# _The Sorcerer's House_ reviews *The Urth list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 21 Mar 2010* > 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. --- ### Gwern Branwen *21 Mar 2010, 14:55* A list of online reviews I've seen thus far: - http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/121553-the-sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe/ - http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58638 - http://www.lawrenceperson.com/?p=941 - http://www.fantasyliterature.com/wolfegene.html#house (This one, incidentally, agrees with us that Bax kills George at the end. I'm coming to think that Bax's talk of cheating is supposed to hint that he boobytrapped or disabled one of the 2 dueling pistols, and that's how he won.) A few things I notice in the middle of my second reading: * Winker is bothering me ever more. I could understand the geisha stuff, but did she really have to speak so stereotypically? 'Ah so! Ah so!' * Is Bax really that honest? His reply to Millie vaunts her as his only friend, though he has to know that she's a bubble-brained blonde, and that he has at least 3 friends besides Millie (Winker, Doris, and his mother; his mother's friendliness and focus on food makes much more sense this time around - she's trying to get in mothering that she missed) * I don't think Old Nick/Black killed a hobo or his dog; the newspapers were at least a year old, Bax says. That hobo, if it wasn't Old Nick to begin with, was long gone. * The book does seem in general less of a puzzle-box than AEG, leading me to think that maybe there isn't any esoteric story besides that explained by the end. In tougher Wolfe books like _New Sun_, Wolfe wouldn't've bothered to explain what 'Skotos' means in Greek, or 'Zwart' in German. ``` gwern ``` --- ### Jonathan Goodwin *24 Mar 2010, 04:41 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* Another review (that I wrote): http://www.jgoodwin.net/?pu5 > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > A list of online reviews I've seen thus far: > > - http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/121553-the-sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe/ > - http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&idX638 > - http://www.lawrenceperson.com/?p”1 > - http://www.fantasyliterature.com/wolfegene.html#house > (This one, incidentally, agrees with us that Bax kills George at the > end. I'm coming to think that Bax's talk of cheating is supposed to > hint that he boobytrapped or disabled one of the 2 dueling pistols, > and that's how he won.) > > A few things I notice in the middle of my second reading: > > * Winker is bothering me ever more. I could understand the geisha > stuff, but did she really have to speak so stereotypically? 'Ah so! Ah > so!' > * Is Bax really that honest? His reply to Millie vaunts her as his > only friend, though he has to know that she's a bubble-brained blonde, > and that he has at least 3 friends besides Millie (Winker, Doris, and > his mother; his mother's friendliness and focus on food makes much > more sense this time around - she's trying to get in mothering that > she missed) > * I don't think Old Nick/Black killed a hobo or his dog; the > newspapers were at least a year old, Bax says. That hobo, if it wasn't > Old Nick to begin with, was long gone. > * The book does seem in general less of a puzzle-box than AEG, leading > me to think that maybe there isn't any esoteric story besides that > explained by the end. In tougher Wolfe books like _New Sun_, Wolfe > wouldn't've bothered to explain what 'Skotos' means in Greek, or > 'Zwart' in German. > > -- > gwern > _______________________________________________ --- ### Gwern Branwen *29 Mar 2010, 23:08 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > A list of online reviews I've seen thus far: > > - http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/121553-the-sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe/ > - http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58638 > - http://www.lawrenceperson.com/?p=941 > - http://www.fantasyliterature.com/wolfegene.html#house > (This one, incidentally, agrees with us that Bax kills George at the > end. I'm coming to think that Bax's talk of cheating is supposed to > hint that he boobytrapped or disabled one of the 2 dueling pistols, > and that's how he won.) http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2010/03/sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe-reviewed.html http://goldenpigsy.blogspot.com/2010/03/sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe.html (Both agree about the twist ending.) ``` gwern ``` ---