My thoughts on Knight

Hello everyone, It's good to see that the migration to the new server was successful. I haven't said anything about Knight yet, but I did have two thoughts that I don't recall seeing discussed here. First, I can't believe that Wolfe thinks that it was a good idea for Able to drop his quest, abandon his friends, abrogate his duty, and run off into elfland chasing visions of Disiri, as he does at the end of the book. He does seem to get Grengarm out of it, which you'd think would be a good thing, but I bet that in Wizard we'll see that this side trip also has adverse consequences. Second, the passage: "If it's a woman's ghost," I said, "she may be after some property or something she thinks is coming to her. I talked to an old lady down south who knew a lot about ghosts, and she told me that women's ghosts generally mean the woman was murdered. More often than not, justice is all they want." made me think of Mrs. Tilly in Peace. Is this is a hint for Peace? Even if it's not, I'm now convinced that Mr. Tilly was indeed poisoned by his wife's ghost. Stone Ox (Peter)

StoneOx wrote: "First, I can't believe that Wolfe thinks that it was a good idea for Able to drop his quest, abandon his friends, abrogate his duty, and run off into elfland chasing visions of Disiri, as he does at the end of the book. He does seem to get Grengarm out of it, which you'd think would be a good thing, but I bet that in Wizard we'll see that this side trip also has adverse consequences." FWIW, the publisher's blurb at Amazon says that all the quests get fulfilled in Wizard: "A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work. The first half of the journey, The Knight -- which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning -- took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be. Coming into Jotunland, home of the Frost Giants, Able -- now Sir Able of the High Heart --claims the great sword Eterne from the dragon who has it. In reward, he is ushered into the castle of the Valfather, king of all the Gods of Skai. Thus begins the second part of his quest. The Wizard begins with Able's return to Mythgathr on his steed Cloud, a great mare the color of her name. Able is filled with new knowledge of the ways of the seven-fold world and possessed of great magical secrets. His knighthood now beyond question, Able works to fulfill his vows to his king, his lover, his friends, his gods, and even his enemies. Able must set his world right, restoring the proper order among the denizens of all the seven worlds. The Wizard is a charming, riveting, emotionally charged tale of wonders, written with all the beauty one would expect from a writer whom Damon Knight called "a national treasure." If you've never sampled the works of the man Michael Swanwick described as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today," the two volumes of The Wizard Knight are the perfect place to start. "