I save the best for last! Or try to.
The Wizard Knight might be my favorite fantasy novel set (The Knight, followed by The Wizard) ever. And I have read lots and lots and LOTS of fantasy novels. Many many. At least five in the last month, and that was without trying.
Gene Wolfe demands a lot of the reader, and it doesn't always turn out well. (Free Live Free and Castleview being the best examples of "not well", in my opinion.) But he also gives an unusually high rate of return for your work, in the stories that work. In addition to exciting events, sharp writing, and interesting characters, he has interesting things to say about science, engineering, politics, and morals. Much of his work is informed by Catholic theology, and reflects it in interesting ways; he also has characters who are really good, in ways that show he has a good idea of what good people are like. (Many authors--even great authors, like Milton, to give a classic example--have a hard time making their "good" people more interesting than their "bad" people, and have to resort to anti-heroic figures as protagonists. Gene Wolfe does not have this weakness.)
It's a great story. The ending makes me cry every time. I recommend it to everyone who reads this blog; I can't be sure you'll like it, but I hope you will.
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Agreed! After several attempts of getting into Wolfe by different means, it was reading The Wizard Knight that finally hit me the right way (though it too is demanding and strange) and I'm now besotted with the whole sweep of the man's multi-volume/multi-world works (and all the short stories, stand-alone novels, and various 'lesser' works as well).
ReplyDeleteHence my creation of an entire blog dedicated to discussion of his fiction (not least the theological aspects you mention, an all too rare treat in speculative fiction - silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com).
Indeed, The Wizard Knight provides the perfect crown to Wolfe's other multi-volume series, which stretch back to the 5th century Mediterranean world all the way forward to a future so far from now its technology is in decay and yet still looks like magic to a 21st century reader, with settings on earth, in a vast 'generation starship' and on other planets in another galaxy - all packed with gods and monsters a plenty!
The only place left for the inimitable Mr. Wolfe to go was into an alternate world of High Fantasy, itself tiered with its own strata of interconnected realms!
And I couldn't agree more about the *good* characters. That is so hard to achieve and to find oneself genuinely rather shocked at how truly noble and kind and just a character strongly impresses you as being('Silk' from The Book of the Long Sun springs to mind) is another rare treat in fiction. Cheers for your comments,
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
And thanks for your comment! Wow, so I do have people wandering in off the Internet to read this stuff. :o
ReplyDeleteI love most of Gene Wolfe's stuff, and even what I don't love I respect (well, except maybe Castleview, but I will have to re-read that, as it is more or less obligatory to read any Wolfe novel twice to have any hope of understanding it, and that one has not gotten its second airing). Silk is another excellent example--I think probably the best example--of a really /good/ protagonist. It's also impressive how well Wolfe shows how /smart/ Silk is; it's extremely difficult to write a character smarter than the author convincingly, although obviously Mr. Wolfe is very, very intelligent himself, which has to help.