Review by Booklist Review
The second volume of the Wizard Knight concludes the story begun in The Knight BKL D 15 03 by first bringing Sir Able back after 20 years in limbo, with his maturity and prowess increased. He is promptly dragged into a welter of murderous intrigues when somebody murders the king of the giants. The scramble to find the culprits and the intrigues involved in the succession eventuate in a complex, even convoluted tale, with so many characters and subplots that a proper summary would far exceed the limits of a Booklist review. Eventually, Sir Able slays dragons, preserves his honor, allows other knights to preserve theirs, rescues the virtuous and sets down the vicious while trying to tell the one from the other, and ends up being restored to his true love in a world strongly redolent of that of the Arthurian legends. But there is hardly a piece of northern European heroic literature from which Wolfe doesn't borrow with his usual scholarly flare and in his exquisitely turned prose (in Wolfe's hands, even dialect works). Arising from the same sources as Lord of the Rings, the Wizard Knight is one of the few fantasies that can justly be compared with it. --Roland Green Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The teenage boy who wandered into another set of realities in Wolfe's The Knight has attained his ambition of knighthood. Now, as Sir Able of the High Heart, he returns in this sequel riding a steed that's not a horse, wielding his magic sword and bound by oath not to use his new otherworldly powers. Such a summary is like saying a spoonful of tap water constitutes the whole of all oceans. Wolfe's words wash over the reader with transparent grace and charming playfulness as he spins his profoundly imaginative, metaphysically complex, yet ever-entertaining tale with astonishing naturalness. In trademark Wolfian fashion, the memory-altered protagonist acts as narrator, telling the truth whenever possible and to the full extent of his own understanding. This second volume satisfactorily supplies many answers to the riddles and allusions of its tantalizing predecessor, but posits new mysteries as well. The novel stands alone and might even be best if read before The Knight, but will surely drive readers to the first as well. The conclusion hints at possible further adventures. Outstanding fantasy these days is often convincingly and compellingly anti-Tolkien, but Wolfe proves one can tell an epic, myth-based story of honor, loyalty, courage and faith relevant to our own dark times. This is fantasy at its best: revelatory and inspirational. Agent, the Virginia Kidd Agency. (Nov. 10) Forecast: Wolfe has won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, among many other major awards. Expect this two-book saga (The Knight was published earlier this year) to win him a few more. This is far more accessible than his earlier multivolume masterpiece, The Book of the New Sun (1980-1983). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The grand conclusion to a fantasy two-parter about a knight with the soul of a teenaged boy. In The Knight (2003), Wolfe sent an American teenager into another world, a multitiered fantasy universe divided into seven different planes of existence. There, he became known as Sir Abel of the High Heart, a powerful knight with a sword, Eterne, that your average hero would kill for. Now, we find Abel having recently come back to the land of Mythgarthr. Although he's aged some 20 years in the realm of Skye, the passing of time there doesn't really seem to follow the standard rules, and, while he doesn't seem very mature, he definitely isn't a kid anymore. A seasoned warrior, Abel is in the midst of a struggle between the realm of King Arnthor against a race of Frost Giants intent on raiding south into the hotter lands to capture human slaves to work their fields. The Wizard's first half allows Abel to tell about his struggles in this conflict, and he's an engaging narrator, though given to the prolix. When Wolfe shifts the action away from Abel, though, and turns to the diplomatic efforts of his squires Svon and Toug (and Mani, the speaking cat: less gimmicky than it sounds) in their effort to stop the giant-human fighting, the action shifts into high gear and the comprehension factor (despite the upfront list of dramatis personae) begins ratcheting dramatically downward. Wolfe likes to spin spiderwebs of plot and counterplot inside his impressively constructed universes, and fortunately his innate sense of humor keeps matters from getting impossibly dense. Even as he trots out the fantasy tropes (elf-like beings, a battle with a dragon, jousting matches, honorable peasants, arrogant royalty), he both undercuts expectations and fulfills them in each and every page. Mordant, thrilling, all tangled up in heavy knots of double-crossing and magic. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
