A dragon book by The Last Unicorn author Peter Beagle was lost for years — but now you can read it

polygon.com:

Back in 2007, alert fans of fantasy grand master Peter Beagle had a very short window of time to get excited about the announcement of his latest novel, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons. The book was abruptly pulled from the release schedule, reportedly because of Beagle’s conflict with publisher Penguin USA over a new edition of his best-known book, The Last Unicorn.

The novel recently returned to Beagle’s control, along with other work, after a years-long court battle with his former manager, and it’s finally due to see the light of day on May 14. Its publication coincides with a series of new editions of Beagle’s writing, all stemming from that court-ordered rights reversion. But while it’s exciting to see Beagle’s novels becoming widely available again after being out of print for years, nothing on the publication docket is as exciting as I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons finally hitting print, 17 years after it was first promised.

Many of Beagle’s novels (A Fine and Private Place, The Folk of the Air, In Calabria, and others) take place in a fantasy-tinged version of the modern world, while others (The Innkeeper’s Song, Two Hearts) take place in fantasy settings. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is one of the latter. Like The Last Unicorn, it’s built around a pseudo-medieval fantasy world with humorously anachronistic touches, even though the book isn’t primarily comedic, or even lighthearted.

The initial protagonist, Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax — or as he much prefers, “Robert” — is a reluctant dragon-hunter who inherited the job from his father. In his world, dragons are normally small nuisances and household pests, and he’s far more like an industrial exterminator than a mighty hero. Secretly, Robert preserves and protects the few dragons he can keep safe.

But then a would-be mighty hero comes to his small, run-down kingdom, from a much larger and more military one. Crown Prince Reginald arrives looking for a dragon to slay. Reginald isn’t