The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe

It’s All Magical (even the cats, dogs and horses, too!)

“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.”

– Neil Gaiman (author of American Gods, Stardust, Sandman…)

Indeed they will, for “The Wizard Knight” is everything that Gaiman says it is, yet he only scratches the surface of the many superlatives that could be thrown at this book. I will do my very best to go one (if not several) better than the aforementioned genius.

“The Wizard Knight” is an omnibus edition of two separately published novels (“The Knight” and “The Wizard”) and weighs in at about two bricks, or 920 pages depending on how sane your measurement system is. Both books are nearly equally long, all though the “The Wizard” beats its little brother with some fifty odd pages. The books were published as late as in 2004, which makes their legendary status in the fantasy field somewhat of an outstanding position, all though quite understandable after you’ve read them both. I’ll do my best to tell you why:

To best imagine what this book is about, imagine if you will every single trapping of the Fantasy field that you’ve encountered, and then proceed to add a few you’ve forgot. After you have all these cliches of the little kid who stumbles into a magical realm and is professed to become the greatest hero of all time is fixed in your mind, you try to conjure up a how that text would look if it was written as a (helluva) long letter to the kid’s brother back in good ol’ America. But doesn’t this sound like the book is dreadfully boring? Why should you waste your time reading something you’ve already read a thousand times over? I’ll tell you why; cos even though you know the bones of the story, you do not know how they look, how they sound, their history or their characters. All the trappings and cliches are here, but not one of them are stale or in the least bit boring.

That was one way of telling you a little of the tale of Able of the High Heart and his many great deeds, encountering both the fiercest friends and foes alike on his journeys. The story is set in the realm known as Mythgarthr, the fourth realm and the most stable one. There dwell humans the Angrborn; great Frost giants who continuously harasses the nabours of their homeland, Jotunland. Above Mythgartr lies Skai; where the Overcyns dwell. They are gods to the humans, just like humans were supposed to be gods to the Aelf of Aelfrice, which is the third realm and thus one below Mythgartr. I fear to divulge much more of the lore of the Seven Worlds, for it is one of the most fascinating aspects of the books. Suffice to say that is a jolly mix of Norse and Christian religion with a good helping of western folk myths.

The world-building is top notch, just like you’d expect it to be when the author’s name is Gene Wolfe; a proclaimed and hailed master of not just our genre, but of literature as a whole, but the stuffing of this novel is the creamy delight of great characters. Sir Able is the protagonist of the novel (of course), and he’s portrayed in a brilliant fashion. When he was brought to Mythgartr, he was soon no longer a small kid. A became a man before his time, but inside his mind he was still only a boy of sixteen, which is clearly reflected in his way of thought, speech and actions. In fact, I’d wager my entire year’s savings that you couldn’t find a flat and dull character among the countless cast of “The Wizard Knight”. Everyone from “Pouk Badeye” to “Mani the speaking cat” come alive in this book, and the best character of them all for me was probably “Svon”, who went through such a radical change in this novel that I couldn’t help but be astounded. I for one will never forget a single one of them, for I have met and walked amongst them and they are like true people to me.

As for the pace of this book; it’s varying. And with that I mean that “The Knight” is brimming with action, while “The Wizard” has a slower start and spends some time getting the wheels in motion, but when they finally do it was worth the wait. Small infodumps can be found at times, but they are necessary and (at least for me) very interesting. I especially thought that Wolfe wrote better Aelfs then I’ve ever seen them before, and he avoided with brilliance the trap of having a black-and-white good versus evil drama. Here, even the good guys are bad and the bad guys do great and wonderful things.

The ending is satisfying on many levels. It leaves just enough room for different interpretations of the novel while also closing off the story with most of our questions answered. I could spend all day listing the things I liked about this story, but happily for us both I will not take advantage of that option. I will also say that while I thought this book superb, it is not the best book I’ve read or the one I’ve enjoyed the most; it simply just ranks very high. With time, I strongly believe that “The Wizard Knight” should become one of those books that all Fantasy readers *has* to read, just like “Lord of the Rings” is today.

And if that isn’t a strong enough recommendation and you’re still not convinced, you probably never will. That is too bad, for I am sure you’d have loved spending time with Sir Able as he fought the dragon or spent his entire life in pursuit of his true love, Disiri, Queen of the Moss Aelf.

A masterfully written novel so cram-packed with magic that it even seeps out to color your own dreary world, “The Wizard Knight” truly deserves the high grade of 9 /10. Trust me; this is Essential Reading.