The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps

A portrait of doomed lovers. I read this a while back, and my memories of it are ink-washed rather than photorealistic. Romance, tragedy, magic, and an alien world that first looks like sword-and-sorcery dustbowl but which upon deep reading opens into something much weirder. All written in a singular voice that flows between archaic and musical, as if the rap styling of 20th/21st C Earth were a foundational rhetoric for language in the far future.

My notes: anaulin.org/blog/book-the-sorcerer-of-the-wildeeps/

Highly recommended

This is one of the most creative things I've read in quite a while; in form, in language, in the rich and overflowing ideas. Highly recommended.

A strange and astonishing book. By far my favourite thing about it is the language: a mix of deeply lyrical--almost scriptural--descriptive prose, bluntly brutal action and thoroughly colloquial dialogue that I wouldn't have expected to work, but Wilson pulls off flawlessly. For that alone I would have kept reading for hundreds more pages, but there are also some great characters, an intriguing fantasy world that at first looks like it's going for some cheap outs but resists those temptations, and a decent plot. The plot is actually the least interesting part of this book, but everything is so good that I don't care.

Felt like quite a poetic story. Not much in the way of events, and very much in the way of atmosphere, feeling and impressions. Characters too. Short, but potent.

Struggled between three and four stars before I decided these are meaningless Internet points.

There's a structural problem - a novella that's supposed to be a novel. The characters and the world are introduced at length, really beautifully. I was made to feel for secondary and tertiary characters, and get comfortable with the bonds and repartee between the group. It's on the cusp of becoming a deep ensemble.

And then there's a rush to the end in which all of that setup is cast aside. I feel cheated.

I can't remember the last time I read a fantasy that made me think this much. That made me pause and reread lines, first to understand them, then for clarity, then for the sheer enjoyment of their rhythms and complexity. That invested me in characters I ultimately know very little about, and the same applies to the world. Definitely warrants a reread.