Seamus Cullen (1921–2005)

My first introduction to this book was in high school when my creative writing teacher, Mr. Bucy, brought it to class. He held it up and said "this book has all the sexual acts I'd thought possible by page 50". And while I was curious, I was not one of the two students who raced to the front of the room when he set it down on a stool with the instructions "now nobody come up here to get it".

It's a retelling of the classic faery story, of a faery boy with a human father and elven mother, much along the lines of an x-rated version of Lord Dunsany's [[The King of Elfland's Daughter]].

In this a teenaged faery boy, Astra meets an equally hormone-loaded teenage elf maiden, Flondrix and in love, they together travel fairy to break the enchanted curse laid on Astra's human father, King Barlocks, who must vicariously experience puberty in the son he doesn't know he has.

Along the way we meet more elves, dwarves, witches, mice and an evil sorcerer...

What my teacher told us may not have been far off the mark, except that being a fantasy novel, many of the characters have vastly different shapes and sizes from humans, making it a very interesting read (more than that probably isn't appropriate for a family-friendly site like this!).

The writing quality is pretty clumsy, but then that isn't necessarily what it's all about. It probably helps that I first read it as a teenager, without having read quite as many well written books as I have now a few decades later.… (more)