The Wizard
From AwardAnnals
| Book: | The Wizard |
|---|---|
| Series: | Book 2 of The Wizard Knight |
| Author: | Gene Wolfe |
| Genres: | |
| Publisher: | Tor Books |
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.
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Reviews
Barnes and Noble
The Wizard, the second and concluding volume of Gene Wolfe’s Wizard Knight duology, is so much more than an epic fantasy about a boy’s transformation into a fearless knight in a realm filled with giants, dragons, and mischievous elves. It’s a deeply moving existential tale about the important things in life—namely one’s honor.
When a teenage boy from modern-day America suddenly finds himself in Mythgarthr—the middle realm of a strange universe that contains seven interconnecting worlds—and is transformed into a hulking knight by an irresistibly beautiful elf queen, he begins a perilous quest to not only retrieve a legendary sword but also to find out what it means to be a hero. In The Wizard, Sir Able of the High Heart is a much-changed man. The teenager stuck inside the body of an adult warrior has slain dragons, defeated nightmarish foes, led armies, and visited numerous fantastical realms. Accompanied by a unicorn steed, a talking cat, a supernatural demon-dog named Gylf, and a small group of unlikely friends, Able is delayed in his quest to somehow reunite with his beloved elf queen by a strict code of honor that forces him to battle frost giants, seductive sorceresses, and egomaniacal kings.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes Wolfe as “neither the most popular nor the most influential author in the sf field” but concludes that “[he] is today quite possibly the most important.” Science fiction, horror, speculative fiction…and now—after writing the Wizard Knight duology—Wolfe can add fantasy to his list of genres mastered. —Paul Goat Allen
