Peter S. Beagle is, obviously, a legend. So I was very excited to get my hands on an advanced copy of his new book, and I’m delighted to say that it lived up to my internal hype.
The principle protagonist is Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax, who prefers to go by Robert. He just inherited his late father’s business as a dragon exterminator. He excels in the job, but also hates it, for the same reason: he feels a strong kinship to dragons, vermin though they are usually considered. One of the two secondary protagonists is the Princess Cerise, who is stunningly beautiful and more annoyed about it than anything else. She’s never had anything but contempt for the endless parade of banal princes vying for her hand … until she sees the equally stunning Prince Reginald (our other secondary protagonist) arrive in the country. Suddenly nothing will do but for the castle to be cleaned up and restored immediately, which necessitates the local dragon exterminator paying a visit. And we’re off to the Plot.
As with many great stories, these three are on a journey of self-discovery. Robert longs to get on a different path, which is made difficult by the fact that he’s really, really good at the one he is on. He needs to deal with his self-loathing and face what his understanding of dragons really means. Cerise needs to understand herself; her role as princess & heir of the kingdom, what she wants out of life, and how to break out of the passivity her life has mostly been. Reginald (who didn’t come to the kingdom looking to court Cerise, actually; he was sent out erranting by his overbearing father, and really just wants to get out from under the weight of expectations) needs to accept that it’s OK for him not to be the hero his father wants him to be, and everyone assumes him to be just because he really looks like one.
Throw in a cheerfully buffoonish king, a prim but secretly very romantic queen, an evil wizard, and a few village-destroying dragons rather larger than the variety Robert is fumigating the Great Hall for, and you’ve got a very compelling story.
Inevitably, anything Peter Beagle writes will be compared to The Last Unicorn. I don’t think this is quite as good as that, but that’s hardly a suggestion that this is anything less than wonderful. It has the same style as The Last Unicorn, as all of Beagle’s work does, but this one doesn’t have the same depth of sadness. Something people who haven’t read many of Beagle’s short stories might not realize (aside: go find and read some of Beagle’s short stories, they’re great) is that not only is his stuff generally beautiful and sad, it’s also freaking hilarious. It’s honestly a rather impressive thing to pull off, but he does it wonderfully. He also does scary very well, as everyone who had nightmares about the Red Bull knows. That’s the case here as well.
A worthy entry in the bibliography of one of the masters of fantasy. Comes out on May 14.