Two Hearts

Wow do I love stories by Peter S. Beagle.

"Two Hearts" is a story that takes place many, many years after The Last Unicorn. A griffin has made its home near Sooz's village. It's a minor annoyance until it starts taking children. A few knights are dispatched, but they all die. After the griffin takes Sooz's best friend, she sets off to find the king. She meets Schmendrick and Molly Grue on her way; the pair of them take her to King Lir's castle. But Lir is an old man now who gets confused. Although he agrees to rid Sooz's village of the griffin, everyone fears that the king will not return, especially since he has to strike both of its hearts to kill it.

I apologize that I'm half asleep as I write this, and not feeling at all articulate. I really liked reading about the further adventures of Schmendrick, Molly, and Lir. And Sooz was a fun character as well. "Two Hearts" was an interesting yet satisfying epilogue to The Last Unicorn. I'm super glad to have read it.

Four More Short Stories

Today was a nice and lazy day which I spent reading more short stories on my Kindle. This time I read "Paladins of Shannara: the Weapon Master's Choice," "Fable: Theresa," and "The Keeper: a Short Story Prequel to Forbidden." The first two were stories I had been saving for some reason...(I think in the case of "Fable: Theresa," I was planning on playing through the original Fable game before reading it, but never did finish it). Like with After Life, I have no memory of "The Keeper" but that's ok, I read it anyway.

"The Weapon Master's Choice" was obviously a story about Garet Jax. A lady seeks him out, asking for his help saving her people from a warlock. The warlock is a dracul, draining the souls from her people. Jax agrees to help, and finds himself unexpectedly falling in love with the lady. It was an enjoyable story from one of my favourite authors.

I think "Fable: Theresa" was my favourite story of the three. The blind seer arrives in a town to find a young girl who is being overwhelmed by her dreams. Theresa knows the girl hasn't much time left. So she sets off on a quest to save the girl, seeking out the only person who may be able to help: the warlock named Raven. She needs the help of a Hero to get her there. Since time is short, the only one around is Elijah Stane, a washed up old Hero who is drinking his days away. He failed his last charge and so is reluctant to help anyone else, but reluctantly agrees to help the blind seer (because she is determined to go on her quest with or without his help). Theresa knows that they seek a miracle, and that even if such a thing exists, it will come with a price; will she be willing to pay it? I loved this story, but then again I'm a fan of Peter David's Fable stories so this wasn't at all surprising.

Of these three stories, "The Keeper" was my least favourite. But it is, as advertised, a prequel story. But more importantly, it's a prequel story to Forbidden, which I know nothing at all about. Two hermit brothers are approached by an unfamiliar man. He tells them that they and the world are dead, but that he can help them live again. I think he meant that they were emotionally dead, but it wasn't super clear until the end. This was by no means a favourite but it was interesting enough. Unfortunately it didn't make me want to keep reading the series right now.

Oh yeah, and yesterday I also read "The Boy With the Silver Eyes" by Bruce Coville. That takes place in his Unicorn universe. A Hunter makes his son eat the flesh of the Unicorn he had killed, which changes his son forever. The son's heart is restless and seeks some unknown thing. So he journeys out, finding the songs of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air in the hopes of finally putting his heart at ease.

The Unicorn Sonata

So apparently continuing my Peter S. Beagle kick, I read The Unicorn Sonata.  This is the story of Joey, a girl who follows some hauntingly beautiful music into another land (called Shei'rah).  While full of many dangers, like the swarms of ravenous perytons, it is also a land of satyrs, water nymphs (called jallas), and the Eldest - the Unicorns. Joey discovers that it is from the unicorns that the music comes.  But all is not well with them - for an unknown reason, the Eldest are going blind. 

The Eldest were very interesting in this book.  There were three "tribes" of them: one described as solid and earthy, one sea-like, and the other was like the sky.  They came in a myriad of colours, sizes and shapes, while all remaining unicorns.  Their blindness was also interesting, as they could still "see" physical objects in their minds, but they were lessened because they were not whole.

The Unicorn Sonata was an interesting story about a girl torn between two worlds: the magic that is Shei'rah, and the mundane world where her family (particularly her beloved grandmother, Abuelita) is.  It is also the story of a talented musician struggling to write Shei'rah's soul into musical notation.  While I didn't like The Unicorn Sonata as much as The Last Unicorn, it was still a very interesting and fun read.

The Last Unicorn

I found out that the movie The Last Unicorn is being screened in my city in a few weeks time.  The author of the book (and screenplay of the movie), Peter S. Beagle, is touring along with the movie.  So in preparation for that event, I wanted to finally read the novel.  I've been wanting to read it for awhile now, but The Last Unicorn Screening Tour gave me that little extra push to finally sit down and do so.

The Last Unicorn is the story of a unicorn who overhears two humans speaking.  They say she is the last, and so she goes on a quest trying to find whether or not that is true.  On her way she encounters a diverse cast of characters, including the humans who cannot see her for what she is, the butterfly who gives her her first clue as to where the other unicorns have gone, the Magician Schmendrick who struggles to find his magic, the cook Molly Grue, the heroic Prince Lir, and the unhappy King Haggard.  Along the way she will discover not only what happened to the other unicorns, but what it means to love.

I want to say, it was really weird reading this book.  I've seen the movie many, many times, plus I read the graphic novel two years ago, so I know this story.  I knew what would happen and when it would happen, especially thanks to the graphic novel, which follows the novel even more than the movie.  So even though I've never read this book before, it was a really weird experience reading it.

That being said, I absolutely loved it!  Beagle's writing is beautiful; his descriptions were absolute magic!  I honestly wish I had read The Last Unicorn before I had seen the movie, but since that didn't happen, I am still very glad to have read the book.  This is the type of book that I most definitely plan on reading again one day.

The Last Hunt

I waited a long, long time to finish reading Cara Diana Hunter's story.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, I started reading the Unicorn Chronicles when the first book came out in 1994.  Now, almost twenty years later, I finally know what happened when Beloved invaded Luster with her army of Hunters.

Egged on by the Whisperer, Beloved has torn a new hole into Luster.  This hole is through the Axis Mundi, the world tree that holds Luster togethe. In damagin it, the world is very quickly falling apart.

With the arrival of the Hunters, Cara is sent to one of the seven dragons for help.  The Unicorn Council, led by the new queen Amalia Flickerfoot, has decided that Graumag is the best choice.  Graumag is an unusual dragon (she is actually the same dragon from "After the Third Kiss;" it was rather fun being able to make that connection), one who owes her very life to Luster and so she agrees to help. 

But after enlisting the dragon's aid, Cara and Graumag are attacked by Hunters who were tasked by Beloved to capture Cara.  Graumag holds them off while Cara escapes, thus seperating Cara from all of her friends (except the Squijum).  Cara is left to find her way to the Axis Mundi where the largest battle to ever be fought on Luster's soil is about to begin.

I enjoyed reading The Last Hunt quite a bit (well I did manage to get through all 600 pages yesterday).  But I did miss some of the characters.  As always Cara is the main character, so we got to follow her through most of the story.  But many of the other characters did not play as big a role in this book as they have in previous ones and that made me sad.  For one thing I often found myself wondering what Lightfoot was up to.  And near the end of the book I found that the focus shifted away from Cara's father Ian which was a real shame; Coville set some great character things up for him in the third book (especially concerning what he had to go through in the Rainbow Prison to find his wife) which seemed forgotten about in the Last Hunt.  And I think the very end, wrapping up what had happened, needed a little more (I don't want to give this away in any more detail  as that is a spoiler).  But besides these issues, it was an interesting (and enjoyable!) book and I'm glad to finally know how Cara's story ended.

Dark Whispers

After all this time, I was finally able to read Dark Whispers, the third book in Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles.  As I mentioned in my post about Into the Land of the Unicorns, that first book was published in 1994, while the second book came out in 1999.  Dark Whispers was originally published in 2008, nearly ten years later.  That's a long time to wait.  It was an even longer time because this final volume was split into two, making the entire series four books long (and about fifteen years in the making).  Dark Whispers is also the first book in the Unicorn Chronicles that I have not read before; I elected to wait until I had a copy of The Last Hunt before re-reading the entire series.  I apologize as there will be some spoilers here.  I'll try to keep them to a minimum, but the books are all related.

Dark Whispers begins where Song of the Wanderer leaves off.  Amalia Flickerfoot has been crowned the new Queen of the Unicorns.  And while learning how to be Queen, the Unicorns must face their greatest threat ever: Beloved and the Hunters have one of the Queen's Five Lockets, gateways into Luster.  It is only a matter of time before they cross over into Luster for the Last Hunt.  And thanks to the Geomancer, they know exactly when Beloved will cross: the Blood Moon. 

Grimwold, the Keeper of the Unicorn Chronicles, comes across an oddity within the Chronicles.  There are a few pages missing, as well as a crossed out passage.  He thinks he can make out a reference to "the Whisperer."  An old human who is also at the council, Alma Leonetti, is the only one who has heard of the Whisperer, and though she cannot remember from where she heard the reference, she suggests that the Queen send someone to the Centaur King in order to ask if he has the tale.  And so Cara, along with a small group, finds herself once again travelling through Luster in search of this elusive story.

Meanwhile on Earth, Ian Hunter, Cara's father, goes in search of his wife and Cara's mother.  He knows she is a prisoner of the Rainbow Prison, which is made of different shafts of light between Earth and Luster.  The problem is that once he is in the Rainbow Prison, it will be much harder to leave.

I honestly liked Dark Whispers better than Song of the Wanderer.  Dark Whispers had a better pace than the previous book.  I also don't think Cara's group ever got to be as big as it did in the previous book.  And by shifting the narrative from Cara to other characters, the reader is able to get to know these other characters a lot better.  Although it took me almost twenty years from when Into the Land of the Unicorns was first published to get this far into the story, I think it was well worth the wait.

But now onto The Last Hunt, the final book in the Unicorn Chronicles.

Reread: Song of the Wanderer

Today I finished rereading book 2 of the Unicorn Chronicles, Song of the Wanderer (I started it late last night but decided to sleep rather than force my way though it last night).  I've read this book once before, when I first got it.  I honestly didn't remember anything about it (except for the very basic quest).

Song of the Wanderer continues the story of Cara.  This time Cara is tasked by the unicorn queen to go find her grandmother and bring her back to Luster.  So Cara sets off with a small glory of unicorns made up of Belle, a female fighting unicorn, Finder, a large unicorn who is himself a wanderer, and Moonheart, the uncle of Lightfoot, as well as the Squijum and Thomas the Tinker.  Cara must first find the geomancer, a sorceress who is adept with earth magic, who will find Cara a path back to her grandmother.  Unfortunately the path is a dangerous one.  Along the way Cara meets up with friends new and old.

Song of the Wanderer is a good book, but it isn't as good as Into the Land of the Unicorns. For one thing, Song is longer and at times it feels like it takes a lot longer to get to its point.  For another thing, there are a lot of characters (there's something like ten + characters in Cara's party by the end of the book), which also made it harder to give them all enough time at the forefront of the story (I remember writing a story like this years ago where I had such a large party it was unwieldy to write!); Into the Land is a lot better because the party of characters is smaller and so you get to know all of them much better.

As I said though, it is still a good story.  Some crazy things happen which lead staight into book three, Dark Whispers, which I am really looking forward to reading for the first time ever!

Reread: Into the Land of the Unicorns

I first read Into the Land of the Unicorns when it first came out in 1994.  I bought it at a book fair at the time.  I read it and loved it, recommended it to people, and waited patiently for the second book (which finally came out in 1999). I reread it a few times, the last of which was probably when I read the second book whenever I got it (I don't know if I got Song of the Wanderer right when it came out or if I found it sometime later).  I knew there was a third book, but I decided not to bother getting it until the fourth (and I believe final) book was released and in soft cover.  Having waited for quite sometime and the final book is still in hard cover, a few years after being released, I finally picked up the final two and am going to read the entire series.  My original plan was to read them during the week of my birthday but that didn't happen. So here we are, the beginning of July, and I'm going on a unicorn reading spree.

Into the Land of the Unicorns is the story of Cara.  Heading home from the library one day with her grandmother, they are chased into a church.  Desperate to save her granddaughter, Grandmother Morris gives Cara her "special," an amulet she always wears and sends her granddaughter to the magical land of Luster.  Cara meets many strange and wondrous creatures, chief of which is the unicorn Lightfoot.  Together, Cara and her friends must keep the amulet out of the grasp of the man who followed her from Earth.

Into the Land of the Unicorns was one of my favourite books when I was younger.  And having reread it today, it still stands up as one of my favourites.  The writing is fantastic, the story is excellent, I love the characters, and I just really like the land of Luster (especially the history of how the unicorns came to be there instead of on Earth).  I'm glad I reread it and I'm looking forward to reading the remaining three books (especially 3 and 4 which I've never read!)

Library Book: The Last Unicorn

I don't really want to say a whole lot about The Last Unicorn. I've never read the actual novel by Peter S. Beagle, but I was a big fan of the movie when I was younger. I found the graphic novel in Chapters a few weeks ago and immediately fell in love with the art. The library has it, so I took it out a little while ago and finally got around to reading it. The graphic novel is relatively similar to the movie (which makes sense - Peter S. Beagle wrote the screenplay, and was involved with the graphic novel so they should be similar). But I just can't get over that artwork!!! (If you're curious, I found a sample of the art here).

If you're unfamiliar with the tale, it is the story of a unicorn who believes she is the last of her kind. So she sets out on an adventure to find out what happened to the others. The Last Unicorn is full of wonderful characters like Schmendrick the magician, who has power but isn't very good at casting spells, Molly Grue, the first woman to actually see the unicorn for who she is, and King Haggard, the cruel man who commands the Red Bull. The Last Unicorn is a wonderful tale that has captivated people around the world.