narrative style, which is free from any of the above criticism. Beagle has chosen to write from multiple points of view, each close to stream-of-consciousness, and each very short indeed. For a page or three, enough time to walk from the inn to the stable, we see through the eyes/mind/personality of Lal (wandering sailor and swordswoman extraordinaire). The action flows seemlessly as we shift in viewpoint to Rosseth (stableboy, mooncalf, hopelessly enamoured of Lal and her companions). Shift again to view the various humans from the eyes of Nyateneri's pet fox (not since John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ have I been so impressed with an animal stream-of-consciousness). Beagle manages to to maintain distinct voices for 5 major viewpoint characters and as many minor ones. Despite the jump in viewpoint every couple of pages, the continuity is flawless. If there is any weakness in the execution of the narrative, it lies in the lack of perceived historical depth to the characters. We know how it feels to _be_ these characters from their distinctive individual narrations. But we don't know where they came from, or indeed how or why such a person should exist in the fantasy world depicted. Perhaps this follows inevitably from the construction of the book: The characters didn't flow naturally from a conception of the fantasy world, they were born as cliches and given flesh only in the eternal present of the narrative. In the process they gained an impressive presence as individuals in the here- and-now, but they don't have the power to give life to a surrounding world which is otherwise unexplained. Not all authors care to spend their effort in world-building. That's fine for fantasy set more-or-less in the world we all live in anyway; the reader can fill in any necessary background from real life. Most of Beagle's earlier fantasies fall in this category. _The Last Unicorn_, which might otherwise be the exception, similarly works because the reader slips naturally into the shared world of fairy-tales. But the tone and genre of _Innkeeper's Song_ is one which usually strives for some level of world-building and description, and I found its lack to be a weakness. Pick up a copy of _The Innkeeper's Song_. Read it for the marvelous writing, the character depiction, the not-bad fantasy adventure. All of Beagle's fantasies are worth reading. Still, I hope he eventually returns to chronicling the adventures of Joe Farrell! Ethan A Merritt merritt@u.washington.edu %A Peter S. Beagle %T The Innkeeper's Song %D 1993 %I ROC/Penguin %G ISBN 0-451-45288-7 %P 346 pages (hardcover) %A Peter S. Beagle %T The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Beagle %D 1978 %I Viking %G ISBN 0-670-30725-4 %P 430 pages (hardcover) %A Peter S. Beagle %T The Folk of the Air %D 1986 %I Del Rey/Ballantine %G ISBN 0-345-33782-4 %P 330 pages (hardcover) From new Thu Jun 16 18:52:25 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eff!news.kei.com!yeshua.marcam.com!charnel!olivea!koriel!rutgers!ljsrv2.enet.dec.com!marotta From: marotta@ljsrv2.enet.DEC.COM (I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now...) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Book Review: The Innkeeper's Song Message-ID: <9403151709.AA03239@enet-gw.pa.dec.com> Date: 15 Mar 94 17:09:15 GMT Sender: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu Lines: 71 The Innkeeper's Song, by Peter S. Beagle A book review by Mary J. Marotta What is magic? In this novel by the author of the highly acclaimed "The Last Unicorn," Peter Beagle's wizard is the center of the circle of all things and his power lies in his knowledge about the forces around him and his wisdom in understanding them. Magic power runs through all the characters and places in this story about a wizard and his former students, one of whom as become his arch enemy. The location is the Gaff and Slasher, an inn with a very special clientele. The stable boy, Rosseth, who has no knowledge of his real origins, is very interested in the three women who ride into the inn yard, and he helps them arrange for a room against the innkeeper's better judgement. Karsh the innkeeper is the brash, loud manager of this inn and an unfailing critic of both his help and his new guests: Lal, the warrior with a sword hidden in a cane; Nyatenari, the tall brown woman with the fox riding in her saddlebag; and Lukassa, the pale village maiden whom Lal resurrected from death and to whom she gave the emerald ring she wore. Rosseth the stable boy imposes his will on his fierce master once again when Tikat, a lonely, weak traveller, follows his beloved Lukassa to the Gaff and Slasher, with nowhere else to go. Soon Tikat has a place in the stable near Rosseth and some visiting players. The old man who Tikat saved from death at the hands of bandits and who helped Tikat through the arid and treacherous journey is gone. Nyatenari's fox reveals the power to change himself into a human at will, and is soon pursued in fox form by a great dog who catches him and convinces him to carry the dog to the inn. The fox takes on his human form, and the dog also takes his human form: as the wizard who was the teacher of both Lal and Nyatenari, now weakened and injured in a clash with his former student, an evil wizard. Lal has arrived at the Gaff and Slasher in her search for that teacher, a wizard who has sent dreams and visions telling her that he is in trouble. She and Nyatenari travel together to meet the evil wizard and attemp to save their teacher, but their meeting with the evil wizard nearly ends in disaster, and they are rescued and returned to the inn by their teacher. The evil wizard follows them there, bringing his associates, dark powers with whom his bargain for everlasting life was bought by promising them his master's death. These powers would like to see the kind and gentle old teacher suffer an everlasting death and torment as a terrifying burning ice monster. Magic in this story rips and twists the world, causing drought and a sense of despair. The evil wizard has made a dangerous bargain and he does not recognize the true nature of the dark powers. This story shows how everyone is marked by the decisions they make in life. Once you get used to the weird way things move without being moved in this book, you can relax and enjoy the humorous situations. Karsh is a man of duality who is both a competent and successful innkeeper and a roaring harassment to his beleagered employees. Nayatenari's fox tears himself from contemplations of the pretty plump pigeons in Karsh's attic to express his deep dislike of wizardry of any type. The fox's ruminations on the metaphysics of his situation are both poignant and wry. This is a story about fagades, masks, and learning your true identity. In his spare, graceful style, Peter Beagle draws characters that have three-dimensionality and also have universal traits, to show how plot and characters are intertwined to make a story about change and growing, as well as about constancy and identity. This new novel deserves rich praise and further analysis. It is a "keeper," to be read over and over again. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Sep 24 22:01:07 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!usenet From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: "Legacy" by Greg Bear Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 24 Sep 1996 11:39:00 -0400 Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 76 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Keywords: author= p-m agapow X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 "Legacy" by Greg Bear A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow A prequel to "Eon" and Eternity": The Way is an endless tunnel, a flaw in spacetime with hidden openings that are paths to other worlds. One of these other worlds is the interdicted Lamarckia, a lush planet with a strange biology of ever-warring meta-organisms. The luddite Lenk has spirited a group of followers away and colonised Lamarckia. The melancholic agent Olmy is sent on a one way mission to investigate and finds the planet in upheaval - in more ways than one. Great unsolved mysteries in pop culture, Take 1 : * When Jim Jarmusch, Win Wenders and Hal Hartley get together, do they make fun of other people's names? * Raymond Chandler once said that if he got stumped when writing a story, his solution was to write in a man coming through the door with a gun. Is is correct to assume therefore that Chandler got writer's block, on average, twice a page? * When a new series is breathlessly announced as being "in the tradition of the `Foundation' trilogy", what actually does that mean? It's about a group of scientists controlling history? Or that there are three parts? Add to this "Exactly what happened to Greg Bear between 'Forge of God' and 'Queen of Angels'?" because it sure doesn't look like the same writer sometimes. Even contrasting a book and its sequel - e.g. "Forge of God" and the excellent "Anvil of Stars" - there's been an incredible transformation. The latest example is "Legacy." "Eon" was not a favourite of mine, being a book where the flashy science was the protagonist and the characters just flimsy background that shook every time someone slammed a door too hard. An interesting and fertile setting was wiped of any interest in the carwreck of a beginning chapter. Needless to say, I didn't read the sequel "Eternity". (A less fortunate colleague quipped "If it took you an eon to read 'Eon' ...") "Legacy" is a prequel to "Eon," set as the asteroid Thistledown journeys out of the solar system. The asteroid side of affairs barely features in the novel, just one of the many ways in which "Legacy" is tenuously connected to its siblings. Indeed the entire mission aspect is basically an excuse to get Olmy to Lamarckia, a very thin excuse. There's something very Dilbert- esque about it: imagine the chief of Way Defence with two curly tufts of hair saying "We don't know what's happening there or what you can do or how you can get back but go and get me a report, would you?" and Olmy, spherical, myopic and in lycra, thinking "I'm doomed". In style too, "Legacy" is different. This is a personal story of Olmy's alienation, failure and awakening against the panorama of a larger struggle. Bear provides a fascinating backdrop with the ecology of Lamarckia. Biologists will find some aspects dubious, but Lamarckia is so interesting and such a departure from Earth biology that any mistakes are probably excusable. But the book avoids the obvious trap of becoming a travelogue story, instead giving us a moderately complicated political and personal plot with Olmy struggling to keep his cover and investigate the brewing civil war on Lamarckia. The characterisation is perhaps not as good as that in (say) "Anvil of Stars" and there is a rough point or two here as well, but again these are forgivable. The book is also a little long, but not annoyingly so and there is enough story to fill it. So in summary, "Legacy" makes a few mistakes but does so much right that these are easily forgivable. Greg Bear is still on track and this novel comes recommended. [***/interesting] and BBC period dramas on the Sid and Nancy scale. %A Greg Bear %B Legacy %I Tor %C New York %D 1995 %G ISBN 0-812-52481-0 %P 471pp %O Aus$14.95 paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse [archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]