MECHANIQUE

A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti.

By Genevieve Valentine.

Prime Books, paper, $14.95.

Valentine’s novel has the stylized quality of books by Angela Carter like “The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman,” and it displays similar pyrotechnics. Run by a woman known as Boss, the traveling Circus Tresaulti ekes out its existence against a postapocalyptic backdrop of cities rebuilding after “the bombs and the radiation.” The setting is unimaginative, but the circus performers, most of them mechanically altered to enhance their acts, come to life in a series of skillful set pieces. Chief among these performers are the aerialists Alec, who has recently (and intentionally) fallen to his death, and Bird, who has replaced him. Together they give the novel its emotional force, as Valentine keeps returning to the reasons for Alec’s death: “For anyone who sees it, a moment like that is never in the past; it is always happening. . . . When Bird falls, Alec is falling.” In contrast to the complexity of that haunting echo, the plot is more basic, involving the threat from a dastardly “government man.” Yet in a highwire act of her own, Valentine still raises the novel above the ordinary through her ability to convey the richness of the circus performers’ emotional lives, coupled with impressive writing — as in a description of Alec’s surgically attached wings, every bone-and-brass feather “jigsawed and hammered and smoothed so thin that when it strikes another feather it rings out a clear note.”

SLEIGHT OF HAND

By Peter S. Beagle.

Tachyon, paper, $14.95.

Ever since his classic first novel, “A Fine and Private Place,” Beagle has displayed a talent not just for writing fantasy but for documenting the frailties and bittersweet qualities of human relationships. Fifty years later, Beagle’s new story collection, “Sleight of Hand,” provides ample evidence that his powers of observation are still sharp. Highlights include the deeply felt ghost story “The Rabbi’s Hobby,” in which the supernatural element is secondary to the titular rabbi and his odd collection of stray keys. In “The Best Worst Monster,” Beagle delightfully imagines a creature made of “power tools and old television sets” — the story is reminiscent of the work of a friendlier Steven Millhauser. Wizards and magicians appear frequently in such tales as “Sleight of Hand,” “The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon” and “What Tune the Enchantress Plays,” all of which allow Beagle to showcase his effortless storytelling. Even weaker entries, like the retold fairy tale “Up the Down Beanstalk,” contain scenes that are wise, warm and deep.