As profound of an experience as I’ve just had with these two books I’ve decided to write a joint review on Gene Wolfe’s two-book The Wizard Knight series, The Knight and The Wizard.
At 74 years of age Gene Wolfe is considered by many authors and readers to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, science fiction and fantasy author alive today. Over the years I have heard friends and favorite authors alike sing the praises of Gene Wolfe, particularly for the four books that make up his The Book of the New Sun series. Considering the reading experience I had just had with The Time Traveler’s Wife (review here), I had resigned myself to the fact that it would be a long time before I was so enthralled with another book. I could not have been more wrong nor more pleasantly surprised when I decided to give Gene Wolfe a try and picked up The Knight.
These stories center on a teenager who takes a walk in the woods in the “real” world and through a series of seemingly innocent actions finds himself no longer in America but in a magical realm consisting of seven levels of reality. Unable to remember entirely who he is or how he got to this new realm he is soon given the name Able and in his heart the desire to become a knight begins to grow. A meeting with an Aelf Queen named Disiri results in this young boy being turned into a man of heroic proportions. A man whose destiny is to find a fabled magical sword named Eterne, the finding of which he believes will allow him to return to Disiri whom he loves above all else. And so a quest begins that will take the reader along with Able of the High Heart as he travels through various planes of this realm meeting aelfs and dragons, kings and queens, knights, gods, goddesses, ogres and many others too numerous to name.
Taken as I’ve written it one could easily say that all this has been done before in many other fantasy stories. What makes this different is that Gene Wolfe takes all these archetypes of fantasy and creates a tale told in a wholly original, fascinating way. These stories are written in the form of a letter from Able to his brother Ben in the “real” world. Despite his body-changing experience with Disiri, Able remains but a boy in a man’s body and his narration is told in the voice of a teenager. A teenager who knows there are memories that have been taken from him and realizes that a part of his quest will be to discover more about who he is and why he has been taken to this realm. Told as a letter the reader realizes that time has passed but doesn’t know how old Able is when he is writing this letter. In this “letter” Able casually references events that have happened to him but that won’t occur until much later in the narration thus giving the story depth and intrigue. The reader is made to wonder where this brother Ben is and does he get this letter that Able is writing and how did this all occur in the first place. These and other mysteries make for a compelling read.
It is very hard to describe Gene Wolfe’s writing style as it is like nothing I have read before. It is obvious that there is a classic mythology and folklore running throughout the story and it is written so well that one is tempted to do research to see if this mythology exists or if it was simply made up in Wolfe’s imagination. Although there is a linear progression to the story Wolfe does not write everything in a dry “this happened and then that happened” format. Instead the reader is sometimes given sketchy or incomplete information from the narrator that is fleshed out later on. This makes for a more intelligent, thought provoking read and compels the reader to continue on devouring the books to see what happens next. Though written only a few years ago these books had the feel of classic literature in the vein of Dickens or Stoker and yet Wolfe’s voice is quite unique.
The Wizard completes the tale that was abruptly ended with The Knight. In The Wizard Sir Able is older still and the voice in which he continues his letter shows the effects of his time and adventures in this realm. In The Wizard Wolfe strays from his first person narrative at times to show what is happening to other characters. Early on Sir Able indicates that the part he is writing about others has been relayed to him by someone present and the reader assumes that this continues to be the case as it happens later in the tale. The Wizard is a more action oriented tale than The Knight, containing accounts of battles with many and varied residents of the seven realms.
Both The Knight and The Wizard are wonderful examples of the craft of bookmaking as well. The hardcover editions have raised lettering and embossed images with wonderful paintings done by artist Gregory Manchess. Inside the books each beginning chapter page has a pencil illustration done by Manchess, and they are lush, detailed, and amazing. I love a book that is put together well and these are two marvelous examples.
At its heart The Wizard Knight series is a love story. A story in which a young man choses to be a knight and sets about on a quest to become one and win the love of a the woman who fills his every thought and inspires his every action. During the quest he meets many characters who make a profound difference in his life as well as a number who are profoundly changed by meeting him. Through it all Wolfe writes a tale in which you quickly become attached to many of the characters and although the end of the tale is quite satisfying it leaves you saddened that you have to leave this world and these characters behind. I have not done these two books justice at all in my reviews. They are truly fascinating and inspiring and thought provoking. I literally could not put this story down and read both 470ish page stories in a very brief period of time. These are amazing books and I highly recommend them.
I’ll have to investigate. I’ve never read any Wolfe before, but have heard lots of good things.
Neil Gaiman’s quote on the front of the book “Important and Wonderful” sure helped sell the idea that maybe I needed to pick up this book and give it a read.
Carl brought these books to my attention over the last two weeks and I picked up a copy of the The Knight on Sunday. I’m 100 pages into this book and I’m totally hooked. Nothing is as it first seems and I love it. There is depth and mystery. This book is as good as some of my favorite fantasy authors Neil Gaiman, Geogre RR Martin, Robert E Howard, and Terry Goodkind.
Thanks for the recommendation Carl and now I need to get back to reading! 🙂
I passed The Knight on to Scott this weekend as well. Got to spread the good word, after all!
Wolfe’s name should not even be mentioned on the same web page as those hacks
George “RR” (mmm…wonder when he decided on THAT affectation) Martin and Goodkind.
Their dreck is exactly what’s so wrong in fantasy fiction today, while Wolfe (may he live til his 90’s) is everything right.
Thanks for the visit and comments Jake. I haven’t read Martin, though I plan to soon, and have also not read Goodkind so I can’t defend them…the main reason being that though I love to read I have a tendency to get phobic about series that look to go on forever. That is what appealed to me so much about The Knight and The Wizard is that I knew after book one that I wasn’t finished but also knew that I wouldn’t have to be waiting on sequels for years on end. As for Gaiman and Howard…Howard created the Sword and Sorcery genre and many of his Conan tales are amazing and Gaiman is my favorite living writer…despite reading voraciously no one has replaced him at the top of my list, so any criticism of those two, while I respect every man’s ability to have his own opinion, falls on deaf ears.
Aww. Broad generalizations. So and So’s a ” hack ” and such and such is ” dreck “. I love it when people throw these terms around and then don’t give any specific examples to back it up.
Jake, I appreciate your love of Gene Wolfe and I like him too but, why do you feel the need to put other authors down in order to raise your’s up. I realize and will not argue that Gene Wolfe is one of the greatest living fantasy authors but calling George RR Martin a ” hack ” is too much. Martin has been writing for 35 years. In that time period he was WON numerous World Fantasy, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Bram Stoker awards as I know Gene Wolfe has, too. I think it is safe to say Maritn’s not a hack if he has these types of groups recoginizing his work. Now Terry Goodkind may not be on their level but I like him so that’s my choice. To me neither of them are hacks but obviously you feel differently. Enlighten us with your reasons and maybe I will understand your reasoning but until then your comments ring hollow.
Bram Stoker awards….he was a hack too! 🙂 Just kidding of course!
Well I’ve finished The Knight and was a wondeful story. Gene Wolfe’s writing has such a fairey tale quality. I think my favorite part were his animal companions ( Glyf and Mani ). I love how Gene gave them pet like qualities yet they played such important and heroic roles at times. I also loved the Aelf ladies. Wolfe also catch’s the way people talk when telling a story. It doens’t just flow direclty. Stories jump around and don’t always give you all the information you want because the teller gets caught up in a tangent and off they go.
I’m takeing The Wizard with me tommarrow to read at The Hospital and I just can’t wait. This isn’t your typical modern fantasy tale but harkens back to how fanatasy stories were written when I was growing up. Don’t get me wrong I love today’s fantasy novels too but it’s nice to visit the fairey world again from time to time.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of The Wizard. On a much smaller scale the differences between the two stories remind me of the differences between Kill Bill 1 and Kill Bill 2, although opposite. The Wizard seems to be more focused on battles, etc. and yet continues the wonderful storytelling quality of The Knight. I would really like to read these again sometime soon…they are so big though that the thought is somewhat daunting. I may need to read these to Mary.
I’ve always wanted to get into SF and Fantasy reading to escape, but always had difficulty, because the worlds and ‘things’ are so difficult to imagine – how ever hard one tries… I would rarely finish a book in these genres as a consequence. However, having first been drawn to this novel ‘The Knight’ by the beautiful cover of the Orion paperback (cover art wonderfully done by Laura Brett, who utilises the colour green in a way I’ve never seen before!) I was riveted, but having got about halfway through, I was frustrated to discover my copy had errors – a complete page was missing, and half of another was misprinted… When I ordered my replacement copy, I had to wait for it, and I thought I would never get back into it, because I am never able to pick up the thread of a book I’ve been reading with any lengthy pause, how ever good, but amazingly, this was so vivid, I was able to simply carry on with it from where I left off – it was so well written! I feel completely and totally transported and immersed in this, and although I am now still only two thirds through this wonderful read, I just HAD to go out and purchase the sequel ‘The Wizard’! (this is also a first for me, as I do not normally take to sequels, trilogies, sagas etc.) I also went out of my way to purchase the Orion edition using the beautiful artwork of Laura Brett once again, and also because, although the print is quite small, it is very easy on the eye. Perhaps you could feature images of these on your Site also – as they are truly unique, and were what originally drew me into these fascinating books! The chapter ‘Disiri’ from ‘the Knight’ in particular, is one of the most fascinating and magical portions I have ever read in any book! The aroma and atmosphere of the mossy green foliage of the forest in the half light was so vivid and captivating – I believe I was really there – if only for a moment – or was it a year!?
So glad you are enjoying these books, M.H. They are truly some of the most amazing fantasy books I have ever read. I hope they lead you to try more fantasy and science fiction in the future as there are so many truly wonderful books out there in these genres.
I tried to find pictures of the covers you mentioned to post and the only luck I had was on the U.K. Amazon site and it won’t let me copy them, otherwise I’d love to post them. Do your versions have the Gregory Manchess illustrations at the start of each chapter?
One of these days I will reread these again and I know it will be an incredible experience.
Hi Carl,
How wonderful to receive a response to my comments – I seldom get ‘reactions’ from comments I leave anywhere, and so this is the first I have left for some considerable time. If you could let me have an email address, I think I may be able to send you the images mentioned. Yes – in the copies I have, I do have the ‘sketches’ that are printed at the beginning of each chapter too – I find these fascinating and they make the novels all the more unique. You’re right I’m sure; about more great books in this genre being out there – I just hope I can find them! For many years, I would only read historical fiction – I guess I just like to ‘escape’, but I’ve always longed to be able to get into SF and Fantasy. About the only other books I have read in this genre recently and been able to finish, have been ‘Scar Night’ and ‘The Gleemaiden’. I also read a book of short stories by a writer called ‘C. Moore’ (not too sure about the initial as I can’t put my hand on it just now) which I found very enjoyable and very ‘subliminal’. When I had to return my copy of ‘The Knight’ because of the errors I mentioned, I was at first told it would be some weeks before I would receive my replacement, and so I started to read another SF book; ‘Mockingbird’. As I had got halfway through this as my replacement copy of ‘The Knight’ finally arrived, I have carried on with it. Both books could not be more different from each other, but I am really enjoying ‘Mockingbird’ also, and it’s the first time in my life that I have had two books on the go at the same time! It is sometimes difficult to follow one novel (if it’s not that good) but to be able to follow two at the same time, then I guess that goes to show just how really good they both are! By the way; is it me, or is it also obvious to you, that generally, SF and Fantasy books tend to be very very thick? (loads of pages) only sometimes, I can find this a little off-putting. I basically prefer 450 pages maximum, but really like around 250 or so. How about you?
I’ll shoot you an email address.
I’m with you all the way, books in general seem to be waaay to big. I prefer something less than 300 pages as well, somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pages is fantastic. I am also not big on the never ending series in sci fi and fantasy. I love it when an author chooses to, say, only write a trilogy. That way I know it is definitely all going to end sometime! No matter how much I love a universe, I don’t want to spend years on end waiting for sequel after sequel to come out. It is maddening.
There is nothing wrong with escape, that is part of the fun of reading. And in the end there are so many great genres that it really doesn’t matter what one reads as long as they are satisfied with the books they are reading.
If you want to continue with sci fi and fantasy I suggest you hang around and check out the review site for The Sci Fi Experience as people post their reviews. You can also look down on my side bar and see the image, which is a link, to the Once Upon a Time Challenge Review Site which has reviews for somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 or more fantasy books. That might be a good place to start. You can always go through my old book reviews as well.
Books like these by Wolfe kind of spoil one because they are so amazing and not every book, even the good ones, are that good. I would definitely recommend The Onion Girl and its sequel, Widdershins, by Charles de Lint. I haven’t read OG, but know all about it because Widdershins dips back into that story some. I loved Widdershins though and cannot imagine that OG isn’t fantastic. You can find my review on here somewhere…probably the easiest way to get to it is in my Best OF post from the other day.
And as long as I don’t miss it, I always respond to people’s comments. To me that is blogging etiquette 101.
Hi Carl,
Thanks for the mail. I’ve replied with images attached, but I’m unsure if they’ve arrived successfully, as I’m having some problems sending emails at the moment. Please let me know if you have not received my email, and I will send again.
I got them M.H., thanks! I really like the coloring on The Wizard.
You are in good company. Myself and many others almost always judge books by their covers. Unless it is an author I read regularly, it is the cover art that I like that makes me want to pick up and own a book. It is always nice when the story is as good as or exceeds the cover art.
Thanks for sending those, I appreciate it.