Peter S. Beagle’s SUMMERLONG is an elegantly written revelation of the magic beneath everyday life
The praise for Peter Beagle’s masterful SUMMERLONG keeps rolling in.
In the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe lauds the novel.
Since his earliest novels, notably “The Last Unicorn,” Peter S. Beagle has been among the most beloved of American fantasists, and his first novel in 17 years will be welcomed enthusiastically by his many fans. They won’t be disappointed, but those who haven’t followed the series of brilliant short stories Beagle has published over the past decade or so might be a little surprised at the domestic setting and largely realistic tone of his current fiction.
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There is real suspense, but in place of facile shocks Beagle opts for gentle revelations, and the result is a quietly glowing and elegantly written revelation of the magic beneath everyday life.
Ceridwen Christensen on the B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG reviews the book.
It’s perfect, somehow, that I read SUMMERLONG, the new novel by Peter S. Beagle, in early September, as summer folds up into the paper edge of autumn, sharp and cool. I don’t hear crickets or cicadas until August, and then the air hums with their drone and chirp: the cicadas languid and sleepy during the day; the crickets cheerfully bright at night. It’s all jumbled reversals, here on the edge of seasons. Beagle harnesses that long summer, that summer long, to tell a story steeped in myth and mystery, but with such fine portraits of its principles that its otherworldliness remains grounded and tactile. It’s a book that makes me shiver in anticipation of a winter that hasn’t quite come.
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So rarely do people write about aging, about being old, about being the adult parents of adult children, about the way the seasons pile one upon the other into a refrain of this is how it is. So rarely do people write about how that breaks, and how in breaking, it is complete. Ah.
The Hungarian site SF MAG eagerly anticipates SUMMERLONG.
Many, many years have passed since Peter S. Beagle new novel appeared (remember, ten years ago you could soon be ready to SUMMERLONG), in which a mysterious waitress comes to Gardner Island, and is a conflict-ridden family. In terms of location and atmosphere of the novel FOLK OF THE AIR. FOLK OF THE AIR evokes the world, not THE LAST UNICORN or THE INNKEEPER’S SONG, but we can be sure of one thing: be a wonderful story, as written by Beagle.
(Translated from Hungarian by Google)
For more info on SUMMERLONG, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover art by Magdalena Korzeniewska
Design by Elizabeth Story