The Wizard: Book Two of The Wizard Knight
By Gene Wolfe
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work.
The first half of the journey, The Knight -- which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning -- took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be.
Coming into Jotunland, home of the Frost Giants, Able -- now Sir Able of the High Heart --claims the great sword Eterne from the dragon who has it. In reward, he is ushered into the castle of the Valfather, king of all the Gods of Skai.
Thus begins the second part of his quest. The Wizard begins with Able's return to Mythgathr on his steed Cloud, a great mare the color of her name. Able is filled with new knowledge of the ways of the seven-fold world and possessed of great magical secrets. His knighthood now beyond question, Able works to fulfill his vows to his king, his lover, his friends, his gods, and even his enemies. Able must set his world right, restoring the proper order among the denizens of all the seven worlds.
The Wizard is a charming, riveting, emotionally charged tale of wonders, written with all the beauty one would expect from a writer whom Damon Knight called "a national treasure." If you've never sampled the works of the man Michael Swanwick described as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today," the two volumes of The Wizard Knight are the perfect place to start.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe (1931-2019) was the Nebula Award-winning author of The Book of the New Sun tetralogy in the Solar Cycle, as well as the World Fantasy Award winners The Shadow of the Torturer and Soldier of Sidon. He was also a prolific writer of distinguished short fiction, which has been collected in such award-winning volumes as Storeys from the Old Hotel and The Best of Gene Wolfe. A recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and six Locus Awards, among many other honors, Wolfe was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007, and named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2012.
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Reviews for The Wizard
12 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The style was disjointed. The story bounced around with whole area skipped. It was not worth the time invested.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Okay, I have only looked at the first, and read a few pages. I thought I'd see what was going on with this one first...
The answer is, incomprehensible nonsense, that grows tired by about the third paragraph. There are a few books that work with a vernacular style of writing. Pilgerman, A Clockwork Orange and Feersun Endgin come to mind. But characters portrayed only by their wonky way of talking are usually tiresome. Pratchett makes good use of it in the odd character.
But when it is the main protagonists in the first two chapters, it is seriously annoying. When I find myself reading 2 chapters of a book that fails to entertain, says nothing, and speaks in a difficult to follow lingo, I throw it away. Gene Wolfe has been good in the past. He has also been stultifyingly dull. This is one of the latter. Some reviews suggest these books are somehow original in the fantasy market. Rubbish. There is nothing new here, and the literary trick of having a boy in a man's body has little mileage any more... since Tom Hanks in Big, actually, and that was due to the skill of the actor.
Avoid. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very tricky, but rewarding read. Like all of Wolfe, it is filled with major events that happen in a single sentence or even none at all, where the reader is expected to have understood what happens because of something foreshadowed chapters ago. This can be both frustrating, if you miss it, or rewarding when you get it. Not a book to be read when tired, for sure.I don't think I fully understand the ending, or how the story, which all takes place in Wolfe's 7-fold world around Mythgarthr, interacts with the life of the American boy who is the narrator and his brother (who is also a character in the book). This would probably profit from a reread, but I expect I will be going back to the Book of the New Sun as a reread first.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I thought the book bogged down at times. Many of the characters and situations are extremely enjoyable, at times the writing is captivating, but the book is disjointed. I did not get the ending and the immense battle. It's like the bad guy came out of nowhere.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This being the second Gene Wolfe book I have read, I now understand what his fans mean when they describe his particular narrative style. It is something akin to dark and otherworldly dreaminess. Nothing important is intricately detailed when you expect it to be. This is a quality I found alluring and refreshing compared to more forceful authors who find it necessary to cram the plot points down your throat.As the follow up to The Knight, the first half of the book was little tedious and I found myself needing to take a break for a week before I felt up to coming back to it. I'm glad I did, because the last half was very rewarding, but not necessarily revealing.The substance of this story draws a lot from Scandinavian and Saxon myth. This is made all the more interesting however by the way it is delivered. These small details are mainly presented briefly as a fleeting sentence here or there. Given that, I would probably find these two books more rewarding if I read a few primers on Norse mythology. The most intriguing element of the book is the young narrator and the story being told in the form of a letter. There are a multitude of very subtle connections between the grand mythical world the story is set in and the American life the narrator is from. I won't spoil anything, but the last paragraph of this book gave me cause to reflect at length on the entire two books and to ponder the point of storytelling. In the end, I would recommend this book, and its predecessor The Knight, for readers who enjoy a curious story which requires the reader to speculate often. This story is by no means clearly laid out for quick consumption, and for this I found it quite entertaining.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a little bit of a letdown from The Knight. The first half dragged for me, but thankfully it picked up again in the second half. Definitely a must-read if you've read and enjoyed the first book, and overall a worthwhile series.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's amazing, truly amazing.Gene Wolfe takes what ought to be a simple story and makes it rock with twists, turns, betrayals, action, fun, love and more.Neil Gaiman's review: read this or the cool people will laugh at you sums it up for me - and don't you want to be one of the people that Neil Gaiman just might think is cool?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As of now I'm giving this book 4 1/2 stars. Upon further readings I may have to up it to 5. I cannot think of a better living author in the Fantasy genre than Gene Wolfe.