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Book of the Beast Trilogy #2
The Captive
A mysterious bear-like beast that is able to assume the form of a human being tries to learn how people live by adopting a human family.
207 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 26, 2023
So many years in between the first reading and now. I’ve so much forgotten. There was one scene when the beats had been hit by a train. Died nearly and figured out how to fix his own mussels to heal. But the rest. A deep and dark mist.
About the book. To say it’s a love story is to weak. It’s more than that. Critic about the time. Critic about the family and the relationship between family and strangers. How little children live alone, grow allone.
About the book. To say it’s a love story is to weak. It’s more than that. Critic about the time. Critic about the family and the relationship between family and strangers. How little children live alone, grow allone.
July 5, 2018
Book two of this series builds upon the first by starting with a fresh personality for the beast. We go through a human sexual phase then into more intimate emotions as the best learns family and love, frustration, sacrifice and compassion.
The cover art by Don Mainz is marvelous and inviting, making you want to know more of what is happening within these pages.
The cover art by Don Mainz is marvelous and inviting, making you want to know more of what is happening within these pages.
September 24, 2019
Another wonderful book cover by Don Maitz apparently. He is one of two amazing SciFi artists I follow. The other is Michael Whelan. Frank Frazetta is in a separate category of course.
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April 12, 2024(alte Bewertung: rundum gut 1-2)
January 28, 2024
This second book in The Beast Trilogy is much like the first, The Orphan, in its "down on the farm" focus - whereas I thought the author might shake things up a bit and at some point move our bifurcated main character to a city, or even forward in time, out of the Rural America Depression Era. That didn't happen, but it doesn't matter; the new wrinkle is that in this book, the existence of the Beast, inside her step-father, Barry, is known to one little girl. She thinks of him as "the big pussy cat", though up to that point, sightings of the Beast - or even when he spends the early part of this book in a cage - have caused folks to label him a strange bear.
We still learn tantalizingly little about what the Beast actually is, where he is from, or why his existence involves morphing into a malleable human form...malleable, in the sense that he can cast off one human appearance, and personality, and start a new one when necessary - comes in handy when it's time duck growing trouble. A VERY helpful talent to have when the Beast kills...
The Beast is forced to learn that erasing an earlier human version and committing to another one can have consequences; I felt that Book One, The Orphan, cleaned up all loose ends attached to earlier supporting characters, but the author, as I indicated, pokes at what I thought were done deals from The Orphan, while at the same time mixing The Beast/Barry in with a new human family that depends on him. "The Big Pussy Cat" forms an unexpected bond, that shakes up his natural desire for the safety of solitude and secrecy, with little Mina...and it's lucky for her and her mom, because there's danger looming.
Robert Stallman passed away around the time The Beast Trilogy was being published - lived 1930 to 1980 - and from what I can see, these are the only novels he got to write. A pity, because based on what I've sampled so far, years and years more from him would have been a treat. Looking forward to Book 3, called The Beast.
We still learn tantalizingly little about what the Beast actually is, where he is from, or why his existence involves morphing into a malleable human form...malleable, in the sense that he can cast off one human appearance, and personality, and start a new one when necessary - comes in handy when it's time duck growing trouble. A VERY helpful talent to have when the Beast kills...
The Beast is forced to learn that erasing an earlier human version and committing to another one can have consequences; I felt that Book One, The Orphan, cleaned up all loose ends attached to earlier supporting characters, but the author, as I indicated, pokes at what I thought were done deals from The Orphan, while at the same time mixing The Beast/Barry in with a new human family that depends on him. "The Big Pussy Cat" forms an unexpected bond, that shakes up his natural desire for the safety of solitude and secrecy, with little Mina...and it's lucky for her and her mom, because there's danger looming.
Robert Stallman passed away around the time The Beast Trilogy was being published - lived 1930 to 1980 - and from what I can see, these are the only novels he got to write. A pity, because based on what I've sampled so far, years and years more from him would have been a treat. Looking forward to Book 3, called The Beast.
June 11, 2012
Book number two of Stallman's Book of the Beast trilogy. Please see my review of the first book, The Orphan.
March 6, 2016
In this installment you learn more about the beast which only seemed to confuse me more. While the beast learns more about humanity and being human.
October 18, 2024
I first read this book 40 years ago and I loved it then and I love it now.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews