Thanks for reminding us to post, Shawn.

I recently finished Gene Wolfe's The Knight. It took me a bit to get into the rhythm of the piece, but when I did it was quite rewarding. As usual, Mr Wolfe has found a new way around in a very old genre, and he makes it his own in a way not many writers are capable of.

Reading reviews of the book up on Amazon, I noticed that most of the people who didn't like the book didn't understand the form in which it was being told. The Knight is an epistolary novel -- a story in the form of a letter to the hero's brother. So the narrator skips around in the storyline in much the same way one might writing a letter that can't be edited on the fly, giving details before a subject is opened, skipping details in other places; boiling down what could be whole scenes into a sentence. But make no mistake: none of this is accidental. Mr Wolfe is very good at what he does, and he takes you through enough action, emotion, and moral uncertainty in just this one book to fill seven volumes by a lesser writer (fill in name of your favorite over-hyped and over-written fantasy series here).

The narrative style -- another bugaboo of those who didn't like the book (a minority, I hasten to point out) -- is due to the fact that the protagonist is maybe all of 15 years old when the story begins, and he's forced to grow up FAST in more ways than one. All the other characters treat him as if he's what he appears: a full-grown man, a warrior, a hero. Only he and the reader know that he's a brave kid trying to learn his way around a strange and dangerous new world. The fact that he expresses himself as a young teenager might creates a marvellous tension between these two aspects of himself.

So yeah, recommened. Second and final book in the series, The Wizard, has a pub date of November, so will hit bookstores sometime this month.