The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight

As a fan of Wolfe, I got what I was expecting in The Wizard Knight, only not quite as much as I'd hoped. I was totally sucked into the realm of Able and his fish-out-of-water experience, and I thought his voice rang true, especially as it developed over time. Some of the creatures he encounters reminded me strongly of beings from other novelists (Pulman, Tolkien, Vance), but his use of the perspective of the first person narrative makes them unique to this world. The book did not end where (or when) I expected, but I know that it's the first in a series, so I can forgive it for that. I haven't read the next one yet, but have high expectations for it.

I have loved many of his previous works but this one failed to keep me interested. In fact I ground to a halt about three quaters of the way through. While well crafted, the narrative is not terribly linear and can get quite abstract. I'm generally not afraid to put in the effort to an alternatively constructed novel but the vagueness of what was happening and the lack of any clear direction for the story over half way through the book made any pay off seem unlikely (especially as this is a series). To me this resonated with "A catcher in the rye", which although aclaimed left me pretty cold. I respect the intellect behind it and even wish I had the skills to create it, but in the end this was not an enjoyable read.

I know, the title of this review is...er, over the top, or is it?
Have you read it? Have you read the last few chapters? When has such a character been seen in fantasy stories? If you don't get to read it I think your soul will lack something it needs.
Everything about it surprises you. There's no way you can be prepared for the next revelation.

I think most people have covered the basics of the story. Teenage boy is transported to another world, wants to become a knight, sleeps with an Aelf, becomes a man/knight overnight, and sets out on a quest to find a sword that will enable him to be with the Aelf again. Why? I still am not sure. It seems like he got hung up on the first woman he had sex with (not made love to since he didn't know her) and never moved past that, despite some very promising human women who may have made good companions.

The kid/man's random acts of violence to those weaker than him and that cause everyone to fall in love with him and want to serve him forever are shocking. I could see it a few times, a boy learning to be a man and learning to control both his temper and his strength, but it just keeps going on. He kills creatures for no reason as well, just because they're creatures.

His character is so flat--he never shows any emotion one way or the other, except fear for Glyf which seems totally misplaced since all the dog has ever done was protect him. He kills without emotion, although he talks about fear, he slaps young kids around without remorse. He pretends to be humble while spouting idealistic dribble that never matches his deeds.

He leaves quest after quest unfinished. Friend after friend is left behind FOR YEARS right in the thick of something and the reader is left wondering--what happened to these people? and then there they are, just waiting for him to return. Example, Kerl and the ship--Able keeps getting whisked away and he keeps coming back and expecting everyone to kowtow to him because he is a knight because he says so. Huh? Berthold and Gerda are left with a dead giant to get rid of. Pouk and Ulfa are wasting away in a castle. The Baron, daughter, and knight are left alone getting ready to attack the frost giants without the knight everyone is depending on.

One other, very annoying thing that just kept popping up that had me gritting my teeth. At the very beginning The first knight Able runs into corrects his English, explaining the difference between "can" and "may". All through the book one knight would correct another on the use of this word--and then the conversation continued as though it never occurred.

I love a fantasy as well as the next person, but this book was painful.

Yet somehow it equals and surpasses many classics of literature, fantasy or otherwise. No one will believe me, yet it's true that the Knight and the Wizard are better than any Tolkien, Martin or Jordan (I'm not just guessing, I've read them all). Wolfe's prose may go over many a reader's head. The writing style and complexity is on par (for comparison purposes) to that of Philip Pullman, Guy Gavriel Kay, David Foster Wallace or Thomas Pynchon and a story as exciting as Zelazny (Lord of Light, Amber Chronicles) or the best pulp fictions. Lord Dunsany and Edmund Spenser are the closest of Wolfe's peers. If you think you're up to the challenge then you should definitely pick this up. Not many author's give their readers such a sense of reward for reading.

This book contains many of the right ingredients for a good fantasy tale; unfortunately, the most interesting parts are merely mentioned instead of being the focus. I was intrigued by the positive reviews, but was soon to realize: I had been deceived. The Knight plods along at tiring pace: Wolfe's character development is paper thin with inconsistent and tedious explanations of who, what, when, where and why. I gave up with 15 pages till the end (I just didn't care). I find it interesting that many reviewers feel it is necessary to use this forum as a soap box: only those of superior intellect and imagination can truly appreciate this book. Sorry, The Knight really isn't the right book to use as proof of literary competence.
--jAMES

but annoying. I've read all of Wolfe's books, and this one is not his best. In fact, it is seriously flawed, as others have pointed out. This novel just doesn't hang together - some background is given short shrift, there are odd gaps, there are occasional jarring references to modern America, the hero is, and then is not, a super-hero, and a number of the characters have the same ponderous style of speech where they declare what they're going to say and then try to say it. An explanation may be that it's all a dream, but that's no comfort to the reader.
That said, I'm giving it 3 stars, rather than 2 or 1, because, annoyed or not, I wanted to read to the end.

The Knight was hard to put down, interesting and fun. Gene Wolfe is a fantastic writer, and weaves a tale with enough gaps and question marks to propel you through the book and leave you guessing (in a good way). I can't wait to see how the Wizard connects some of the dots.

Having read a number of reviewers dismiss this book as though it was written BY "someone with ADD" I would counter that it is a very difficult read for someone WITH ADD. It is dense, complex and full of mysteries that might never be solved, but it is also excellent. I am not saying that anyone who does not like this book has ADD, tastes differ, but I think they are missing that Wolfe is only giving you the essentials, you have to do the work on your own. Some people like that, others don't. Right now I am re-reading the two books, and a second read definitely helps. Although there are still questions...is Disiri a 'good' character? Why did Able die at the end of the first book? Is this all just the idle fantasy of a wandering teenage boy? Did Able die before the books begin? Etc.
-A

I thought this book was excellent, I am about to buy the knight wizard as we speak!
Gene Wolfe does and amazing job of creating a believable world, different from many other fantasy books but still interesting and engaging all the same!

Read this book!

The Knight begins well enough, but after a few chapters it becomes clear that no further levels of detail are forthcoming. It's very simplistic. Worse, it seems that with every other chapter our hero is deflected from his course. He aims at a several different goals through the course of the book but never seems to reach any of them, and this doesn't seem to bother him. He just plods onward. Finally, events have a way of always turning out well for our hero. It's way too convenient and simply unreal; too "godlike" to build any suspense.

This book was awful. The premise and the plot were ok, but I read 1/3 of the book and just couldn't force myself to read more. It consists of a very jilting plotline, jumping from one spot to the next and back again. It is told in first person perspective who will be telling a story and then remember a completely random detail from three weeks ago, proceeds to tell you that detail and then goes back to the story it was telling. I just could not deal.

I did like this book...well...sort of. The story is intriguing, the setting is interesting, the characters engaging, the writing HORRIFIC.

I've read other of Wolfe's books and have encountered the same style. The story s fantastic if he would just tell the tale. His narrative wanders, doubles back, jumps forward, and sometimes just "plays dead." I don't get much time to read due to work, family, etc so I value the time I do have to read as an escape from the real world. This book unfortunately is WAY too much like reading a long, complex science journal to be a real pleasurable experience.

Still.....I would place it on a "worth a look" list.

I am a huge fantasy fan and have read a lot of them. This book was well written in a unique writing style, but failed to ever immerse me in the plot. The plot often moves slowly and jumps all over the place. At times it seemed to me to be a series of thinly connected short stories rather than one coherent plot. I considered putting it down after 150 pages and when I finished it, in retrospect, I probably should have.

This wonderful novel is narrated by a teenage boy wandering around the universe interlocking magical realms with every step. An elf queen coverts the boy into a knight, Sir Able of the High Heart, which he then evolves from during the time he remains a boy in a man's body. This is the first of Wolfe's novels about the adventures the boy turned knight must face to gain some understanding of the world and himself.

Let me start off by saying this. This was a wonderful book. But the reason I am writing this review is to emphasize that this novel REALLY appears to be simply a backbone for the rest of the series. The ending particularly hinted at this, (No Spoiler Here) it left me high and dry. I really felt cheated. $14 for this?!?! I soon realized that surely the next book must continue the story appropriately. I say, read the book, but don't expect too much, what you will find is a trite fantasy background for ensuing originality.

This is the first Gene Wolfe book that I've read, and it will probably be the last. The narrator of this book is a fairly dumb teenage boy, so I realize that this shoddy, jumpy narrative is done on purpose, but I fail to see the reason for this. Why write a book from the point of view of someone who can't write?

The characters have no discernible motivation for whatever they do. Things happen for no reason and lead to nothing.

The main character is unlikeable. There is no humor at all in the book: everybody is dead serious all the time. The potentially interesting, emotionally charged moments get glossed over in one sentence, but quarreling with random cranky people gets described in loving detail over several pages.

I am sure Gene Wolfe is a great and capable writer. He decided to write a crappy book and he successfully achieved his goal.

This book was different then any fantasy i have read before. While I was pondering over how I would desribe it to someone, it occured to me,

This is the Forest Gump of Fantasy, and i mean that in a very good way.

I bought this book on the basis of the rave reviews I saw, both from professional critical sources and fellow readers. I as you can tell from my rating, I was disappointed.

It COULD have been good. The basic premise is that a young American boy finds himelf trapped in a grown man?s body in a world of fantasy. The idea of this boy-man trying to find his way around an adult world and grow up in the process ought to have made an absorbing read, and an excellent character study. Unfortunately, I found all of the characters in this book to be thin and ill defined, with the possible exceptions of Mani (a cat) and Glyf (a ferocious dog). Seriously, it?s quite sad when the only characters you care about in a story are a pair of anthropomorphic animals.

Sir Able, in particular seemed flat. He was the vehicle for the entire story so you?d think some effort would have gone into defining his character, but alas, you would be wrong. Some people seem to have interpreted Able?s actions as being motivated by idealism. All I saw was a series of stupid aimless actions. Idealism demands a strong commitment to a set of principles. Sir Able is literally idealist without ideals. He worships the concept of knighthood, but knows nothing about it: he is like Christian who doesn?t know the New Testament exists, or a Communist who has never heard of Marx or Lenin. This does not make for a sympathetic character.

Despite badly developed characters, some books still are capable of holding a readers interest with intricate absorbing plots. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. The plot jerks around in such a disjointed fashion that it almost seems that the author was deliberately trying to shake your interest in it. The connections between the individuals sections are tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst. Towards the end, the book settles down into an absorbing narrative, which I was almost prepared to accept as ample repayment for having suffered through three hundred pages of senseless chaos. Unfortunately at the very end, even this satisfaction was snatched away by this ?Master of Fantasy?. Through a wrenching change of scene typical of this book, Sir Able completes his quest in a rather anticlimactic way, finding the magical sword which an Aelf whore sent him after. He kills the dragon which protected it and happily flies away into the sky leaving several friends in mortal peril in the world below. So much for idealism and Sir Able of the ?High Heart?.

In the end, I think the words which describe ?Sir Able? best are: amoral, aimless, moron. The book itself can be described in just one word: usless.

I've read worse books, but this was pretty close to the bottom. There was a total lack of character development. I kept hoping the main character would take a arrow to the head and otherwise put a merciful end to this book, but no such luck. Imagine if the jock you knew in high school decided to write a fantasy book. That would be this book.
The book is written in first-person, and from a historical point of view. So the author keeps eluding to things that haven't happened yet. The main character skips between 'worlds', and time moves differently in these worlds. The narrative is very confusing. He follows the character through a sequential set of events, but the character wanders rather aimlessly. Plus he has problems with his memory so he can't always remember who he is. Which is probably just as well for him.
The main character is a knight. I didn't end up really caring about this guy. He is supposed to have a lot of honor, but in at least one place, he tortures these creatures until they say they will serve him. There is no real test of character or honor in this book.
The main character is supposed to be a kid that is transformed into an adult. But the main character never acts or thinks much like a kid. Or an adult. He just is carried along like a piece of driftwood moving in and out of the tide. The supporting characters are even more shallow.
This book is not for you if you like cohesive stories. Or if you like characters with more personality than a lamp.

Gene Wolfe has written some of the most brilliant works in the sci-fi/fantasy genres, but it seems like his glory days are behind him. In The Knight, Wolfe continues to indulge his passion for long and didactic dialogues, but since much of the time the dialogue doesn't advance the plot or give insight into character it just feels like a waste of time. The main character does not act in consistent or understandable ways, and when I did understand him, I found him unlikable.
I was disappointed with Wolfe's Long Sun/Short Sun books because I felt they didn't live up to their potential. But they seem like masterpieces compared to this.

I happened on this book at the library. I enjoy good fantasy, thought I'd try it. Noted in the dust jacket the claim of "a work that will be favorably compared with the best of J.R.R. Tolkien ... from perhaps the greatest living writer in (or outside) the fantasy genre."

Well, this book stands about ankle-high to Tolkien, if that. The character's voice is inconsistent - one minute he's comparing action to videogames, the next he's highly poetic. He wants to be a knight who values honor above all, but over and over he brutalizes other characters unnecessarily - which for some reason makes them all become his loyal followers. On a par with Tolkien?? If it only claimed to be decent fantasy, I'd be less irate. Personally, I'd skip it entirely, if I were you.

I found that book really dissapointing. The writing makes it hard to really feel anything for the characters which act stupidly most of the time or they figure out stuff out of thin air. The concept of the multiple worlds on top of each other is interesting, but is not exploited really well. I can't recommend to read this book.

I really disliked this book. I thought the story was very disjointed. There were gaps in the story line and chronology. I am a fan of scifi/fantasy novels but not this one. I purchased this and the sequel based on the store recommendations. I will not be reading the sequel. Check this out from the library before you spend your money.

Imagine my anticipation: great cover art AND the AMAZING reviews: "This is a compelling, breathtaking achievement." (Publisher's Weekly); "...he should enjoy the same rapt attention we afford Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy" (The Washington Post); Neil Gaimain's "Gene Wolfe is the smartest, subtlest, most dangerous writer alive today"; and my favorite "It took me about a page and a quarter to completely enter the world Wolfe creates." (Steven Brust).

Really? 1.25 pages? compelling? smart? dangerous? worthy of my attention not just of Morrison but also McCarthy? Seriously? Because now having forced myself to read 272 pages, I can tell you this book is weak, predictable, UN-compelling, and simply bad. I'll stop there because I don't think there is any reason to list anymore.

Listen, folks, I love fantasy and knights and especially a dog/wolf--human friendship, but this text did nothing new, did nothing original, nothing unique. I'm even offended that Tad Williams asserted that "Wolfe's version of Faerie..." Faerie??? How about all of the other fantasy texts that came out four months before Wolfe's did? We don't need to harken back to the Middle Ages, Wolfe's _amazing_ world is pulled and pasted from every other fantasy text written up to the date of his publication. Oh...let me not forget his innovations, such as his references to a baseball team and a Mac computer.

I am afraid this text is just another example of 1) how individuals can get books that lack originality or even a compelling story published and reviewed, and 2) how peer writers are all writing each other great reviews expecting the same of their work.

So..this paperback is going to be recycled. Sorry, Mr. Wolfe, please accept my apologies, but also know that I would be happy to give you an honest appraisal of your next text. Just contact me via the store.

Best, dk

One story, then another... Oh wait and this happened... because of this... and this happened as well but we won't even go into how you should know, but it has direct impact on this... Crazy.
I believe in a story that begins, explains is coarse and follow through a series of evens to a climax. Its as if Gene Wolf worte five different novles and threw some pages out, then shuffled the remainders together. A hard read, and though some of the images provoked by the writing are beautiful at times, they are lsot in the turnig of the next chapter. Stay away from this one.

Although the imagery was beautiful, I did not like this book. Among other challenges, I found it difficult to keep track of when the character was moving from one world to another. This book is not for everyone.

What a complete disappointment. I honestly feel robbed. I have not read a single Gene Wolfe novel so I can't speak for any of his preceding oeuvre but The Knight was positively awful. I bought this book to read on the way back from Memphis to Toronto. After struggling through the first 100 pages, I couldn't stand it any longer and tossed the book in the garbage at a layover in Detroit. How the publisher managed to pull together enough positive press clippings to convince me to buy this book I'll never know. Perhaps Neil Gaiman, in particular I will never trust again!

This is the first book I've read by Gene Wolfe. Is he over 10 years old? I ask because the prose and plot structure remind me of an epileptic 10-year old I know. It's terrible writing, not a "re-working" of the genre as some have claimed. It's also nothing close to Faulkner, as others have claimed.

It's simple disjointed writing and an outright silly story. About halfway through I started laughing at the ridiculous writing and plot points. If this book is intended to be slapstick, it succeeds. If it's intended to be a decent story, it fails. Very few motivations are explained or understandable; very few descriptions are interesting, and the character is thoroughly unengaging. There's a lot of plot, and a lot of movement, but that only shows the poor quality of writing.

This book made me into a hero for completing the arduous quest to finish reading it. Where's my magical sword?

As I was looking for a new book to read I came across this one which was on a few "Must Read" lists and it also had good reviews...so I thought I'll give it a try.

After 158 pages I couldn't take it anymore, I actually looked Gene Wolfe up on Wikipedia to make sure he wasn't a retarded kid with ADD. His "writing style" consists of a disjointed plot, a lot of "you won't believe it, so I won't describe it" lines, and the most humdrum storyline ever thought up (kid wants to be knight, kid magically becomes knight, knight goes on quest).

Perhaps this book gets better after page 158...I'll never know.

Do yourself a favor and save your time and money. Gene Wolfe owes me $7.99 plus S/H for this piece of cr**.