'What gives it its potency is its strong mythopoeic quality . . . a sense of miraculous happenings and wonderful creatures returning to an over-ordered world' Brian W. Aldiss
Painter is a leo - part man, part lion - the result of one of man's genetic experiments, a powerful, beautiful, enigmatic creature deemed a 'failure' to be be hunted down. But Painter has two advantages in this world of small bickering nation states and political accommodation and compromise: his own strength and integrity, and the guile of Reynard, another of man's experiments, a subtle and potent intriguer, a king-maker . . .
John Crowley was born in 1942 and has worked in documentary films and TV since 1966. The Deep, his first SF novel, was published in 1975 and was followed by Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time. In his later work, Little, Big, Aegypt and Love and Sleep, he has moved into writing fantasy to great critical acclaim.