read: The Sorcerer's House

The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The moment I saw that Neil Gaiman had given this a high rating, I put it on my reading list. But once I got several days into it, I knew there were problems. I was reading it at bedtime and it was putting me to sleep too quickly.

Maybe I'm one of those lazy readers that Neil mentions in his review, but I never quite "got" this book, other than it's written as a series of letters to and from an ex-con who starts out as a squatter and becomes the owner of a house with odd properties and odd characters hanging about.

The writing is clear, if oddly flat for such a fantastic situation. This may be consistent with typical letter-voice, but made the reading uninteresting. Sorry to say that because I found the writing so flat and, I skipped through the book. That means I probably missed some interesting parts and clues to the puzzles to which other reviewers have referred.

Gene Wolfe has such a huge reputation that I will have to read something else he's written. I am presuming it will be better than this. [More...]

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