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    The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight
    Unavailable
    The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight
    Unavailable
    The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight
    Ebook622 pages10 hours

    The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight

    By Gene Wolfe

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero.
    Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, wizards, and dragons. His adventure will conclude next year in the second volume of The Wizard Knight, The Wizard.
    Gene Wolfe is one of the most widely praised masters of SF and fantasy. He is the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Nebula Award, twice, the World Fantasy Award, twice, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Fantasy Award, and France's Prix Apollo. His popular successes include the four-volume classic The Book of the New Sun.
    With this new series, Wolfe not only surpasses all the most popular genre writers of the last three decades, he takes on the legends of the past century, in a work that will be favorably compared with the best of J. R. R. Tolkien, E. R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, and
    T. H. White. This is a book---and a series---for the ages, from perhaps the greatest living writer in (or outside) the fantasy genre.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 1, 2005
    ISBN9781429915519
    Unavailable
    The Knight: Book One of The Wizard Knight
    Author

    Gene Wolfe

    Gene Wolfe (1931-2019) was the Nebula Award-winning author of The Book of the New Sun tetralogy in the Solar Cycle, as well as the World Fantasy Award winners The Shadow of the Torturer and Soldier of Sidon. He was also a prolific writer of distinguished short fiction, which has been collected in such award-winning volumes as Storeys from the Old Hotel and The Best of Gene Wolfe. A recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and six Locus Awards, among many other honors, Wolfe was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007, and named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2012.

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    Reviews for The Knight

    4/5

    24 ratings15 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Classic Gene Wolfe fare... Great story, confusing [rose. Exactly what you buy his books for
    • 5/5
      What I love most about this book is how the language makes my brain feel entirely re-wired for the duration. I think I must have re-read it 6 times in a row just for the sensation until I was able to list the incidents in the plot one after the other - and considering how bad my memory is that takes a bit. Through the last half of 2004 I kept coming back to it. Somehow it takes familiar elements and produces something so new. Young boy finds himself in the body of a grown warrior, what surprises could that have for someone who's read Fantasy since the 1950s?
    • 3/5
      Gene is a great compelling writer. His style is difficult but rewarding. I enjoyed Gene's portrayal of the young knight learning his trade. The ending is fantastic.
    • 2/5
      The Knight - Gene Wolfe
      The Wizard - Gene Wolfe

      One story, two books.
      I expected to LOVE these - I'd really been anticipating reading them.
      But - I didn't love them. I tried, but I just didn't.
      For one thing, this story uses the exact same gimmick as Wolfe's The Book of the Short Sun trilogy (you are reading book written for an unseen, not-present person). Not only that, I am sorry, but the narrator has the EXACT SAME VOICE as in that other book. It is written as the exact same character, even though superficially, they are supposed to be two very different people. If you've read one of these books, the similarity will be unavoidable and distracting.
      Another distraction is that the main character is an American boy who, wandering in the woods, slips into a complicated hierarchy of seven other worlds altogether. Due to the magic of an Elf-Queen, he is instantly transformed into the shape of an older, big, muscular man.
      The shape/age change is used in the book to some degree, mainly for the repeated philosophical observation that most men feel like boys masquerading as men.
      But the fact that he is American, or even from our world, is not utilized in the story at all. He forgets most of his life in our world, it hardly ever comes up, and is not essential to the plot in any way. It's just an unnecessary complication. Odd things occur - and it's almost as if the character just doesn't react - not like an American would react, and really not like the typical inhabitant of the world where he is would react either. It's just sort of odd. And dull.

      I hate to say it, but the books are kind of boring. They're slow-moving, and I just didn't feel that Wolfe's usage of classic fantasy elements worked very well. (Not nearly as well as in any of Wolfe's other books that I've read.) His hierarchy-of-worlds had some interesting elements to it, and some of the characters, especially the fire-elf 'sisters' were cool - but I feel it either needed more action or a more-coherent philosophy pulling it all together.
    • 4/5
      This was not my first Gene Wolfe novel (having read the Books of the New Sun) so it helps knowing what you can expect when getting into this novel. Wolfe has a unique way with words and descriptions and I've never read another author similar to his style. That said the first 200 or so pages of the novel are wonderful in my opinion with a lot of unique fantastical things and interesting characterisations/dialogues. I found the 2nd half of the book not quite as gripping and a bit stretched out. Interestingly enough after getting to the end of the novel I still don't have a great idea of what's going on as the novel is more of a wandering rather than a telling. Overall a great story and will definitely be reading the second and final novel in the two-book series.
    • 1/5
      What is the deal? Neil Gaiman is all over the cover praising how "smart, subtle, and wonderful" it is. I read the first 135 pages and gave up. The protagonist is insufferable, the writing is dull, and the plot is generic fantasy. Another Goodreads reviewer said it was like reading an MMORPG, and I couldn't agree more. What a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      Gene is a great compelling writer. His style is difficult but rewarding. I enjoyed Gene's portrayal of the young knight learning his trade. The ending is fantastic.
    • 5/5
      Gene Wolfe is an amazing writer, but you really need to understand that before you look at the cover and pick up this book as a hack-and-slash evening read. His writing style borders on poetry and thus his plots are often meandering and his writing style obscures important twists and facts in funny little phrases. Honestly, I don't always like reading his books, but I believe that he is the most talented writer in fantasy. He evokes emotion, he has realistic confusing characters (even in this novel where protagonists and antagonists are strongly archetypal and carry lots of mythical baggage), and his subjective point of views are untouchable. This particular novel is endearing to me because he took such a cliche storyline that I've read a hundred times before and made it awesome. Knights? Multiple planes of existence? Boy falls from our world into a fantasy world? The world and plot is completely derived and traditional. But he puts his prototypical hero character into this world, works the right interesting mix of side character interactions, and the story is actually really good. His hero characters are very similar from book to book, but they are always fun to read. True mythical heroes would never see what they do as heroic or else they never would think to act in that way. Wolfe understands this very well and paints his stories around this hero type with great mastery.
    • 4/5
      A very good version of two fantasy standard themes - the person from our Earth who ends up in a magical realm, and a boy growing to be a knight. We don't know exactly why the boy ends up in this world, some sort of accidental crossing. After spending time as a boy he is enchanted into the form of a man very quickly, so this represents a real learning process for him. Since this book is written from the perspective of a boy trying to learn how to be a man and a knight both, at times it feels simplistic, but that is just the beauty of Wolfe's characterization. For example, how does he 'prove' he is a knight, with no family or experience, but the strength and skills (and magical aid) of a knight? Very good, though maybe by today's standards a little low on action and high on simple, interpersonal drama.
    • 5/5
      What a great book! A faerie tale in the truest sense. But if you like your fantasy plot straight forward and spoonfed (Robert Jordan?), than you might have some trouble with Gene Wolfe's writing style. Wolfe writes in a unique and mysterious fashion that took hold of me after the first 10 pages. This story is so much more intriguing than the usual fantasy novel. Many layers make up this story, similar to the world that Able, the main character, finds himself in. Mysterious passages are inserted into the narrative in such a way that I found myself constantly skipping back to previous pages to try to grasp some wider theme. A theme that is there if you want it to be.The story is written as a letter to an older brother. A brother who seems to be in America somewhere. This is the only link to our reality in the book. The author of this letter is a young boy, Able. Able writes things from a very simple point of view, but occasionally he writes things that are so cryptic that it made me wonder what is really going on inside of Able's head. Whatever it is, the main themes of the book has to do with knighthood, but not really. Knighthood or Able's quest to become a knight, is a mechanism for Wolfe to write about certain qualities of the human experience. Love, sacrifice, death, honor, keeping one's word, but also a the path to enlightenment. Gaining knowledge is key element in this story. Wolfe employs the symbols of fantasy in such a simple way that Jung and Campbell come to mind. This brings me back to Able's mind and the first person narrative from which Wolfe writes. We are hearing Able's story but only through other's stories interpreted through Able. For me, its a fresh take on the fantasy novel, and I look forward to reading the sequel. I'm still sorting through some of the passages I marked in the book. Perhaps I will have to come back and change some of this once I finish "The Wizard".
    • 5/5
      I completed the second part of this book (The Wizard - part one is called The Knight) yesterday evening. As usual, Gene Wolfe knows how to tell a tale that's both entralling and entertaining. These books have an unusual blend of epic and folklore, with a bit of pseudo-science fantasy thrown in for good measure. If you've ever read Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, you'll understand what I mean. Wolf has this talent of absorbing the reader completely into a tale - mixing storytelling with a stream-of-consciousness that you don't normally see in fantasy or science fiction. The tale weaves in-and-out imparting well thought out plot glimpses and emotions that can leave you reeling. The story itself is a relatively simple one - a boy from our realm transported to one of myth, in the form of a hero called Able of the High Heart - and Able's encounter with fame, the faerie, gods and kings. There's a strong mix of Arthurian folklore along with the various supernatural elements associated with Knightly tales thrown in. Able progresses from unknown, to squire, to knight and myth all within the two books.
    • 3/5
      OK, I stayed with this one until the end, despite holes in the plot big enough to have one of the giants of the story walk right through. That said, I am looking forward to acquiring next installment of this saga, The Wizard.Others here have commented on the transformation of the main character, so there is no further need to flog that expired equine. Instead, I’ll tell you what kept me going through this narrative. I enjoy a good story and Gene Wolfe delivers a tale with many classical attributes: magical creatures, mystical armament, heroes that do not know that they are heroes, damsels in distress, knights to the rescue and followers that follow because of the true nature of the ones they serve. One of my quibbles is Wolfe’s treatment of dragons. Just a matter of personal taste, but I prefer my dragons less evil and only dangerous when need be, much the way Wolfe portrays the knights. The knights of this story only fight when they need to, but they do fight to win at any cost. I see dragons as equally noble, creatures to be respected, not feared.Taken individually, the pieces are below even being mediocre. Taken together, the parts reinforce each other and the story builds momentum. That may be a problem for some readers, as this story does not really end with this book. There is a huge fight scene and we are left with a literary cliffhanger. Unlike, say, the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind where each book may be read by itself, you will need to read The Wizard to see how this story ends.The physical layout of worlds, and yes, there are many mentioned in this book, that comprises the background for this adventure is complex. The relationship of the characters may also be confusing to some readers as is the way time passes in relation from one world to the other. If you don’t mind these details have at it, The Knight is an enjoyable story. If you object to having to have the full series in order to have the story completely told, you may wish to bypass the first book until you also have the second.
    • 5/5
      I delayed reading this book for a long time, despite the fact that Wolfe is one of my favorite authors, because the blurb on the back of the book makes the story sound so cheesey. Boy travels to magic land where he instantly become He-Man warrior-type. Sound like every bad fantasy novel for "young adults" you read when you were 12? Wolfe makes it work, makes it work beautifully. Combined with its sequal, The Wizard, this book rivals The Book of the New Sun as Wolfe's opus, in my opinion. A working knowledge of northern european folklore is a must to truly apreciate this book, as Wolfe casually references various folklores without bothering to expound. One of the things that i love about Wolfe (although others might find irritating) is the fact that he seldom, if ever, spells everything out for the reader. He treats his reader as an intelligent person who can pick up the storyline for themselves without being spoonfed the plot, and of course, draw their own conclusions as to what it means.
    • 5/5
      Sets up the idea and the first part, although it will work well as a stand alone too, if you can stand the foreshadowing without resolution.Cracking book once you get started, although I must admit it took a little while for me to get into it. But then I often find that, the way Wolfe uses words is amazing but takes a little adjustment for me.
    • 5/5
      Just picked this up at the library. It is Terrific!! Really great. Grabs you from the first page.