Review: Stalking the Unicorn by Mike Resnick

by Chriss Cornish published: February 7, 2011 No Comments

This Book Is About

It’s 8:35 PM on New Year’s Eve, and private detective John Justin Mallory is cheerlessly reflecting on the passing of a lousy year, which saw his business partner run off with his wife. He assumes the bourbon is responsible for the appearance of a belligerent elf. This elf informs him that he needs the detective’s help in searching for a unicorn that was stolen from his charge. When Mallory realizes the little green fellow is not going to disappear with the passing of his inebriation, he listens to the elf’s impassioned pleas that the stolen magical bast must be returned to his care by daylight or his little green life will be forfeited by the Elves’ Guild.

Join detective Mallory on a New Year’s night of wild adventure in a fantasy Manhattan of leprechauns, gnomes, and harpies as he matches wits with the all-powerful demon, the Grundy, in a race to find the missing unicorn before time runs out!

My Thoughts On This Book

Are you looking for something different in fantasy? I’d say this book qualifies.

Stalking the Unicorn is a social satire disguised as a fantasy novel. It’s humorous, intelligent, clever, and fun.

My two favorite characters, coincidentally both girls, are Colonel Winnifred Carruthers, the elderly big game hunter he teams up with to solve the mystery, and the cat-girl Felina. I like Felina because a)she is a cat in a human body and not a human with cat ears and b)she is TOTALLY a cat in a human body.

Oh, and I LOVE the never ending chess game between a re-tired police officer and his re-tired criminal.

And the magic mirror that likes to show alternate possible versions of classic movies, like what Casablanca would have been like if the studio had gone with their original casting choices. That was pretty cool, too.

And I was particularly amused by the defeating of a villain by leading him into the clutches of uber bureaucratic toy soldiers.

The back of the book also has some additional goodies; six separate Appendix bits related to characters or events in the novel. Like a move list for the aforementioned chess game and monograph by Winnifred Carruthers called “Stalking the Unicorn with Gun and Camera”.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the author, Mike Resnick, doesn’t really take this book (or series) very seriously. You get a this-was-just-for-fun-but-someone-actually-paid-me-to-do-it vibe. Which, if true, probably contributes to what makes Stalking the Unicorn fun.

The only down-edge to the book is that all the character concepts are original, except for the main character. John Justin Mallory is pretty much just the vehicle for the story, driving it from Satire Point A to Plot Point C. He’s not a boring character, mind you, just the stock tough-guy-detective-in-an-unjust-world. It’s not bad, just mildly disappointing. Great taste less filling, if you get me.

Overall, I enjoyed Stalking The Unicorn and have the other two books in Resnick’s Fables of Tonight series. And it’s definitely different from the standard fantasy novel.