Stalking the Unicorn: A Fable of Tonight

I was first turned on to Mike Resnick by Subterranean Press and the Dr. Lucifer Jones short stories they published. I loved all the adventures of Dr. Lucifer Jones that I could find. When I found STALKING THE UNICORN in a bookstore, I just had to pick it up and see if I liked other stuff by Resnick. And I did. In fact, in some ways STALKING THE UNICORN is better than the Dr. Lucifer Jones stories; Dr. Lucifer Jones becomes a bit repetitive on how stupid but fun he can be.

Anyway, John Justin Mallory is a private eye who is down on his luck; his wife left him, he's out of money and he has no clients. And then he sees a little green elf in his office. Instead of a fantasy though, the elf turns out to be real and he needs some help to find show more a unicorn that has been stolen. Mallory follows Murgenstrum to another Manhattan populated with demons, trolls, elves, leprechauns and other fun, fantastical creatures. Once there, the search takes Mallory on a bunch of humorous adventures with entertaining characters.

The wry humor is prevalent throughout the whole book and just plain fun to read. Mixed in with all the fun, Resnick provides some interesting perspectives on today's city life. The only negative I had with the book was that it seemed to bring some characters in solely to populate a scene for a single joke and that would be it. We wouldn't see them again. Considering that you have a detective making his way through a city though and he has to hunt down some clues, he can't really find humorous situations with the same characters the entire time. In the big picture, a very minor point. I would encourage you to hunt down this book and give it a try. If you enjoy fantasy and pulp noir, you'll like it. I know that I'm going to be ordering the next book of Detective John Justin Mallory: STALKING THE VAMPIRE. show less

It promises to be a hardboiled detective novel in a fantasy world (like Raymond Chandler meets Legend), but it’s more like a portal fantasy. Like Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom Tollbooth, most of the main character’s time is taken up with little sidequests, like the two people playing a game of chess that takes forever, or the bar with old-timey witches. It’s like a character just moves from station to station, interviewing these oddballs and characters of humor when he should be getting on with the main goal. Because unlike Alice and Phantom, this isn’t a quest, this is a mystery. So it has a bad case of the “get-on-with-its”.

This book doesn’t deliver on it’s promise because it’s not a detective story. There are show more no clues, no suspects, no witnesses. Garfield’s Babes and Bullets was more of a detective story than this. So no, I won’t be reading any more in the series. It’s too farcical to be taken seriously. show less

Copied in full from my blog Grasping for the Wind

Stalking the Unicorn, by multiple fantasy award winner Mike Resnick, is Alice in Wonderland for the modern age. John Justin Mallory is a Sam Spade wannabe, a private detective out on his luck. His wife and his business partner are gone, he's broke, and on New Year's Eve he is rapidly drinking himself into oblivion. Then a rabbit appears. Well, not a rabbit, since Mallory isn't fortunate enough to get cute little woodland creatures like Alice does. Mallory gets a little green man instead. Drunk as he is, Mallory takes what he sees for a hallucination. But the money this little green man offers is too tempting. And so Mallory embarks on solving the mystery that will make his career and show more reputation.

Written in the early 1980's, Stalking the Unicorn is the very definition of the urban fantasy novel. A human is thrust into a parallel world of mythical creatures is forced to solve a crime in an urban jungle strangely similar to our own, but that operates by quite different rules altogether. With the help of an aged big-game hunter, a cat-person (in the literal sense), a cowardly wizard, and a shrinking horse, Mallory must find the unicorn before the demon that controls alternate New York can destroy him.

A rapid read (I read it in an evening after work) Stalking the Unicorn is funny and full of plot twists. The timeline of the story takes place all in one night, and the beginning of each chapter gives the time frame in which the following text is set. That makes the pacing of the events related all the more real to the reader, grounding this story of the fantastic in something real and understandable to the reader.

Adding to the fun is Resnick's witty dialogue. The characters engage in witty repartee and banter, and readers will likely laugh out loud at Mallory's no nonsense reactions to the words and actions of the strange beings from the alternate New York.

While Resnick uses what we would now consider tropes in his story, he manages to spin them in such a way that the characters and the setting never quite meets the reader's expectations. In fact, the results far exceed the expectations. John Justin Mallory acts confidently and sometimes brashly, but he is a skilled detective, and the final conclusion to the mystery will surprise the reader in more ways than one. Along the way, readers will encounter standard features of the New York cityscape, such as the Museum of Natural History, The Stock Exchange and Wall Street, and laugh along as Resnick pokes a bit of fun at the bureaucratic governments of all big cities with his chapter regarding the Bureau of Missing Persons.

Younger readers may be confused by some of the references in the story. The war between VHS and Beta is brought up, for example. Rather than the iPod, Resnick references the Walkman - an innovation in its time - that now seems archaic. New readers who remember these events from the 1980's will wax nostalgic (I did), but younger readers, especially those born in the nineties may wonder at some of the references. While this doesn't lesson the power of the story to entertain, it may (or not) be jarring for the youth among us.

Mike Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn is everything an entertaining story should be. Funny, full of action, adventure, dosed with a bit of mystery and the ridiculous. Mallory is the quintessential detective, a mixture of Columbo, Sam Spade, and Hercule Poirot. That his territory is a fantasy world only enhances the enjoyment. I highly recommend everyone read Stalking the Unicorn. As a special treat, this Pyr edition is also being released simultaneously with a new John Justin Mallory mystery Stalking the Vampire. So go, read them. show less

Stalking the Unicorn was a kicky and very fun little detective novel set in a fantasy universe.

In the story, John Justin Mallory is just another New York City PI who is hired to investigate a missing unicorn. He gets pulled into another New York, a fantastical one, and encounters all kinds of interesting creatures.

In the author's notes, Resnick talks about how this book is sort of an anti-epic-fantasy (ala Tolkein and every other author that loves dramatic wizards in big pointy hats) and he does a great, great job at having fun with fantasy.

Take a stereotypic dark and rainy detective novel, throw in some magical creatures and blend. Strain through a humor filter and you have this book. It's very fun.

Stalking the Unicorn was a kicky and very fun little detective novel set in a fantasy universe.

In the story, John Justin Mallory is just another New York City PI who is hired to investigate a missing unicorn. He gets pulled into another New York, a fantastical one, and encounters all kinds of interesting creatures.

In the author's notes, Resnick talks about how this book is sort of an anti-epic-fantasy (ala Tolkein and every other author that loves dramatic wizards in big pointy hats) and he does a great, great job at having fun with fantasy.

Take a stereotypic dark and rainy detective novel, throw in some magical creatures and blend. Strain through a humor filter and you have this book. It's very fun.

For such a short book, I had an unbelievable long time with it. This is probably not a book for me.

This is one of those books in which the very complex and complicated world created by the author absolutely obscures the story. The actual story goes to the background. As a substitute Mallory wanders through this alternate Manhattan meeting more and more strange characters who do not contribute much to the general plot. This is not my favorite form of story. I definitely prefer it when the interesting plotline wins out over the overdeveloped imaginary world.

My other problem is humor, but it is probably just my problem. I don't like funny books because I rarely find them funny indeed and much more often they just irritate me. And I hate show more humor in the Prachett style the most. This book, unfortunately, sometimes came close to such a humor. I don't know what it is, because I generally like absurd humor, but Prachett's efforts have always seemed senseless and annoying to me. And here it annoyed me sometimes as well. Jokes sometimes seemed to me forced and did not lead to anything other than simple comic relieve. They lack the finesse and surprise element, they are more like archetypal banana peel. I read other books of this author and I didn't have such a problem with it, but here at times it really irritated me.

Another thought that came to me during this reading is that maybe I'm just too old for this book. I think if I was thirteen I would like it much more. After all, it's an uncomplicated funny story with a jumble of unconventional characters. Simple, unsophisticated entertainment just right for a teenager.

This is not a bad book, but it didn't really urge me to continue the series. I think I will miss Mallory's further adventures. At least until I forget how challenging it was for me to get through this book. show less

Detective work and depression: in fiction, at least, they seem to go hand in hand. Having done freelance for a while now, I have to wonder if it's an occupational rather than personal hazard caused by waiting for work to come in...

Anyway, I started out kind of frustrated with this book. It just RAMBLES. A detective goes to the fairy version of NYC, trying to find a unicorn. Before the plot complications start to set in (it *is* a detective novel, after all, and someone's always lying), it's just a random wandering through alt-NYC, looking for this unicorn. More of an insiders thing, maybe? I just didn't need to take a fantasy tour of a city I'm not familiar with in the first place.

Or maybe I did. I just relaxed and enjoyed it after a show more while. Yes, a lot of was peripheral, but by the time the book was finished, a good bit of it had been integrated back into the plot, and you were left with a real feel for where you were. Decent twists, characters eh, enjoyable setting.

What ended up pushing this from three to four was the sense of inspiration, those intuitive jumps that happen every so often and that, in your chosen field, are the best. I think he captured those particularly well. show less