The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight

I am a fantasy fan, but one of my complaints about the genre is that what you find usually borders on two extremes. Either a novel is utterly derivative and full of cliche, shoddy writing, and the exact same plot filled with different names, or it is so high minded and literary that it is barely understandable. You either get "cheap thrills" (Robert Jordan) or art house fantasy (China Mieville). You rarely get the novel that is well written and truly enjoyable. But when you do get it (a la George RR Martin,) You get something special. The Knight is that something special. With The Knight Gene Wolfe has finally taken all his talent, skill, and potential, and he has given us an accesible novel that is brilliantly done. The whole key to this hinges on the protagonist. Able is a young teenage boy who finds himself with the body of a true warrior. Able is a likeable hero with all the flaws of a teenage boy, yet at the same time he is basically a good kid. The story of Able's quest to be a Knight is well written, endearing, and filled with timeless value. It trancends being a story about Able and becomes a story about honor. You have a strong main character. There are strong side characters. The pacing of the plot is brisk and moves at a nice clip. There are moments of humor and moments of horror. But throught it all Able's determintation to be a noble knight stands as the center of a great story. There are some quibbles. You end the book still not really knowing why any of this has happened. There are far too many questions left unanswered. But this is classic Wolfe and this is what second volumes are for. All in all a tremendous novel. If you are a fan of fantasy you need to read this book. Wolfe proves that talent makes the tale and sometimes the old stories are the ones worth reading (and writing.) Outstanding.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS: Ask yourself, when was the last time you wanted to go back and re-read a book while still in the middle of your initial reading? Most fantasy books can be so good that you don't want to put them down. You keep turning the pages into the wee hours of the night hoping to find out if Frodo makes it to Mount Doom or if Harry defeats Lord Voldemort. These books are so good you want to revisit them again and again, each time discovering something new and delightful within the familiar journey. But with this book, it isn't so much the destination, but the journey itself. Yeah, Able will probably get to his sword eventually, but what the heck just happened in that last chapter? You have some idea of what just happened if you were paying attention, but Wolfe has a way of destroying your assumptions. "Did I just read what I thought I read?" you continually will ask yourself. It will not be uncommon for you to begin chapters over again immediately upon finishing them. You will be compelled to do this. Only the most well-crafted, densely-layered and tantalizing book could accomplish such a feat. Wolfe has already established himself as a master of this type of writing. With The Knight he takes his skills to the next level by creating an intriguing page-turner without sacrificing one whit of his noted literary engineering. If you are a fan of the fantasy genre, then this book also will provide you with some delightful new takes on some old ideas. Wolfe dips his imagination into the deep pool of Norse mythology complete with its gratuitously violent legends and characters. His giants are more menacing than the slow-witted, ham-fisted oafs we have come to expect from Disney films and Cartoon Network. Not a one utters "fee, fi, fo, fum!" They are too busy engaging in tactical sneak attack maneuvers to thwart an advancing army or sacking and pillaging a small town. We also catch lush glimpses of Valhalla, Odin and the Valkyrie. These characters have not been Xena-tized for your protection. They are presented in pure Nordic tradition, glorious, grand violent warts and all. This is a rich, sumptuous book that just begs to be devoured. We absolutely loved it. WHY YOU SHOULD PASS: While arguably one of his most straightforward and accessible works, The Knight is still brimming with Wolfe's unique brand of literary gamesmanship. He again employs the "unreliable narrator" device in order to tell his tale. While not a liar like Severian nor an apologist like Horn, Able is just too young and naive to perceive the events happening in the world around him. His attempts to explain complex, metaphysical events are obtuse at best leaving the reader to wonder what exactly is going on. He does not possess the skills necessary to translate his experience into something we can identify with. He more or less reports exactly what he sees without providing any sort of cultural context. Things happen because Able says they do a

I'll start off this review by saying I'm biased, Wolfe is my favorite writer and his Book of the New Sun is my all time favorite novel. This is typically good Gene Wolfe. If you like Wolfe, don't even bother reading the reviews, just go get it. If your one of those people who isn't sure they will like his work or felt his work was overly complicated in the past, this is a good place to start. Wolfe's language is cleaner and easier to read then the Sun Novels, and I tend to feel it reads and plots more like the Soldier Novels. Wolfe makes use of an unreliable narrator as he does often; I personally find unreliable narrators can really make a story. However, I find that sometimes readers struggle with this concept, that not everything the narrator is saying is entirely the truth or the whole story. The amount of fantasy that piles into the bookstores that resemble something of a soup opera than a harrowing tale staggers my mind. The theme of a knight in a fantasy world is surely not a new concept, but execution is the key. I think execution is where this book really shines; Wolfe takes the typical and makes it Fresh. The only flaw is that now I have to wait for the follow up. Write Faster Gene Wolfe!!!

I read my first Gene Wolfe novel almost a year and a half ago. The collected (book club) edition of "Book of the New Sun" had sat collecting dust on my shelves for at least a year before I ever picked it up. I had been looking for new novel or series of novels to read after being disappointed with the newest release of one of the pulp-fiction fantasy epics that seem to be all too common these days. After reading the first page of New Sun, I knew I was hooked. I subsequently read all of Wolfe's Briah Cycle, and started going through his other novels and stories. I was therefore extremely excited when I first heard about Wolfe's new Wizard Knight series. "The Knight" is suffused with the depth, intelligence, and originality that has come to characterize all of Wolfe's work. The device of plucking someone from modern times and setting them in a strange medieval world has been used since before fantasy and science-fiction were even recognized sub-genres of fiction. In many authors' hands, this device can be ineffectual and tedious. But the style and grace with which Wolfe handles his story make it rise above what would be expected from any other author. While "The Knight" is certainly more straightfoward and accessible than Wolfe's Sun or Latro books, it is still full of his signature enigmas, misdirection, and revelations.Looking across the breadth of modern fantasy today (especially epic fantasy), it becomes clear that most fantasy novels are suffering from the inbreeding that has resulted from too few new ideas being introduced and far too many old ideas being recycled and respun. Most fantasy authors are either unconciously retreading the path that Tolkien forged or conciously afraid to deviate too far from it. Even worse, many novels are beginning to recycle ideas from second and third generation Tolkien knock-offs -- the "classics" of the late eighties and early nineties. Gene Wolfe does not fall prey to these vices. While his novels do have identifiable influences (Tolkien certainly being among them for this novel), he does not rely on so fallow a field from which to draw his ideas and themes. The tone of "The Knight" is very different from the tone of all of Wolfe's Sun books. This is partly due to the diffence between its narrator and the narrators from Wolfe's Briah Cycle. The maturity of the narrators in the Sun novels increases with each series. Severian (New Sun) is one of my favorite protagonists of all time, but looking back at the four New Sun books (five including Urth), his behavior is often pretty juvenile. Patera Silk (Long Sun) is one of the most wholly moral characters ever created, but he is also fairly naive. It is only with Horn/Silk in the Short Sun series that Wolfe's narrator has finally grown into a mature adult. In the Knight, Wolfe's narrator is a child, and maintains a child's perspective and attitude throughout the novel, despite being miraculously transformed physically into an adult of Herculea

It's been three days since I finished "The Knight," and I miss it. I miss hearing the music of its language. I miss seeing the world it creates."The Knight" is Wolfe's fastest paced and most accessible book. There are sixty nine chapters, in each of which at least four or five things happen: that adds up to hundreds of events--battles, revelations, miracles, surprises (compare to heroic fantasies at twice the length in which not a single thing happens.) Elves and angels, giants and princesses, dragons and knights appear in a transfigured form, as if before you saw them through a glass darkly, and now, in this book, as they really are. All this is described in sentences like diamonds: so clear and hard-edged, they sparkle; but beware--any one can open up into a hall of mirrors or a chasm.Gene Wolfe writes fantasy with the logic and rigor of science fiction and the mystery and color of magical realism. The vertically stacked universe of "The Knight" has an antecedent in Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep;" the proliferation of characters, disguises and intrigues recalls the myth-based thrillers of Tim Powers. But the vastness, the speed, the sheer beauty of Wolfe's book can only be compared to epic poetry: the medieval dream visions of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "The Pearl," or the post-modern action-adventure of Les Murray's "Freddy Neptune."Or "Harry Potter." Actually, it's not at all like "Harry Potter," but like "Harry Potter" should have been. In both, a young protagonist from the modern world enters a fantasy universe where places and creatures have evocative names. But there, the similarity ends.The Valfather is a man from Skai. When a dragon opens its mouth, you see a person's face.If that means anything to you, you have to read this book.