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Elegy Beach (Change #2)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 299 ratings · 54 reviews

A publishing event twenty-five years in the making: the long awaited sequel to the unforgettable post-apocalyptic fantasy, Ariel.

Thirty years ago the lights went out, the airplanes fell, the cars went still, the cities all went dark. The laws humanity had always known were replaced by new laws that could only be called magic. The world has changed forever. Or has it?

In...more

Hardcover, 375 pages

Published November 3rd 2009 by Ace Hardcover (first published October 13th 2009)

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Dec 21, 2011 Somewhatbent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Elegy Beach[return]Steven R. Boyett[return]Ace Hardcover (2009), First Edition Hardcover, 384 pages[return][return]**Want Spoilers??** None here today.[return][return]Nearly 30 years after the release of Ariel, the “never say never” sequel, Elegy Beach, was released. Set in contemporary time – 30 years after The Change – it chronicles the coming of age of the first generation who have never known anything but the ‘New Rules’. They have always lived in an environment of clean air and water, in a...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Rena McGee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Elegy Beach is the sequel to Ariel: A Book of the Change, and you might call it “Ariel, the Next Generation,” except it isn’t quite like that at all. Yes, the protagonist is the son of Pete Garey, the protagonist (and not quite hero) of Ariel, but the writer takes his own sweet time getting around to admitting that yes, Pete went and had a mini-me.
The main plot of the story revolves around Fred going on a quest to stop his friend and fellow magic-user Yanamandra Ramchandani from accomplishing hi...more

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Dec 09, 2010 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Urban fantasists, and fantastic urbanists

Recommended to Alan by: Ariel

You don't need to have read Ariel first, not really; this is a sequel of sorts, but it's also a standalone novel (and one that happens to contain a quick synopsis of Ariel tucked away inside to boot). But I'd still recommend seeking out Boyett's first stab at the world of the Change anyway.

Elegy Beach is rightly named, though that fact doesn't really become apparent until later in the book. To start with, Fred is just a young apprentice in the sleepy Southern California coastal town of Del Mar,...more

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May 30, 2010 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

First, in terms of style, this book was a little disappointing. I understand it's a first-person account from a 17 year old, but some of the dialogue was just so horrible! And there were some confusing parts. Perhaps they were supposed to be ambiguous because our narrator is not fully matured yet or whatever, but it was weird. As a reader, I just found those moments a little bit discordant.

Second, the content was actually pretty good. It was an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world, where...more First, in terms of style, this book was a little disappointing. I understand it's a first-person account from a 17 year old, but some of the dialogue was just so horrible! And there were some confusing parts. Perhaps they were supposed to be ambiguous because our narrator is not fully matured yet or whatever, but it was weird. As a reader, I just found those moments a little bit discordant.

Second, the content was actually pretty good. It was an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world, where technology has stopped working almost entirely and magic has displaced it. Obviously, Boyett is arguing that magic and technology can't fully coexist with each other. Or, perhaps, humans and technology and magic can't fully coexist with each other. You see this more with Yan's horrible desire to combine the two. In any case it made for a very Book of Eli setting. There are wide expanses of wild land and then small, but intense concentrations of people. As well as the usual wandering bandits, riffraff, and crazies of course.

It's also interesting that there is the theme of entitlement. Pre-Changers, the people who remember the world as we know it, are struggling with the next generation, trying to inspire in them the pioneering spirit that so characterizes the human race. At one point, Pete argues that all the next generation is ever going to aspire to is living in the carcasses of the last. I think it's an apt description for the upcoming generations now. We're losing the ability to appreciate what came before us. I feel like a lot of the younger kids aren't fully understanding the impact of the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War.

But I think the strongest theme in the book is the acceptance of loss. Constantly, these characters are having to deal with loss. The loss of life as they knew it, the loss of friends, sons, fathers, the loss of innocence. Not all of it is dramatic or intense or even remarked upon. Sometimes, it's just time moving on while people are struggling to just stay in place.

But seriously, a smart-ass unicorn? Sorry, but it was kind of annoying. Then again, I'm not really that accepting of characters like that at all, even if she weren't a mythical, immortal creature who is usually portrayed as beautiful and wise.(less)

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Mar 24, 2010 Aaron Delay rated it 4 of 5 stars

The sequels are never as good as the original. In the case of "Elegy Beach", I'm tempted to make an exception. It has the punch of the original (familiar characters return) with a new cast of magicians and nefarious gangsters of the Rasputin kind. There are some great moments in this book that when you reach them it's like a old friend stopping in for a chat over tea. Much of this tome feels like that and it's a welcome feeling.

The are moments of friendship rekindled, fears reborn and ultimately...more

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Dec 21, 2009 N.K. Jemisin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Magnificent and worthy sequel to Boyett's cult classic Ariel. Boyett's grown as an author in the time since, and he tries some experimental things here that I don't always like, but which effectively convey how much the world has been transformed by the Change. I love the tension between the children of the Change and those of the old world, and wish Fred (the protagonist) had fought harder to show his father that the new world was pretty kickass too. Most interesting scene, IMO, was the magical...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, fiction-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I first read Ariel A Book of the Change a year ago. "What a wonderful world Mr. Boyett has written for himself," I thought," I hope he does something else with it." Well, this long awaited sequel to Ariel does not disappoint. The author's writing style has certainly matured over the years without losing it's sense of innocence and wit. There is an alarming tendency in the fantasy genre for a series set in the same world with characters that carry over from episode to episode to gradually become...more I first read Ariel A Book of the Change a year ago. "What a wonderful world Mr. Boyett has written for himself," I thought," I hope he does something else with it." Well, this long awaited sequel to Ariel does not disappoint. The author's writing style has certainly matured over the years without losing it's sense of innocence and wit. There is an alarming tendency in the fantasy genre for a series set in the same world with characters that carry over from episode to episode to gradually become less satisfying the farther the series goes. I'm not sure if this is due to the reader getting past the honeymoon phase with the characters or world, or maybe that some authors get a little, ummm, comfortable with their characters and plot arcs and archetypes etc. Boyett walks a fine line here, with enough nostalgia to satisfy those who just wanted Ariel 2: Revenge of the Unicorn, while still covering some new ground.

However, I do have a few minor quibbles that knocked my rating down a bit. CAUTION: HERE BE SPOILERS! The Change originally seemed to be dated to the publication of the original book in 1983 TO ME, yet there are Starbucks and iPods in sections. A case can be made for the Change to have happened in 2000, or 5 years in the future, or whenever, but stil, and I repeat this is just a personal opinion, it proved a bit of a bump in my suspension of disbelief when I got to those points. Yes, I know what you are thinking, talking unicorn, no problem, but an iPod lost in time and I'm put off? That's why it's a minor quibble.

Quibble the Second: Bob. Really? The character is fine, just his introduction and subsequent integration into the party seemed really, really forced and magicked. It felt as though Boyett might have written himself into a corner, and hoped we wouldn't notice the big bootprints of awkwardness that led to the next room as we passed through to get to the really good stuff. Other than that though, he was, errr, ok. I guess.

Quibble C: Little heavy on the foreshadowing with Pete. Was not surprised or startled at all, and almost said,"finally..." to myself towards the end.

As I said before, all minor, some probably imaginary on my part, I forgive you, Steve. HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS

If I had the option, I would have given this book a 4.5, but since there are no half stars I will have to say a 4. I don't read a whole lot of fantasy, but the few that I do manage to read are awfully good, as was this. There is enough backstory given in the book to read it cold, but I recommend you go read Ariel first, especially since Ace published a nice paperback reissue not too long ago, and some of the funnier touches are better appreciated with it fresh in your mind.

One last little note: I noticed Cory Doctorow did a blurb for the book, and while I know he covered Steven Boyett on Boing Boing for both his writing and his podcasting (he does Podrunner, if ya didn't know), I can't help but think that he only did it because Disneyland is mentioned. J/K Cory.

(less)

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Dec 23, 2012 Aryn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned-by-parentals, fiction, science-fiction-fantasy

Fred has grown up in a post-Change world. Magic has become a new tool for protection as well as for trinkets - but no one really understands the way it works. It's all part of the trading world that has become the commerce industry. He is 17 and apprenticed out to the resident caster, but he feels as though he has more talent than PayPay is allowing him to use. His best friend, Yan, is learning casting from Fred, but they're also going further and faster than PayPay would have allowed. They have...more Fred has grown up in a post-Change world. Magic has become a new tool for protection as well as for trinkets - but no one really understands the way it works. It's all part of the trading world that has become the commerce industry. He is 17 and apprenticed out to the resident caster, but he feels as though he has more talent than PayPay is allowing him to use. His best friend, Yan, is learning casting from Fred, but they're also going further and faster than PayPay would have allowed. They have a theory that magic is the science of the post-Change world. that it's similar to programming a computer, in that there is a language that the universe understands.

I really like the way magic is approached in this novel. It makes the very vague Change from the first book make a little bit more sense. They explain that somewhere in the world at 4:30 on the day of the Change, something - we don't know what - happened that changed the laws of physics. As the world rotated into that spot in the universe, the whole of the world changed. Some of the old rules of the world still applied, like gravity, but for the laws of physics just changed in such a way that magic became the new science. It became the new reality. I really like this approach. The author gets big props for this after how randomly vague the first book was. This was still vague, but in a more thoughtful, thought out approach.

Yan at one point in the novel is offended by what PayPay says, and burns down his shop. Finding this out, Fred kicks him out of town. This is when Ariel, the unicorn, returns. She has a story of caster who killed her mate, which from the kind of magic that was done, Fred assumes it was Yan. With Pete, Yan's father, and of course Ariel they head out to find and stop Yan. Finding his grimoire, Fred learns that what Yan really wants to do with the power that he has discovered is reverse the Change, in effect killing Ariel and all the supernatural creatures that came with her.

This book in some ways is leaps and bounds better than Ariel, in that it had a much juicier plot and it was less skittish about sex. It seemed like a much more grounded novel, even though it wasn't any less fantasy-driven. However, do you have any idea how difficult it is to read a book when the author doesn't always use question marks. It's hard to tell what is a question, versus a statement. Isn't it. He used them sometimes, but damn it was difficult to read other times.

A fun read, for sure, better than Ariel, but not really anything special at the same time.(less)

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May 13, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 09, 2009 Wayne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Just started reading this book, and thus I am unimpressed. It reads like a bad sequel pumped out by big biz production houses to squeeze money from the fan base. The kind of thing one expects from Hollywood.

Somehow after the showdown in New York Pete Garey finds himself on the west coast, sans Shaughnessy, at the start of this story. 27 years has passed, he and Shaughnessy traveled west started a farm where she had died from a disease she had caught from her son. After her death Pete uproots and...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Indrani rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On its own, "Elegy Beach" is a classic coming-of-age story set in a world that is familiar and strange, all at the same time. There is an interesting exploration of "magic as the new science", and while some of the plot is predictable (see "classic"), the characters are whole enough to keep you interested.

As a follow-up to "Ariel", I was bothered by the inconsistencies in the world. "Ariel" was written at a particular time, and froze the modern world in that...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Cissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was a page-turner, and the world was better thought-out and/or described than it was in "Ariel".

There were some authorial mannerisms, though, that started annoying me early on and got increasingly irritating as they went on and on and on. The worst was the lack of question marks after most questions, both in dialog and in interior monologue. Did he think this was a clever trick when used over and over and over again. Did he think it added to the uniqueness of the voices when pretty much every...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was heartbreaking and it was tragic but who here thinks that losing virginity isn't pretty much inevitable. That's what makes tragedy Doc. Inevitability. No use crying over spilled et cetera. Look at our little hajj here. You think we aren't acting out a tragedy?

Elegy Beach is the never-intended sequel to Ariel. If Ariel is a young man's ode to the end of adolescence written when he was barely out of his own, with all of the shortsightedness and self-centeredness that implies (which I argue it is in my review), then Elegy Beach is a grown man's response to that ode. Reading Ariel and Elegy Beach nearly back to back (at least compared to how they were written: thirty years apart), it is eerie to witness Boyett's maturity not just as a writer but as a person. It is almost uncomfortably intimate, especially if you include the prefaces and afterwords (which I recommend you do).*

Elegy Beach tells the story of Fred, Pete's son, and the mark he seeks to leave upon the Changed world. Pete represents the pre-Change population: those who remember cars, electronics, guns, and a whole host of physical laws that no longer worked once the world Changed. Fred doesn't understand why the old generation wants to preserve what they had so badly; like his peers, Fred sees no use in studying the Internet or combustion engines or opera. Instead he studies the new rules of magic in an attempt to codify and implement them the way pre-Changers used the laws of science. This being Ariel's sequel, Fred's actions inevitably lead to a road-trip, sarcastic unicorns (just the one actually), witty banter, betrayal, and tragedy. Along the way we get a little father-son friction and see another young man grow up and claim his birthright.

There is something to say here about the role of women in Boyett's books. Ariel is technically a female unicorn, but for all intents and purposes she is a human male. She speaks and acts like Pete, which makes sense since he taught her to speak and act. Meanwhile, actual human women remain few and far between, serving as sexual beings forcing growth upon hormonal teenage boys or tragic figures beaming compassionately from beyond death. Don't even get me started on Shaughnessy; she got robbed of an actual character in Ariel, and her reward in EB is pretty depressing.

That said, I very much enjoyed Elegy Beach and heartily recommend it for fans of the first book.

*Most parenthetical review so far: YES.(less)

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Oct 30, 2010 Раян rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of Ariel

Recommended to Раян by: Boing Boing

Shelves: fantasy

Not as good as Ariel, but I still enjoyed it because it was a sequel to a book I really, really liked. It felt a lot like fan service to me, but if it's fan service for something I'm a big fan of, that's not really a bad thing in my particular case.

The villain's motivations seemed kind of glossed over to me. It felt like, BOOM, now he's suddenly evil, for reasons I far from fully understood. But then there were people/centaurs getting killed with swords and stabbed with javelins and stuff, and I...more

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Nov 24, 2009 Raja99 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hardcover-b, ebooks-lib, ebooks-fictionwise-er

Why I Read this Book: I loved (and still love) Steven R. Boyett's The Architect of Sleep , and really liked Ariel , so I was very interested in this book. I hadn't planning on reading it immediately (or buying the hardcover) ... until I read the ebook free samples—and got hooked. I decided to buy it at the local Barnes & Noble the next day (along with the Ariel paperback reissue to vet my multiformat ebook against).

To use the terminology of the Goodreads rating scale, it was amazing ... unti...more

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Feb 17, 2010 John Hendricks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2010, faves

Boyett wrote the book Ariel back in the 80's...a cult novel of some consequence in the post-Apocolyptic genre. These days, S.M. Stirling writes books in the same vein, but Boyett's Elegy Beach, his unintended sequel to Ariel, blows away Stirling and all other books of that type. Set in the near future where something has happened in the world and all the power's out, Boyett's characters, settings, and plot dwarf the competition. The dialogue, snappy like latter day Heinlein without the repetitio...more

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Dec 31, 2010 Drew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Elegy Beach is the long awaited sequel to a beloved favorite.

That is a tough roll to fill, and while I do have a few minor qualms, and I am not the same person who read Ariel: A book of the Change, many many years ago I did enjoy revisiting familiar characters, I was relieved to discover not only had I changed, so had the characters, time had not left them isolated in the pages of a book, they were older as well, more experienced, changed, yet recognizably familiar.

without giving away any story

...more

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Dec 30, 2009 Gia rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really, really, really wanted to like this book more than I did. Twenty-five years between the original and the sequel did NOT help in any way. Minor annoyances: the appearance of ipods and other recent gadgets not around in the first book. I can't remember, did the Change happen in the future back then? no difference, it was annoying. Would it have been so bad to have Pete find a cassette recorder? or a disc-man? Also, the didgeridoo. I agree with the other reviewer who said it felt tacked-on...more

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May 06, 2010 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Something big happened 30 years ago that stopped the existence of electricity, working motors and a large part of the world population. Some survivors were left with magical abilities. New creatures showed up...unicorns, centaurs. Now, in California, two teen boys are learning how to wield a more powerful magic than has been seen before. One of the boys will try to use his power for good, the other for evil.

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Mar 08, 2010 Brian Little rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good book. The story is engaging, though the arc is reasonably predictable. The biggest drawback is Boyett's prose, which waxes a tad purple for me at times. His dialog is the sort that occasionally makes be stop and go "Nobody really talks like that."

Read it for the world he builds, and the way he layers it up. Very different from, say, S.M. Stirling's "change."

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Oct 25, 2010 Jennifer Busch rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

Not at all written in the style I expected. It was okay, certainly not something I want to read again though. I didn't realize this was a sequel until well into the storyline (possibly because I started it at the hospital following my surgery). This book did nothing to inspire me to read the authors other books.

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Mar 24, 2011 Jeannine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Boyett's many, many years later follow up story to Ariel. This was a good story. I enjoyed it all the way through. Both of these books are keepers. I'm glad he wrote another book to follow Ariel, and tell us more about what happened after that book ended.

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Dec 30, 2012 Annalisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book was well-written but overall not my style. I felt it lacked maybe a cohesion or some continuity. Some characters came in, and I'm not quite sure that they had any impact on the story. Other characters were left largely unmentioned in throughout most of the text, only reappearing at the end, so it wasn't unified in that sense. I also just kept wondering why? Why does this work but that doesn't? What brought about the Change? It was presented that none of the characters could really answe...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Jodi Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wrote an email to Steven Boyett many years ago telling him how much Ariel (the book) meant to me, and he wrote me back - and he was so supportive and wonderful and he was already a big favorite - so... Elegy Beach is - a wonderful book to start with - but added to that is the bonus that I get to be with Pete and Ariel again. And, ohmygosh did I miss them! More when I finish!

OK - I can't talk about it all yet - but I think this might be a perfect sequel - so I loved it.

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Dec 04, 2010 Tasula rated it 4 of 5 stars

apocalyptic world;Fred Garey and Yan are teen buddies learning magic;Yan gets power crazy and tries to reverse the Change; Ariel unicorn, Fred, his dad and Yan's dad hit the road to find and stop him, meet Avy, centaur Bob

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Mar 27, 2013 Kat rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 13readingchallenge, 13-gr-tbr, 13-a-z-challenge

I'm glad he wrote the sequel, even tho he never intended to. And writing a sequel nearly 30 years later- literally, not just in the timeline of the story- has got to be difficult.

I made some wry remarks about some of the tech mentioned in this book that didn't exist back when Ariel was created, but he addresses that in his afterward. Can't say I totally agree, but then, it's not my story!

I'm a little saddened by the end, both for what happens to characters, and that it's THE END of this particu...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Ketan Shah added it

Powerful and touching. I read Ariel many many years ago and hardly remember anything about it.However that did not hinder my enjoyment of this sequel. Easily one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.

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Dec 26, 2010 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Stayed up late to finish it. Even better than Ariel IMHO. I loved how this turned from Fred's story to that of his father and it made sense that it do so.

I am left wanting more and yet happy that may never happen.

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May 16, 2013 Tressa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, did-not-finish, fantasy

Elegy Beach had an interesting world, but I lost interest in the story and the characters. The narration by J. D. Jackson was lovely, though. I didn't finish listening to the audiobook.

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Jun 30, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, mmm-2012, apocalyptic-future, mmm-challenges, jims-reviews

I like Boyett's writing - it's very non-standard, so it takes a little bit to get used to. But once you do, it's intriguing, and it makes you like his book that much more. Elegy Beach was a follow-up to his previous book Ariel (written 25 years earlier), and it's quite a different take on the post-apocalyptic world. Worth reading - check into it. I'll have to check out Ariel next.

...more

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About Steven R. Boyett

Steven R. Boyett lives in Southern California and wouldn't have it any other way. Steve has been a writing teacher, editor, martial-arts instructor, and professional paper marbler, among other things. He is too modest to admit it, but he plays a mean digeridoo. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and he has also written comic books and a draft of the movie Toy St...more

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Elegy Beach (Change #2)

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