The Knight by Gene Wolfe. I picked this up during a bookstore run one weekend, along with a bunch of space opera books. I ended up reading this first, rather than space opera, for the silliest of reasons: we had recently gone to a Richard Thompson concert, which got me to buy his greatest hits package, and Richard Thompson isn't really a good soundtrack for space battles.
This is Wolfe's take on "crossover fantasy," a story in which a person from our world somehow crosses over into a fantasy world, and becomes a Person of Great Importance. The Knight of the title is Sir Able of the High Heart, who begins the tale as a young American boy. While out hiking in the woods, he comes across an odd tree, cuts a branch from it, and ends up in Mythgarthr, the middle of seven worlds (above Niflheim, Muspel, and Aelfrice, below Skai, Kleos, and Elysion). In fairly short order, he acquires a new name, a brother, and a new adult body. Soon to follow are a variety of magical weapons and companions, along with a Quest or two.
It didn't occur to me until I sat down to booklog this, and discovered that it fell right after The Last Light of the Sun that you might view this as Wolfe's version of the Fionavar Tapestry. It's a crossover fantasy set in a world that's a weird mix of various mythologies (mostly Norse, but bits of other stuff). Of course, Wolfe being Wolfe, there are some differences: rather than a party of college students (the traditional crossover group), he starts with a single young boy; the narrative structure is a little odd (the book is written in the form of a letter to Able's brother back in our world, and frequently alludes to future events), and the narrator may not be entirely reliable; and everything is fraught with symbolism, even when I can't quite figure out what it means. There's also a quirky humor in a lot of the book, demonstrated nicely in this exchange between Able and his dog Gylf:
"I want you to tell me what you are."
"Dog." Gylf sat too.
"No ordinary dog can do what you do. No ordinary dog can talk, for that matter."
"Good dog."
(There are also weird echoes of Chabon's Summerland, another "young boy caught up in syncretic fantasy world" story.)
This is actually the first part of a larger work, "The Wizard Knight," with the second volume, The Wizard to be published sometime next year. As such, I almost have to reserve judgment on this book, until I've read the second volume, and gotten somebody really smart to explain to me what the hell just happened.
That said, this is a very good book. It's not a hard slog like some of Wolfe's other books, and while it's not immediately clear what everything means, Able's adventures are enjoyable to read about in a straightforward manner, whatever new spin may be put on them when the work is complete and the symbolism more clear. It's a unique take on the crossover story, but then you'd expect nothing less from Wolfe.
(Originally posted to The Library of Babel.)
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