{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4247",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4247,
    "subject": "Fee Fi Ho Hum: Wolfe's Wizard",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2004-11-05T16:24:09+00:00",
    "last": "2004-11-05T16:24:09+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<BAY12-F12YTHrdusluC0002cd84@hotmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "mournings glory",
        "address": "mourningsglory at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2004-11-05T16:24:09+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Fee Fi Ho Hum: Wolfe's Wizard",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "As long as others are doing so, will now weigh in with my own early and \nspoiler-free review.\n\nAfter rather enjoying _The Knight_, I found myself pretty much slogging my \nway through its followup, with my biggest problem being the endless \nstretches of uninteresting dialogue. What, pray tell, ever happened to the \nWolfe who could craft dialogue in service of his characters? Isn't he, after \nall, the writer who created (to pick the first three examples that come to \nmind) the beautiful iambic lilt of the Hierodules or the crazy quantum \npoetry of Hethor or the rough-and-ready cant of Hildegrin the Badger? Now \ninstead he ascribes either ordinary, dull, plainspeak to his characters or \nworse yet, attempts to render dialect or phonetic variations of impaired \nspeech. I almost stopped reading _Wizard_ when I came to the chapter with \nthe broken-nosed knight and every time Uns opened his mouth (mercifully, \nsuch occasions were few and far between) I skipped ahead. Ditto for the \ntoo-frequent turgid stretches of the book, which I also skimmed, waiting for \nsomething--*anything*--to happen, and by the time I finished page 477 I was \nmore exhausted than exhilarated. Maybe I'm just too girly a reader to enjoy \na book written about young men (and a plethora of interchangeable squires) \nseeking knighthood and their quest for honor. Dunno. Else it's just one of \nthose mileage-may-vary-things, depending on who's driving.\n\nBut also, like Mr. Arimani, I found myself hoping to spend more time with \nthe Overcyns (it seems to me they exert a larger presence in the \nintroductory list of characters than they do in the actual narrative) and I \nwas especially disappointed that the Lady, who seems to loom large in the \nbackground, does not grace us with anything substantial. As for Wolfe's use \nof the you-are-what-eat Osterlings, thank heavens the inhumi's similar \nattributes weren't that underexploited.\n\nMy husband, seeing the book's small print and long page count, opinied that \nit seemed like Tor was trying to cram two books into one, and while I'm \ngrateful to the publisher for the savings to my pocketbook, I think my \nreaderly interests would have been better served if WK had been released in \nthree or four books, the same way the various sun series were. In fact, if I \never get around to picking up Sir Able's narrative again (I'm hoping the \nlist's imminent discussion of the book will repique my interest), this is \nhow I'll tackle it--in four discrete chunks, with a few days in between each \nsegment.\n\nLastly, among the encomiums on the back cover, I believe there's one, though \nit's uncredited, by our own Mr. Blattid. If so, sir, congratulations; it's \ntoo bad Tor couldn't have worked your name in somehow, given how personal \nyour testimony is. (Reading the NYRSF entry, who, we're left to wonder, is \nthis oft-repeated \"I\"?)\n\n(And while we're on the subject of encomiums, is or is not Neil Gaiman's \nblurb about as lame as possible. I mean, I know he's a superstar and \neverything, but it's almost as if he were too dispirited after reading to \nbook to come up with anything pithy or clever. On the bright side, however, \nat least he didn't spell it *kewl* <gr>)\n\nmsg"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}