Rating: 
Summary: Making a familiar theme fresh and new for once.
Review: I'll start off this review by saying I'm biased, Wolfe is my favorite writer and his Book of the New Sun is my all time favorite novel. This is typically good Gene Wolfe. If you like Wolfe, don't even bother reading the reviews, just go get it. If your one of those people who isn't sure they will like his work or felt his work was overly complicated in the past, this is a good place to start. Wolfe's language is cleaner and easier to read then the Sun Novels, and I tend to feel it reads and plots more like the Soldier Novels. Wolfe makes use of an unreliable narrator as he does often; I personally find unreliable narrators can really make a story. However, I find that sometimes readers struggle with this concept, that not everything the narrator is saying is entirely the truth or the whole story. The amount of fantasy that piles into the bookstores that resemble something of a soup opera than a harrowing tale staggers my mind. The theme of a knight in a fantasy world is surely not a new concept, but execution is the key. I think execution is where this book really shines; Wolfe takes the typical and makes it Fresh. The only flaw is that now I have to wait for the follow up. Write Faster Gene Wolfe!!!
Rating:
Summary: First half of a presumably brilliant fantasy series
Review: _The Knight_ is a longish fantasy which is the first part of two. The second will be called _The Wizard_, and the diptych is collectively _The Wizard Knight_. I'm rating this 5 stars, but I freely confess that that is contingent on the sequel delivering on the promise of this opening half. But Wolfe is worthy of such trust.It is narrated by a teenaged American boy in the form of a letter to his older brother. The boy, we soon learn, has been transported to another world, a fantasy world based vaguely but not completely on Norse mythology. Here there are dragons and "aelfs" and orcs and giants and gods of a sort. The boy meets an older man who is convinced that he is his long lost brother, and soon also meets an alluring aelf called Disiri who seduces him and then changes him to a powerful adult man. He is now called Able of the High Heart, and he is convinced that he is a knight. He is also searching for a wonderful sword called Eterne, at the behest of Disiri. The book concerns his wanderings in quest of affirmation of his knighthood. He spends time battling bandits; sailing on a ship; learning to joust; traveling to other worlds of the seven layers of this odd place; and befriending a variety of people, none of whom treat him quite as he expects. He gains companions: a strange talking dog, a talking cat, a half-blind servant, two fire aelfmaidens who keep trying to seduce him. His goals include establishing his right to the title knight, finding his beloved Disiri again, and reaching the castle in the higher world Skai that he sees on occasion. The story is told in very clear, almost naive, language, often openly echoing the speech of a contemporary American teenager. The general pellucidity of the prose is reflective of a direction Wolfe's prose has taken over his last several books -- all of the Long Sun and Short Sun books have prose that at the sentence level is, well, simpler than Wolfe's reputation would imply. But there are still mysteries aplenty -- the book may be quite easy to read sentence by sentence, but that doesn't mean I know just what's going on -- especially only halfway through the action. It is fairly clear that Wolfe will once again be playing games with identity and shapechanging, as he has done again and again since at least _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_. He is also once again portraying a character who is generally quite "good", and also quite naive. I greatly enjoyed this book.
Rating:
Summary: A good place to begin
Review: Gene Wolfe has said that there are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't. My three kinds of people are those who have read Wolfe and love him, those who have read Wolfe and can't understand why there are those who have read Wolfe and love him, and those who haven't read Wolfe. If you are in the first category, stop wasting your time reading these reviews, and go read "The Knight"! If you are in the second or third category, "The Knight" is a good place to begin or resume your acquaintance with Wolfe's oeuvre. It is noticably less challenging than any of the New/Long/Short Sun books. In a practical sense, this is because the first-person narrator is a boy from our world, ostensibly writing a (long!) letter to his brother some years after his mysterious transportation to a fantasy world with its own seven layers of reality. He is one of us, then, and he is writing for one of us; he thinks like we do, and knows what we need to have explained to us and what we don't. In the Sun books, Wolfe's narrators are natives to the worlds they describe, and so they tend to leave out details which are obvious to them, but by no means obvious to us. To some extent, this choice of narrator diminishes the usual Wolfe magic, but I still find "The Knight" movingly evocative of a strange new world inhabited by real people (and other beings as well) with real lives. Highly recommended to one and all.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Incomparable
Review: I've been a Wolfe fan for years, and in my various dialogues with other Sci-Fi readers, I've come across people who either slaver over Wolfe's genius or people who think his stuff is schizoid and overcomplicated. I don't mean to sound like an elitist or anything, but people who've read Wolfe and don't like it obviously aren't too into think-ology. If Wolfe books, especially *The Knight* seem like a random stream of incomprehensible events, please run away and read Robert Jordan or something. *The Knight* is written on a deceptively simple level. Unlike some other Wolfe series, particularly New Sun and Long Sun, the style and vocabulary is extremely accessible. This is good because the sheer complexity and uniqueness of the story's world require you to constantly shuffle the pieces to see how everything fits together, and that requires a lot of concentration (so you can't sit there wondering what an archon or palestra or oubliette is). Unlike the grim seriousness of some other Wolfe titles, *The Knight* has quite a bit of humor and fun, from the carefree mischief of the aelves to the often-ridiculous situations that able finds himself in through foolishness, conspiracy, or pure dumb luck. For instance, when the captain of the ship that Able wants to travel on won't give Able his personal bunk, Able grabs him by the ankle and dangles him out the window, making a mortal enemy on the spot. So, yeah, I give this book ***** stars. It manages to take a hackneyed concept and make it breathtakingly original. It takes a normally insipid genre and makes it chromatic. If you can struggle through Tolkein but you can't read this, then there's something seriously wrong. Read it! Buy it now!
Rating:
Summary: Can I order the sequel yet?
Review: Gene Wolfe's definition of a good book is a book that becomes more enjoyable the more times it is read. If that's your criteria as well, you'll consider this a good book. I do, though I've only read it once (but that will surely change!). This is the first book by Wolfe that has been published since I've started reading his books, and to be honest I don't know what's better - to know that an entire series is out and can be read all at once (New Sun, Long Sun, Short Sun, Latro, etc), or to have the excitement of waiting for what's to come. "The Knight" centers around Sir Able of the High Heart, a boy who has been transformed into a man but still has a lot of growing up to do. The story is a letter to his brother, Ben, recounting his adventures as he strives to prove himself as an honest, courageous man, worthy of his knightly title. He struggles to figure out the puzzles and complexities of the world he finds himself in, and hopes the world around him will help solve the puzzles he finds in himself. If you're only interested in fantasy books that have won awards, you might as well buy this book now. It's that good.
Rating: 
Summary: Blink affected storyline !
Review: Seriously team, I bought this book for the above good reviews. This book is a real bad read for several of the below reasons: 1. the story continously JUMPs from one part of the world to another 2. there is NO consistency or 'smoothness' to join these jumped storylines 3. you never get to see/feel the protagonist, he's just some kind of youth stuck in a mans body - so at the end you couldn't care less if he died or not 4. the narrative is skewered and ill-written, compared to the likes of RJ, GRRM, Eddings, Williams, Feist... conclusion - do yourself a favour and if you want to read real fantasy, check-out Robert Jordan, Tad Williams (memory, sorrow thorn), and many other top fantasy authors. this book was a TOTAL dissapointment. it is my first and LAST Gene Wolfe book!
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe for the non-Wolfe reader
Review: As you will see from the majority of the reviews, Gene Wolfe lovers will love this book. The real question is what about those who are not big Wolfe fans or have not read any Wolfe? It is interesting, because the protagonist, Sir Able of the High Heart, is a child in man's form. This may be one of the reasons that this boy is able to follow high and honorable ideals where lesser grownups might falter. For this reason, Able is possibly more likeable than other Wolfe protagonists such as Severian from the Book of the New Sun (think Dorcas/Jolenta--with this said, I myself think the Book of the New Sun is among the best Fantasy/SF ever written, but I digress). Able can inspire the ideal within us and maintain his honor and be the man many of us would hope to be. While exploring this Knight in shining armor theme, Wolfe maintains an otherworldliness and gives a unique twist to this form. Non-Wolfe lovers have complained that in the Book of the New Sun (his most highly acclaimed novels), Severian is simply an unremarkable person wandering around. While I can comprehend this point of view, the beauty of Wolfe's novels lie in his ability to draw the reader into the world with his flowing and descriptive writing style. The Knight does not disappoint in its writing, and because of the accessible theme of this work, the novice Wolfe reader will enjoy this story and the world that Wolfe creates. This reviewer certainly looks forward to the continuation of the series!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece by a True Master
Review: I don't review books often, and I'm not want to discuss sci-fi with my friends and family. Gene Wolfe is my favorite author of any genre. I started with The Shadow of the Torturer when the original came out in paperback, and I've followed him through all his travels. It's difficult for me to express to people how wonderful and gifted a writer Gene Wolfe is, for words often fail me. His characters are drawn so vividly, with all the frailties and imperfections that real human beings have. Severian had his perfect recall, but had the hubris to lie to the reader now and then. In reading the negative reviews, I think it is lost on many people that Able's narrative is entirely intentional. It brings to life the mythos of his newfound world through an imperfect and immature human's perspective. Perhaps they are used to being entertained too easily in Speilberg-like dramas where no thought, imagination or discernment is demanded of the audience. The Knight is, perhaps, the best work by Wolfe since Severian ended his days. You come away from each chapter as if you had just awakened from a dream, as if you were there. This was the first fiction I'd read in over a year, haven't been on a non-fiction bend as of late. I took my time, not wanting the magic to end too quickly, and as Arthur said in Excalibur," I didn't know how empty my soul was until it was filled."
Rating: 
Summary: waning of the light of the new sun
Review: Michael Swanwick asserts forcefully that Gene Wolfe is the greatest living writer in the English language. I agree - and who could not after reading Wolfe's major work of the 1980's, the four volume "Book of the New Sun". That work contained an almost oriental richness of the imagination that enchanted and disturbed all of the way to the enigmatic conclusion. With the publication of "The Knight" the grand master turns his gentle, intelligent and always formiddable powers to the field of epic fantasy - a form created by William Morris and continuing with such major practitioners as J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Patricia A. McKillip. I find this work to be one of the most pale and un-exciting in Wolfe's illustrious career, and I say that as a long devotee of both Gene Wolfe and epic fantasy. The world Mister Wolfe summons up is not only less real, less sensuous, less immediate than the worlds of Tolkien, Donaldson, and McKillip, it is, to be frank, less real than the many worlds made popular (often in best sellers)in the "trash fantasys" today. Able of the High Heart - a fine character - moves through landscapes that evaporate constantly, leaving no taste, or excitement in the reader's mind. Able's interactions with other characters can contain interest and even pathos such as in his strange and marvellous relationship with Bold Berthold. But no character stands forth as emblematic of the fantasy in a way that is unforgettable. The book simply has little mystique and mystique is vital for all great art. This is surprizing considering Mister Wolfe's not inconsiderable talents at pure magic. His take on the elves is laudable in terms of effort but I find the creatures to be largely dull. Rarely do they enchant. Hardly ever as I read the book did I feel I was in contact with an alien personality - something truly other to humanity, frightening in its otherness and obsessively fascinating. I give the book four stars because it is still an important work of fiction. Mister Wolfe remains one of the most subtle writers not only in fantasy or science fiction, but, also in literature at large. His fine psychological acuity is at play in Able's resolute but vulnerable quest for manhood, occasional amorality in the presence of inferiors, and strange almost boyish faithfulness to Disiri, the Queen of the Moss Aelf. Disiri herself is a complicated critter whose dominion over Able is utterly unbenign - as nature itself is unbenign. In a sense she has raped his soul and his response to her is at least vaguely familiar to the Stockholm syndrome. But, he was a boy. I look forward to the conclusion of "The Wizard Knight" with "The Wizard". And I wish Mister Wolfe all the best. His importance to literature and to readers personally is like that of wind that blows from a realm of wisdom where long thoughts are taken, counsels spoken, and deeds resolved.
Rating:
Summary: New pleasures from a master...
Review: Having throughly mined out and made his own several SF ideas, Gene Wolfe turns to epic or heroic fantasy in this first half of a promised two-volume series. Like so many series in this genre, we start with a boy who grows up (if you can call it that) to be a kind of super-mythic hero. He collects artifacts (swords, maces, etc) and retainers/hangers-on (elves, talking monster dogs, cats, trolls, people). He faces enemies and does so for the love of a beautiful queen. Sound familiar? Hah. Wolfe demonstrates that all the folks word-processing Tolkein are missing the point. In covering the same ground, he carefully and freshly handles each of the elements without falling into pastiche. On the down side: I didn't really like this book all that much--so why the 4 stars???. Like many Wolfe books, the style is sometimes offputting because of the author's penchant for certain writing tricks, like denying us direct view of important plot points and giving us a narrator who hints ahead and forgets to mention things. The novel sometimes seems to be taking a long time to NOT get there from here. Nonetheless, I couldn't put it down and it compares favorably to several books I read during breaks in reading it. And the more you consider what you're reading the more impressive the achievement is. Often in this genre we have teenage boys as protagonists who act like morons and make very illogical mistakes to drive the plot forward (this is supposed to show us their "youthfulness"). Here we get a character who's thinking is muddled and who sometimes acts rashly in a manner consistent with the character's age and experience. But the character isn't a fool or a moron. It's a difficult effect to achieve and, despite some misgivings, I'm actually looking forward to part two...
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