Black Unicorn, review

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I picked up this book out of a hardback books section deep in the stacks of a little used book shop (with no air conditioning, in July, by the way). Here were my first thoughts, immediate and simultaneous:

1) The cover art! (I literally gasped)

2) Tanith Lee is such a cool name. So much cooler than mine!

3) The Black Unicorn? Not white?

I knew that I was going to read this book for Weird Old Books before I even got out of the store. It was the perfect trifecta: cool, old cover, an author I'd never heard of, and an unusual premise.

Instead of a blurb, this book has an excerpt, and here it is:

"It was big and beautiful and so black that it was like a hole in space, and it was completely impossible. Everybody knew there were no unicorns. Unicorns didn't belong in this world except in legends. But there it stood, radiating magical power, in the shattered wreck of the party.

"Nobody knew where it had come from, or what it wanted. Not even Jaive, the sorceress, could fathom the mystery of the fabled beast. But Tanaquil, Jaive's completely unmagical daughter understood it at once. She knew why the unicorn was there.

"It had come for her.

"It needed her.

"Yet she was the girl with no talent for magic. She could only fiddle with broken bits of machinery and make them work again.

"What could she do for a unicorn?"

Tanith Lee (1947-2015) wrote more than 90 books and over 300 short stories, beginning in 1971. If that sounds like a lot, it's because it is. To put it in perspective, Stephen King also started publishing in the 1970s (Carrie, his first novel, was published in 1974). Stephen King has published 65 books and over 200 short stories.

That's right. Tanith Lee, who you have likely never heard of, has published almost 30 books and 100 short stories more than Stephen King, who is practically a household name.

It just goes to show that just because you write a lot, doesn't mean you'll be famous for it. It is also a bit of tragedy. Tanith Lee did fairly well through the 70s and 80s, but in the 90s publishers seemed to lose interest in her work. Her small, but loyal fan base purportedly sent letters asking if she had died during the 90s because they could no longer find her books! In an attempt to attract publishers, she tried writing in several different genres, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. There appears to have been a resurgence of interest in the later years of her life, because some of her works started getting picked up again. Publishing is a brutal business, and her career typifies that hard truth.

Black Unicorn was published in 1991, just as interest in her work was waning. If you look her up on the internet, this particular book sometimes isn't even listed. There is a second and third book following Black Unicorn: Gold Unicorn (1994) and Red Unicorn (1998). I wonder if her troubles with publishing explain the gaps in between these novels? Regardless, her first published novel was a children's fantasy novel. She seemed to keep coming back to the genre throughout her career and that is what The Black Unicorn is as well.

In my opinion, this novel is excellent. The descriptive language is captivating. The story has a dream-like quality that reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (but frankly, less confusing). It was like reading a fairy tale story that you might have known, but had somehow been misplaced in your memory.

The story is about a 16-year-old girl named Tanaquil. She has lived all of her 16 years in a desert fortress, raised by her mother Jaive, the sorceress. It is interesting and detailed, down to the peculiar names of the servants to the talking animals "infected" with magic that has strayed from her mother's experiments. Tanaquil wanders the fortress like a red-haired ghost, tired of all of it.

Nothing in the fortress works correctly. There are no others her own age to talk to. Her mother seems to be so disappointed that Tanaquil is unmagical that she has completely abandoned her to her own devices. Tanaquil's only activity is long walks around the fortress into the desert, and fixing broken things. She may not be magical, but she can fix anything.

One day a talking peeve, a curious little desert creature, appears at her window looking for a bone. Eventually, he finds a bone. A magical bone. A unicorn bone, though they don't know it at first.

Tanaquil collects the peeve's bones (with his help, after no small amount of negotiating), and begins to fix them. She builds an apparatus, thinking to make a mechanical unicorn.

Instead it comes to life!

This starts the adventure that leads Tanaquil across a desert, and eventually into a fantastical world of perfection and back again.

Tanaquil is a resourceful heroine. She is witty and grouchy, but loveable. The peeve, her constant travelling companion, is more concerned with staying fed than any adventure. I grew to love him right along with her. Along the way, Tanaquil meets a host of colorful characters, some of which want to marry her and some who want to murder her.

I have to take a moment to talk about the settings. There is a lot of heart in this story, and the plot alone can stand on its own feet. However, for me, half of the joy of reading this book was the setting descriptions. It interested me because a lot of what Tanith Lee writes would be cut by modern editing standards...and that would be a tragedy. Let me share a little bit here and maybe you'll see what I mean:

"The sun set. All of the sky became rose red, and the disc of the sun itself was visible, a shade of red it seemed to Tanaquil she had never seen, but perhaps she had. After the sun had gone under the world, the cluster of diamond day stars stayed on the hem of the sky, growing steadily more brilliant. The east lightened and turned a flaming green."

In a world that might simply say "the sun set," I found this prose exquisite. If for no other reason than the beauty of the descriptions, this book is worth reading.

So, as per usual, I try to make a note about trigger warnings or parental advisories.

I have none.

The worst thing I can say about this book is that there is a minor character that is a demon. He is ugly and in two scenes, neither of which are terribly important. He isn't touted as a good or bad character, which might bother some parents. He's pretty neutral, but his description would make most children be wary of him. Truthfully though, he's hardly worth mentioning.

There is no swearing, no sexual content, even the violence is almost nonexistent. Tanaquil grows up without a father, which is discussed in the book. She makes friends with another girl who was raised without a mother, and they have a short conversation about that. It felt more in line with the ominous tradition of orphaned main characters in children's literature than any kind of commentary on the nuclear family. I honestly could find nothing else that a person might object to.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Black Unicorn, and I would recommend it to any reader who likes fantasy, child or adult. It's a nice little departure from the typical fantasy setting that feels vaguely like Medieval mainland Europe. The unicorn did not act typical for a unicorn story, didn't even look typical. The peeve was a unique travel companion for our heroine, and at the end there was a clear direction that the adventure wasn't over for Tanaquil. I'm glad to know there are two more books about her. She deserved more adventures before settling down somewhere to tinker.

If you would like to purchase my copy of Black Unicorn, you can find it here.

Here are some other links to copies of this book.

Thriftbooks

ebay

AbeBooks

Better World Books

If you would like to see my 96 second video review of Black Unicorn, click here!