Painter is a leo - part man, part lion - the result of one of man's genetic experiments, a powerful, beautiful, enigmatic creature deemed a 'failure' to be be hunted down. But Painter has two advantages in this world of small bickering nation states and political accommodation and compromise: his own strength and integrity, and the guile of Reynard, another of man's experiments, a subtle and potent intriguer, a king-maker...
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About the Author
John Crowley was born in 1942 and has worked in documentary films and TV since 1966. The Deep, his first sf novel, was published in 1975 and was followed by Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time. In his later work, Little, Big, Aegypt and Love and Sleep, he has moved into writing fantasy to great critical acclaim.
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More About the Author
John Crowley was born in the appropriately liminal town of Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942, his father then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 14th volume of fiction (Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land) in 2005. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He finds it more gratifying that almost all his work is still in print.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Aesop rides again.,
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This review is from: Beasts (Paperback)
Crowley proposes a strange universe to develop a new Aesopian world.
USA has disintegrated in a bunch of minor Autonomies and City States competing one with each other in an endless struggle. There is a feeble nominal Federal Government and a new emerging Union for Social Engineering trying to gain political control. In some earlier stage, scientists had done some bio-engineering experiments producing some hybrid new species: the Leos grown from the improbable combination of human and lion cells. There are also other strange specimens: a fox-man, a dog with some undetected talents and, of course, lots of human characters, with their own goals and needs. Combining all these elements, Crowley structures a very interesting novel. The Beasts traits, (fox's cunning, lion's braveness and endurance, dog's fidelity and self sacrifice) are potentiated by the mixture with human traits. Humans in their turn had been subject to over stressing situations in a changing background. So the interactions between different characters are always open to collisions due to so different natures and interests, the power shifting from one group to the other. At the same time all of them are also approaching to each other, seducing and being seduced, in a continuous dance in a spiral course. There are some reminiscences and resonance from Aesop fables and his wise animals proposing intelligent lessons to humankind. This is a book to be tasted as a rare dish by sophisticated readers. Reviewed by Max Yofre.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Werid look at future furries,
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This review is from: Beasts (Paperback)
The 20th century's idle genetic experiments have created a hostile second race - human/lion hybrids known as 'leos' (cleche, but it works ^_^). And in the wake of civil wars, the American government has collasped, leaving its successor the Union for Social Engineering - a fanatical group struggling to bring together the splintered shards of government and bring the leos back under man's dominion. A very hard book to understand, with both its futrisitic feel and, ironically, laughable scenes that flaunt their datedness. Records? TV stations that sign off? Reynard, the sole human/fox hybrid in the story, having a clone that is EXACTLY the same as him (Then again, they were naive back then). However, the story does have some good adventure scenes and fasinating characters, from Painter the leo to Sweets, the dog with human intelligence. :-)
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fair to middlin,
By
This review is from: Beasts (Paperback)
Not great, but not terrible either. Crowley lays out a future with genetic engineered human animal composites, that are being hunted down. Once again I came away feeling that perhaps the best part of this story were the parts Crowley DIDNT tell, although perhaps that is his way, making us think of all the interesting things that could be.
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