Comments | glenatron: The Wizard Knight

glenatron

The Wizard Knight

Dec 26, 2009 23:53

I've just finished reading The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe. 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 ( Read more... )

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Comments 6

penella22 December 27 2009, 16:34:10 UTC

haha! No book has ever started with a line like that for me...

I'm sticking with Gaiman himself for the moment. Got "The Graveyard Book" out of the college library and then tried to take it back after they had already closed for vacation, so i left snowy footprints leading up the steps and showing where I peered sadly through the glass on the front door and pondered my possible late fees.

But meanwhile I have a book to read. Whee!

glenatron December 28 2009, 00:44:59 UTC

That may be the price of having a special and unique name...

skiesfirepaved December 27 2009, 17:52:53 UTC

So I was reading your description and thinking "hmmm, this sounds pretty good" and then I read what you said about Neil Gaiman and I was like "OMG MUST BUY IT". As you can tell, I'm one of those people who watches TV adverts and then need whatever product was on offer. :|

I'll keep an eye out for it when I'm next in town!

skiesfirepaved December 27 2009, 17:53:56 UTC

...And now I've just seen the first line (sorry, I really didn't get any further than you mentioning Mr Gaiman). Wow! How epic is that?!

glenatron December 28 2009, 00:48:25 UTC

It's one of the most epic books I've read in a simple-complicated kind of a way.

I can imagine a lot of people finding it profoundly annoying ( and indeed on Amazon it seems to mostly get 1 or 5 star reviews so I think you either 'get it' or you don't ) because the narration is really in character and the character isn't a storyteller so he'll sometimes refer back to something he hadn't previously mentioned or say "I'll tell you about that later" or similar, but I love that way of writing. I found within a few hundred pages that my writing ( and even my speaking ) had changed to become closer to the style of the book.

I think it will stand repeated readings.

stu_the_elder December 28 2009, 17:01:09 UTC

Right, you bastard, I'll buy it.

I'LL BUY IT!

From St Catharines's heart I stab.. er.. froth at thee!

Okay, I'm done.