Peter S. Beagle reads his work as a storyteller. GIANT BONES is a collection of fantasy stories that are all set in the same world and time, each of which has its own collection of characters with a tale to tell. The stories are well suited to a storyteller, and Beagle does them justice. It would be helpful with a collection of this type for the cover materials, or the discs, to contain a list of the individual stories and some guide as to where they appear in the set, so the listener has better access to a favorite. Even better would be for each new story to begin a new disc. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Beagle is the class act of fantasy writing, the only contemporary to remind one of Tolkien and, in his darker moments, Dinesen. The title story here concerns a modest man who sets off on a perilous journey across high mountains and is rescued from fearsome rock-targs by a race of gentle giants. He lives among them, novel as Gulliver, for 18 years, learning of their curious funeral rite: eating their dead. In the long romance "The Last Song of Sirit Byar," a traveling bard works magic with his songs, saving his last and greatest song to bring an old love back from madness, dying as he sings it. In "The Magician of Karakosk," a country-bumpkin wizard foils an evil queen by leaving out just one step in the incantation he teaches her, so that she turns herself into nothing more than wind. One of these six stories, "Lal and Soukyan," uses characters from
The Innkeeper's Song (1993), and all are set in its milieu. Gentle yet biting, far-fetched and altogether common, Beagle's fairy tales invoke comparison with those associated with yet another great name, the Brothers Grimm.
John Mort
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
