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Product Description
Review
"A sophisticated meditation on dream and on the nature of fiction and its illusion. Wolfe deserves respect for the endless invention with which he not only subverts genre convention but challenges the assumption of all fiction." (Roz Kaeveny TLS )
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
A thrilling, emotionally riveting tale of wonders by one of the field's greatest writers
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What a truly extraordinary book. It's a proper, deeply old-school high fantasy. It has knights with pennants on their lances when they joust and giants and dragons and magic swords and castles. It takes cues from the high arthurian stories and from norse mythology and all the roots of most standard fantasy fiction and yet through sheer deftness and storytelling it somehow sneaks between the predictable events and avoids the cliches even as it uses them.
Do not buy this if you want post-Tolkien fantasy because I think you will be disappointed, it is rooted in the same legends that Tolkien was inspired by, but the story itself is of a different kind, revolving more around the notions of knightly conduct and how people can relate to each other, maybe closer to a medieval romance in that respect, tapestried and bright with the glare of sunshine on burnished armour. However it is not caught in that time, the storytelling is modern, but modern without ever drawing too far from the setting or being distracting to the reader. The development of the central character changes as they grow through their adventures and their writing does too.
I mostly bought it because I know Neil Gaiman is a big fan of his work and I can really see why. This is a grand story of honour, glory and adventure. It doesn't read like it's trying to be anything that it's not- you could write a book of this kind and people would read it and think "this is trying to be T.H.White" or Tolkien or whoever else - this book reads like it is it's own thing and it is clearly a classic, from start to finish. It belongs to a canon broader and more illustrious than the fantasy genre, alongside Mallory and Grimm as much as Martin and Le Guin and I recommend it strongly. Reaching the last pages made me sad because I genuinely didn't want it to end.
I cannot say who will or won't like this book, because - as other reviews indicate - if what you are looking for is a standard run-of-the-mill fantasy you will probably be disappointed and it may be almost too traditional in story for many genre fans, but if you are in any doubt then I strongly recommend giving this a try. It is truly brilliant.
Do not buy this if you want post-Tolkien fantasy because I think you will be disappointed, it is rooted in the same legends that Tolkien was inspired by, but the story itself is of a different kind, revolving more around the notions of knightly conduct and how people can relate to each other, maybe closer to a medieval romance in that respect, tapestried and bright with the glare of sunshine on burnished armour. However it is not caught in that time, the storytelling is modern, but modern without ever drawing too far from the setting or being distracting to the reader. The development of the central character changes as they grow through their adventures and their writing does too.
I mostly bought it because I know Neil Gaiman is a big fan of his work and I can really see why. This is a grand story of honour, glory and adventure. It doesn't read like it's trying to be anything that it's not- you could write a book of this kind and people would read it and think "this is trying to be T.H.White" or Tolkien or whoever else - this book reads like it is it's own thing and it is clearly a classic, from start to finish. It belongs to a canon broader and more illustrious than the fantasy genre, alongside Mallory and Grimm as much as Martin and Le Guin and I recommend it strongly. Reaching the last pages made me sad because I genuinely didn't want it to end.
I cannot say who will or won't like this book, because - as other reviews indicate - if what you are looking for is a standard run-of-the-mill fantasy you will probably be disappointed and it may be almost too traditional in story for many genre fans, but if you are in any doubt then I strongly recommend giving this a try. It is truly brilliant.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Gene Wolfe has the annoying habit of making his characters waffle when they speak. On and on they rattle. They never get to the point straight away. The effect of this is to make the story rather more turgid than it needs to be. So that's not too good.
Having said that, as soon as I finished reading The Wizard Knight I went to the beginning and am now reading it a second time. You can do that sort of thing with Gene Wolfe - his stuff has depth. You find yourself willing to go to the effort.
So, a bit of a dilemma here. The story is told at a solemn pace, with the characters yacking more than they should - but on the hand it is worth reading twice over.
Some of his other works are marred in the same way - too much hanging around, waiting for the salient points to emerge - so we have to suppose that it is intentional. It isn't sloppy writing: it's a way, one imagines, of spreading the story out and making it plod onwards. He must have his reasons for doing it that way, I suppose. Perhaps it is this lack of urgency which makes this stuff literature rather than a bog-standard work of fantasy.
Having said that, as soon as I finished reading The Wizard Knight I went to the beginning and am now reading it a second time. You can do that sort of thing with Gene Wolfe - his stuff has depth. You find yourself willing to go to the effort.
So, a bit of a dilemma here. The story is told at a solemn pace, with the characters yacking more than they should - but on the hand it is worth reading twice over.
Some of his other works are marred in the same way - too much hanging around, waiting for the salient points to emerge - so we have to suppose that it is intentional. It isn't sloppy writing: it's a way, one imagines, of spreading the story out and making it plod onwards. He must have his reasons for doing it that way, I suppose. Perhaps it is this lack of urgency which makes this stuff literature rather than a bog-standard work of fantasy.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I can see why some people might not like this book - it's huge, and drags in some places. However, it's a gripping read and I was hooked from start to finish.
It's not a typical fantasy novel, I feel - or perhaps just not the sort that I tend to read. I found it a lot more serious than books I usually read, though not in a negative way. The depth of the narration makes it easy to empathise with the characters, although I must admit that the way some of them behave (including the main character, in fact) occasionally had me wondering if they were the sort of people I would like to know.
As someone mentioned, it has a slight dry part, around two-thirds/three quarters of the way in (about half-way through 'The Wizard'), but I still enjoyed reading it. As for the comment about magic being used to finish the story in a satisfactory way (a happy ending), the theme of the entire story is honour, and Sir Able has promised not to use his gifts, and only uses them when forced to.
The book reads as though it could continue at the end, which I hope very much it will - it's always sad to reach the end of a good story, especially one as long and involving as this - if I get the chance to follow Sir Able again, I certainly will. This book will definitely be re-read.
It's not a typical fantasy novel, I feel - or perhaps just not the sort that I tend to read. I found it a lot more serious than books I usually read, though not in a negative way. The depth of the narration makes it easy to empathise with the characters, although I must admit that the way some of them behave (including the main character, in fact) occasionally had me wondering if they were the sort of people I would like to know.
As someone mentioned, it has a slight dry part, around two-thirds/three quarters of the way in (about half-way through 'The Wizard'), but I still enjoyed reading it. As for the comment about magic being used to finish the story in a satisfactory way (a happy ending), the theme of the entire story is honour, and Sir Able has promised not to use his gifts, and only uses them when forced to.
The book reads as though it could continue at the end, which I hope very much it will - it's always sad to reach the end of a good story, especially one as long and involving as this - if I get the chance to follow Sir Able again, I certainly will. This book will definitely be re-read.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
this is a one volume version of two previous novels
If you have already read The Knight & The Wizard, don't buy this - it is simply these two previous novels bound in one volume. Read more
Published 7 months ago by atalanta
dull, uninteresting and lifeless
Well, first I was kind of put of by how giant this book is! It weighs a ton and is really thick, making it hard to read...well...anywhere! But I persevered, and tried to read it. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Larewen Evenstar
Just Awful
i've never felt the need to review a book on here before, but this book has earned my utmost contempt.
A complete waste of time. Read more
A complete waste of time. Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2009 by Mr. J. Kenny
A tedious mess of a book
I started this book in high spirits, thinking it looks really interesting, and gradually as I read I was let down further and further until I ground through the last 300 pages or... Read more
Published on 21 April 2008 by Dan
A Knight of ghosts and shadows / I summoned am to tourney
I'm not given to reviewing books on Amazon often, but I'm frankly amazed that some reviewers found this fantastic book unreadable or uninspired. Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2007 by D. I. Macdonald
Absolute Rubbish
This must be quite the worst fantasy book I've ever read. The major flaw is that it's written in the first person... Read more
Published on 5 April 2007 by Jamie Lang
Not bad, but heavily flawed
What could have been a fairly good, albeit somewhat mundane two-novel series (which has been collected as one in this printing, the two novels being known separately as "The... Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2007 by James McGovern
A gripping fantasy epic
I was somewhat taken aback by some of the more negative reviews here of this novel, as I got so much pleasure from reading it. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2007 by Megamunch
A must for ALL true fantasy fans
This is my first Gene Wolfe book that I have read and wow was I blown away.
An absolutely amazing story with such detail that I have only ever come across in the likes... Read more
An absolutely amazing story with such detail that I have only ever come across in the likes... Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2006 by Mr. P. G. Lewis
In brief
I wrote a long and in-depth review about this book a few weeks ago and it still has not been published. Read more
Published on 10 July 2006 by Secret Squirrell 99
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