Rating: 
Summary: Characterization at its best
Review: Every novice writer should be force to read this novel to see how characterization should be done right. The book is also at times wickedly funny, particularly a seen during a black out in an insane asylum. The plot seems to be disjointed but Wolfe pulls every thing togethar at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: To a point, fascinating reading
Review: Free Live Free has some brilliant moments, and some very well drawn characters. Unfortunately, the reading experience for me was badly damaged by the ending. Without writing any spoilers, let me simply say that Wolfe seems to have sidestepped the obvious choice by picking another one, one that instead of working well, what he did seemed entirely out of keeping with the rest of the novel. Still worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful novel that didn't need the gimmick at the end...
Review: From the first page Wolfe grabs you and pulls you into the world of 4 forlorn individuals. With nothing else to go on but a witch's promise of treasure, the characters fan out in search of something each hopes will bring an end to their disappointment. They find comedy, pathos, terror. Without sentimentality, Wolfe draws each character with compassion, and it's a shame at the end he feels compelled (or perhaps was contracted) to tack on such a clunker of a science fiction device. It wasn't necessary (especially something as shopworn and silly as a time travel "gizmo") and detracts from what would otherwise be hailed as a masterpiece. Of course--it's still worth reading!
Rating: 
Summary: After a long search......................
Review: I have managed to track this fantastic book down. I read it a few years ago now on loan from a friend. With no cover on the book, sorry fellow book lovers but the girl had travelled with it across Europe and the cover went the way of all well read books, sad but true. I had no memory of the author only the blinding, blazing story line that had me captured from the first page. I think i fell in love with Candy the slightly pudgy "Escort Girl", who spends the book munching chocs and delivering some great lines that help to carry the story page after page. Look, enough words, its almost Christmas time, go out and treat yourself to this book, stick it in your stocking, then forget about it till you wake up on Christmas morning, you wont be disapointed, your family may though feel neglected as you wont be talking to much. Enjoy!
Colin Gould.
Rating:
Summary: Another Excellent Find
Review: I have yet to be disappointed by anything Wolfe has written. I will quickly agree with the general consensus that Free Live Free is not, by any means, Wolfe's greatest work, but it is an excellent story that experiments with the boundaries and definitions of the SF genre. Of all Wolfe's works, this is one of the least difficult to grasp, though there is still a wonderful complexity to the prose. It is also one of the grittier books he has published, which is not, by any means, a bad thing.
The greatest shortcoming of this book, I feel, is that the fabulous character of Mrs. Baker was left undeveloped...which was, I think, Wolfe's intention all along. Her amusingly endearing speech patterns practically screamed her significance to the story, but we are left, at the end, knowing very little more about her than we did the moment she misspoke her first cliché.
Do not enter this text expecting anything like the "Sun" cycle, or even anything like "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" or "Peace." "Free Live Free" is as unique as Wolfe himself.
Rating:
Summary: SF only if you include the ending
Review: I will have to re-read the last few chapters of this book but there is no getting around the fact that the plot ends with an unsatisfying and unnecessary red herring. It is as if Wolfe had a manuscript lying around unfinished and some cohort of his said "I dare you to end it using [X] plot device," and Wolfe took up the challenge.Nor did I find his characterizations really compelling. "Mr Barnes" is the most fully fleshed out of the four protagonists, but all four seem like facets of a single individual, not four distinct people driven by their individual motivations. That all said, it was an interesting read, and more accessible than Gene Wolfe's heavier fiction. It is atypical among Wolfe's work for its lightness and clarity of prose.
Rating:
Summary: SF only if you include the ending
Review: I will have to re-read the last few chapters of this book but there is no getting around the fact that the plot ends with an unsatisfying and unnecessary red herring. It is as if Wolfe had a manuscript lying around unfinished and some cohort of his said "I dare you to end it using [X] plot device," and Wolfe took up the challenge. Nor did I find his characterizations really compelling. "Mr Barnes" is the most fully fleshed out of the four protagonists, but all four seem like facets of a single individual, not four distinct people driven by their individual motivations. That all said, it was an interesting read, and more accessible than Gene Wolfe's heavier fiction. It is atypical among Wolfe's work for its lightness and clarity of prose.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel of Illusion--and Disillusion
Review: In "Free Live Free," Gene Wolfe again displays his rare ability to present what appears to be a straight-forward, almost cliched plot (four characters in search of their heart's desires) and gently nudges it towards something much deeper and haunting. Do the characters find what they are looking for? Well, yes. And no.
This book is a must for Wolfe fans--hunt it down. (My local library had a copy.) It's also not a bad introduction to Wolfe for new readers. Anyone who likes David Lynch movies or the X Files will like this book. Its reality-based fantasy makes you wonder about all those assumptions you've been carrying around.
Rating: 
Summary: Free Live Free is a major disappointment
Review: It's hard to believe that the same man who wrote the masterful Shadow of the Torturer series would allow his name to grace the cover of this piece of garbage. Free Live Free is quite simply one of the worst books I have ever tried to read. The fact that it has Gene Wolfe's name on the cover makes its existence even more amazing -- how could the great man produce a work of such poor quality? And why didn't his editors try to discourage him from releasing it? It's so uncharacteristically bad, that I begin to wonder if there wasn't some bizarre plot hatched at the office of the publisher (Tor) whereby an inferior wannabe author -- perhaps a high school student, or a B-grade attendee of a writing seminar -- managed to get his work released in Gene's name. Some Gene Wolfe fans may understand where I am coming from. The vision, the characters, the construction, the sheer storytelling magic of works like Shadow, Soldier of Arete and Fifth Head of Cerebus are nowhere to be found in Free Live Free. Instead, readers are given a contrived scenario (four gritty strangers are given free lodging in a condemned house whose landlord has supernatural powers), idiotic characters ("Madame Serpentina?" Please!) torturous dialogue, and a lumbering, amateurish plot. Why, Gene, why?
Rating:
Summary: A Second tier Wolfe book
Review: This book attempts to adapt the quintessential Gene Wolfe formula by positing several interesting characters around a central mystery. Unforutantely, this is restricted to our world, unlike the fabulous worlds of his varied 'Sun' novels, so his imagiantion is not given free play. Equally unfortunately, he fully explains his vitae idea, a general time traveling back to a pereptually flying ship (which by the way was probably the msot origianl thing in teh book, of using the 300 mph jet stream to glide on. Also includes a tie in to howard hughes.)
In brief, this is a book to read after you've finished your Pynchon and Eco.
|
