It probably doesn't help that I read this in bed, which means that I would re-read the same page at least twice, falling asleep after two pages total, thereby only reading one new page a night. But, I swear it didn't help that Beagle is prone to repeating himself at the end of paragraphs, in an obvious move to get his point across more forcefully. Such as (not verbatim): ... I told him what was going to happen. I told him, you know. ...
I would consider this the laziest of writing. If you're not able to get to the point of what you want to say inside a paragraph, then you need to edit that paragraph to do so. Not just punctuate it, for heaven's sake.
This was more irritating as I got further through the stories. So, I enjoyed the mouse tale and the witch/warlock tale quite a lot (the fables seemed fairly useless), but when I reached Quarry, that tale put me over the edge. First off, its premise is clouded. Second, because that's clouded, you don't care about the protagonist. Third, what house? what's weird about it again? who's hunting them? huh?
Everyone says The Last Unicorn is the best thing he's written, and so maybe I'll try that, but I lack a great deal of enthusiasm for it. Especially since his Two Hearts tale in this short story collection (supposed to be a sequel to The Last Unicorn) was a whole lot of who cares for me. (And a double dose of huh.)
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