Review of "The Wizard Knight" by Gene Wolfe

In spite of its title and cover art, there are many things that Gene Wolfe’s The Wizard Knight is, and many things it is not.  Though published in 2004, the lengthy two-part novel is not the latest entry into modern, gritty, sword and sorcery epics like those of Erikson, Martin, Kearney, Bakker, or Ruckley.  It is a traditional tale—and in more ways than one.  The characters may be largely archetypal, the storyline filled with typical motifs of the genre, and the underlying message one of personal growth and maturity, but for as derivative as it seems, Wolfe spins all of these high fantasy clichés into an original, imaginative story that transcends the genre and inches toward literature.  Sir Able of the High Heart is The Once and Future King in body and A Wizard of Earthsea in soul.

In classic Wizard of Oz or Chronicles of Narnia fashion, The Wizard Knight is an alternate universe fantasy.  Receiving a bonk on the head, the main character suddenly finds himself in another land—a fantasy land.  The boy, named Able, learns he is in Mythrygar, the fourth level of a Norse-like universe located between Skai and Aelfrice, and must get back to our world.  Headstrong and ambitious, Able’s adventures in Mythrygar take him through a variety of places and scenes, his development key to the plot.  Along the way the Queen of Moss Aelf enlarges his body to that of a man’s, a dragon gives him sprites as guardians, he befriends a dog, converses with a cat, and fights all kinds of beasts—dragons, frost giants, and ogres—in an imaginative journey through over- and underworlds, becoming a man for our world in the process.  

The Knight Ravd early on tells Able that “honor” is the single most important aspect of being a knight. But strength and wisdom are the traits he develops most over the course of the novel, the first half (The Knight) focusing on the former, and the second (The Wizard), the latter.  Able over confident and assertive to the point of being rude on numerous occasions, he’s not exactly a likeable character at the outset—a fact some will be turned off by.  Wolfe nevertheless advances the young man’s maturity so sublimely that, by the end of the novel readers are quietly surprised that the once noble words are now backed by noble deeds.  Able becomes more recognizant of the realities of life instead of focusing only on himself.  Readers will likewise be surprised Able does not become the “Super Medieval Man” implied by the book’s title.  Magic spells and pointy hats in fact playing no role in the story, the boy who emerges at the end is all the stronger and wiser for the experiences he’s had, proving it’s the journey that matters.  (Potential readers be warned that character development instead of action and excitement holds the lion’s share of the story.)

For readers left in consternation by The Book of the New Sun or any other of Wolfe’s more allusive novels, fear not: The Wizard Knight is a straight-forward read perfectly on par with the Book of the Long Sun.  This is not to say things are always handed to the reader on a silver platter (Wolfe is too subtle for that), but the narrative does advance linearly, characters are introduced slowly and distinctly, and most importantly, the number of immediately unexplainable occurrences that require analogous thought are extremely few and very far between.  Wolfe toning himself down, it’s almost as if he intended the book to be something a young man could identify with while growing—a real bildungsroman that takes flight in the imagination but lands in reality.  

Though this review is getting a little long, it would be remiss not to quickly discuss the wealth of knowledge Wolfe has infused the story with.  Norse myth informing the setting and many of the characters (particularly the seven layered world which Able traverses and the frost giants of Jotunland), Arthurian legend is nevertheless most responsible for the storyline.  Knights, castles, jousting, dragons, kings, queens, etc. are the story’s guiding lights.  Wolfe unable to prevent himself, Christian mythology also occupies a place in the novel.  However, it remains insignificant in comparison to the Norse and Arthurian tropes, the ending containing the bulk of it, for better or worse. 

The Wizard Knight trade paperback edition published by Gollancz, weighing in at 3 pounds and 916 pages, is not exactly an agile beast.  Not easily carried-with, it may be worth your while to invest in the two books The Knight and The Wizard, respectively, for those standing on busses and trams while reading.  

In the end, The Wizard Knight is a heavyweight in more than one dimension.  Jammed to the hilt in Norse myth and Arthurian legend, readers should expect a classic bildingsroman of a boy becoming a man in a world of knights, dragons, and faery.  The book is suitable for all ages, from a young man’s view of Able’s coming-of-age to an adult’s appreciation of the myth and fantasy background.  Magical only in imagination, readers should likewise expect Wolfe to subvert the clichés of high fantasy by developing his main character toward something more than a dragon-killing king of the land’s biggest castle, happily ever after.  Like Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle, self-knowledge is the treasure sought.  Yves Menard’s The Book of Knights and the works of Lord Dunsany serving as inspirations, fans of either will enjoy Wolfe’s book.  Though never explicitly credited, the strongest similarity may be Jack Vance’s Lyonesse trilogy.  No doubt there are numerous differences between the two, nevertheless each has an overall feel, length, quality of imagination, and bittersweet outcome not unlike the other.  Wolfe’s pacing much slower and dialogue more forthright, this comparison should be taken like an aelf’s whisper: carefully.

(A side note: the Neil Gaiman quote-fest must end.  The Wizard Knight’s cover bears the following abomination: “Gene Wolfe is the smartest, subtlest, most dangerous writer alive today, in genre or out of it. If you don't read this book, you'll have missed out on something important and wonderful and all the cool people will laugh at you.”.  If any publisher is reading this, please take note of the toad-ish qualities and cease asking Gaiman to provide copy.  2.3 seconds of thought put into this, he obviously cares more for the exposure than the recommendation itself. Don’t be an enabler.)

Review of "The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson

In fantasy today it’s not uncommon to hear the words “dark” and “gritty” applied to such writers as David Gemmell, Paul Kearney, JoeAbercrombie, George R.R. Martin, or Brian Ruckley.  Each willing to kill favorite characters, portray morally ambiguous heroes, and elucidate more than one gory scene, readers have taken a shine to their rather anti-Tolkien view.  But these writers are still not as dark as Poul Anderson’s and his 1954 classic The Broken Sword.  Bleak in outcome and tone, Anderson’s short epic makes each look like a fairy tale in comparison.  The brooding, black cloud of narrative alone is enough to divide readers.  Thankfully back in print after a lengthy absence from the shelves, this classic of mid 20th century fantasy literature is simply a must read for fans of modern epic fantasy.  The Broken Sword is as dark as it gets.  

Wholly retrospective, The Broken Sword is also as mythic as fantasy gets.  Were the book written 500 years ago, it would be part of the Western canon.  Plot and outcome the focus, setting, dialogue, and philosophical exposition are kept to the barest minimum telling of the ill-fated mortal Skafloc, his evil twin, Valard, and their lives among the elves and trolls of North Sea yesteryear.  Not the immortal angels of Tolkien, Anderson’s elves maintain the grace yet act with impunity.  For the most selfish of reasons, they steal Skafloc from his mother the night he is born, replacing him with the changeling born of an ugly troll, Valard.  One raised by elves, the other humans, trolls, and a witch, their paths to adulthood take two different routes.  Their fate, however, lies in the same place. 

Both being works of epic fantasy published in the mid ‘50s; both using Nordic myth as story foundation; both having trolls, elves, songs and poetry, quests, broken swords, lost kingdoms, and epic battles, the comparison of the The Broken Sword to Tolkien’s masterpiece The Lord of the Rings is inevitable.  One technically a comedy and the other tragedy, there are, however, a far larger number of differences.  Tolkien extrapolates heavily on Volsung Saga and Poetic Edda until the resemblance is minimal.  Anderson, however, tells a story whose blood flows in the same veins as the two famous Nordic myths.  Tolkien’s epic is divided into three lengthy volumes, while Anderson tells his tale in a succinct 274 pages, not a detail amiss. And while Tolkien manipulates characters to avoid confronting loss and tragedy, Anderson embraces the fates of the people in his world, death happening early and often to any and all.  Both are romances, but only Anderson’s ends in tears.

The prose plucked from yesteryear, The Broken Sword’s grand, effortless language is like stepping into the past to read of Achilles battling Hector, or Beowulf, Grendel.  Arcane in syntax and style, readers who dislike “fancy” sentence structure should look elsewhere.  For those who revel in formal yet keen description and dialogue, the book will be a real treat.  Moreover, the distance Anderson maintains from the characters allows the reader to view events with insouciance.  Room for the imagination to color events as it pleases, the author’s spare yet incisive style provides a certain degree of freedom to better participate in the story while being guided effortlessly forward.

In the end, The Broken Sword is a well crafted epic of mythic proportions written in high-quality prose.  Beowulf meets the Iliad, characters are larger than life yet retain an innate connection to humanity so as to remain empathetic.  Power, glory, hubris, the cycle of violence, honor, love, and fate—the main staples of myth—are thus the major themes.  As the classic tales of the Nords is the source medium, a host of related works exist: Guy Gavriel Kay’s Last Light ofthe Sun, Nancy Farmer’s Sea of Trolls series, David Drake’s Northworld, and Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight to name a few.  But when it comes to style, readers will find book has more in common with Lord Dunsany, William Morris, and E.R. Eddison.  Fans of Moorcock’s Elric will find the seed idea for Stormbringer while readers who think The Lord of the Rings pretentious and bloated will enjoy Anderson’s Spartan prose and decisive movement of events.  A well crafted story, The Broken Sword is worthy of being a fantasy masterwork and defines dark fantasy.

Review of "Stormbringer" by Michael Moorcock

For those who enjoy reading Greek myth for its style, Michael Moorcock’s Elric may be for you.  Event-based rather than dialogue- or emotion-based, these stories of the albino warrior Elric and his soul-stealing sword Stormbringer are written in terse, quickly paced prose that is action packed.  Like Theseus killing the minotaur, escaping the labyrinth, and losing/leaving Ariadne within a few scant sentences, so too does Elric have a host of adventures in each of the interconnected novellas of this collection.  Chaos in an eternal fight against Law, he meets all manner of friends and enemies, magic and the fantastic.  There is no shortage of demons, mages, and monsters to be swallowed by the unquenchable thirst of his Stormbringer—the sword with a mind of its own—accompanying Elric to the end.   

Certainly not classic literature, Moorcock’s Elric stories can nonetheless be credited as an artistic statement that consistently embody the same themes of honor, duty, virtue, heroism, human flaw, etc. which make Greek mythology classic.  The result is one of the most uniquely human characters of epic fantasy: Elric, a man torn by fate.  That it’s written in the same style as Greek myth, however, should come as a warning for those seeking sword and sorcery with a narrative more lush and evocative.  

(See also my review of The Stealer of Souls for more info on Elric.)

Review of "The Stealer of Souls" by Michael Moorcock

The dark, brooding nature of Moorcock’s prose—flying in the face of conventional, happy-ending fairy tales—is perhaps why I rate the rather simplistic novellas of The Stealer of Souls so high.  The fatalistic tone lifts Elric, the flawed hero of the narrative, above the often comedic and wooden comic book heroes Moorcock is riffing on. Perhaps as close to the classic presentation of myth as has been published in recent centuries, Moorcock is undoubtedly aware of the archetypes of sword and sorcery.  But that he employs them in such a cold, distant tone adds an element of drama that the warm and fuzzy happenings of Harry Potter, Eragon, and the like cannot match.   Many writers would try to embellish a soul-stealing sword with melodrama, but not Moorcock.  He delivers indifferent to the hero and his sword’s plight, relating action, events, and outcomes as they occur, nothing more.  The result is that the structure of Elric’s soul is laid bare.  But what can one see?  One sees that the choices he makes, good and bad, make him as human as Achilles. Though written  in a paucity of words, the novellas contained within The Stealer of Souls contain enough tragedy and myth to be more interesting than the run of the mill fantasy.

(See also my review of Stormbringer for additional commentary on Elric. )

Review of "The Last Light of the Sun" by Guy Gavriel Kay

Since writing the Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay has become formulaic.  Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne, and the Sarantium Mosaic have all been in the same pseudo historical style, featured archaic European cultures, and were written in the same style (excluding Arbonne's excesses).  It is thus with Kay's 2004 Last Light of the Sun the reader cannot be faulted for expecting a product precisely in line with these points.  Kay does not disappoint, and as long as there is a willingness to be flexible with style as the reader was with Arbonne, then the novel should satisfy.

With Italy, France, Spain, and the Mediterranean all touched upon before, Last Light of the Sun moves north. Another historical fantasy, the novel blends elements of Norse mythology with the history of the Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and the Welsh as they try to coexist on the isles in and around Britain and Scandinavia.  Three basic story arcs comprise the tale: the forgiveness-seeking father and his wandering son, the young man who would become king, and the man seeking revenge for the murder of his brother - all coming together for a dramatic, surprising, and gratifying conclusion.  The storytelling, as is to be expected from Kay, is superb.  More fantastic than books since Tigana, the novel plays off Norse myth in an eerie, delightful manner.  The fairies and monsters of the forest send a chill down the spine, and, as is to be expected with Kay, indirectly inform the storyline while enhancing imagery and sense of wonder.