Customer Reviews

An Evil Guest

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is going to be a hard book to review and I suspect that the ratings will be all across the board. Some people are going to hate it, some like it, and many more will just be confused. I'm in the last camp, but despite being confused, I must say I liked and enjoyed this book.

The downside of An Evil Guest is that this book is extremely disjointed, not very clear, and parts seem missing. I truly wondered as I was reading this if Mr. Wolfe didn't thrash this out while on some very interesting medications. The upside is that the book grabbed my attention and I enjoyed reading it despite what I might normally call serious flaws. So this is hard to explain. I'm not sure I understood the story, I'm not sure who the evil guest was, I'm not sure what the heck Wolderan had to do with anything, and despite being set 100 years in the future I could detect no trace of that in the book other than that some people had personal spaceships. Other than that, and they didn't have any bearing on the plot, it could have been 1999. In fact, I am not even sure this book has a plot. The musings in the early part of the book regarding good and evil never bear fruit, fun forays into sentient mountains and werewolves never seem to amount to anything and the two Alpha males, Gideon and Reis, never deliver on their promise. The dialogue left me so confused that at many points in the book I had to go back and re-read a sequence three or four times to understand it. It often felt like reading a play without any of the visual cues, mostly because Wolfe didn't add much in the way of descriptions throughout the book. Ready to run away? Not so fast. Somehow I enjoyed this book. I've read several books in the last month that I didn't enjoy at all, but I actually enjoyed this one and even the complete lack of a comprehensible ending didn't take the blush off the rose.

So what is about this book? It reminded me of nothing so much as if Hunter S. Thompson, whacked out on good acid and bad whiskey during a broadway show, started writing a science fiction book right in the theater and then finished it over the course of a jittery and spastic night. The book is extremely disorienting, but it is disorienting in a recognizable way. It may not make a ton of sense, but think about a long and interesting dream you may have had once. This book comes as close as anything I've ever read to being like a dream. It doesn't have a lot of logic, things show up which have no relevance, characters change and morph over time for no particular reason, the story changes and goes to bizarre places and the end is like waking up to a different reality. Which is always disorienting. Nominally this book is about an actress, Cassie Casey, who does theatre and gets caught up in the maneuverings of two wealthy, powerful, interesting and dangerous males who are both being hunted by the US government. Kind of. That's as close to a plot as you're going to get and the story wanders away from it frequently.

So, if you have had fabulous, disjointed random dreams before, I think you may like this book. That's exactly what the reading experience is like. I enjoyed this book despite it ignoring every convention out there, but I think to enjoy this one you just have to let go and flow with the book. This is very odd stuff, but if you don't fight it you may enjoy it.

An Evil Guest follows other recent Wolfe novels (Pirate Freedom, Wizard/Knight) that pastiche various fantasy or SF forms of the past. Unlike the others I just mentioned, Evil Guest is broader in ambition and more more true to its (multiplicity of) sources.

At its core, Evil Guest is basically a Hammett or Chandler "mystery" thriller circa 1930. The style, use of dialog, basic milieu, and plotting would feel right at home next to the Big Sleep or Maltese Falcon. Yet we have a completely modern world also (with cell phones, the Internet, etc.), plus 1950's Buck Rodgers space opera elements and some Cthulhu mythologizing thrown in for good measure.

If this sounds dubious, crackpot, haphazard, or just plain impossible... well... it's Gene Wolfe, here. It's not just eminently possible, it all works to build tension and gravity---not knowing who precisely our heroine should trust or whether/how it will work out until the end. The disparate elements and homages (with one exception) play seamlessly together, blending into the whole nicely. (The one exception, for me at least, is the mention of Miskatonic University in the Epilogue: begone, blatant mention!)

If you love Wolfe's "Book of the {whatever} Sun", the Latro stories, and are here for the unreliable narrator, Byzantine plotting, and 57-layers of indecipherable meaning (and you didn't like, say, Pirate Freedom), you might not enjoy this book. The tautness of the genre and the nature of the book will *seem* to deny you those myriad pleasures. I say "seem" because I think he's doing something pretty remarkable without the sundry tricks. I don't love it quite as much as some of Wolfe's earlier works. But I was steadfastly entertained and I liked where this went, indeed indeed.

It was hardly twenty pages into "An Evil Guest" that I realized: "my god, this is the very first Gene Wolfe novel I've read that's proven to be a chore!" (In the interest of full disclosure, I'd only read the Book of the New Sun, The Urth of the New Sun, and the Wizard Knight duo previously) It was a chore, and seemed to be, well, boring. How could such a thing be?

I believe it is because he has tried to strike out on a new stylistic path, trying some new authorial clothes: clothes that fit him not well at all. There are distinct differences between An Evil Guest (from hereon in described as AEG) and his previous works. For one thing, he follows a female protagonist. For another, the narrative descriptions and tone seem to be entirely cut-out. Finally, there just seems to be an overall lack of dread: he's taken Cthulhu and turned him into a Kraken, taken werewolves and turned them into pets. Perhaps the most sinister of the characters, a private investigator/wizard character is turned into a generic love interest, although to be fair to the old author by the end of the book his presence takes on a new light.

I think that most of the problems stem from the fact that Wolfe has tried to explore a female main-character based story. The great element from many of Wolfe's books has been transformation: the transformation of Severian, the metamorphosis of Able from a boy into a man. Cassie also undergoes a transformation--she is turned into a theater star. But while the transformations of Able and Severian were well-handled, and gave rise to wish-fulfillment tinged tinged with depth and drama, the female wish-fulfillment he seeks to illustrate stikes me as more cheesy than weighty. Her "star presence" as it is depicted is often so over the top to strain credulity. Perhaps a woman would be better suited to let me know if Wolfe has adroitly plumbed the motivations, desires, and dreams of femininity.

You know, while I could remember Able and Severian off the top of my head, a mere day after reading AEG I had to flip through the book to remind myself of Cassie's name. Again, a lack of dread and real, potent danger permeates much the book, the last fifty pages perhaps aside. Wolfe clearly draws on 1930s and 1940s era culture, but did he have to bring the lack of scares from these times with him? Perhaps his affection has blinded him to the relative toothlessness of many (though not all) plots from his childhood. Even when dread and danger does seem to come, he resurrects along with it islander caricatures which are painful to a young, modern reader: I grimaced. Actually, this element is present even earlier; AEG features a computer with a Japanese accent just as ham-fisted as Mickey Rooney's Mr. Yunioshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Sigh.

Just as AEG takes on a female protagonist, so does it take on a different style than earlier Wolfe works. Gone are lengthy blocks of rich, detail-filled narration. In its place are endless reams of dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. You could argue that this is appropriate, as the book is about stagecraft, but however appropriate this style may be to the theme of the novel, it doesn't change the fact that it is a style which is tremendously easy to put down and set aside. I turned the pages of this novel begrudgingly, on the basis of the earned reputation of the author.

There are moments of great imagination. There are times when the vivid imagery which Wolfe is so expertly capable of come through, and there are certainly mysteries piled on top of mysteries to be explored in the text. But when the flavor of the work itself comes off as so relatively bland. After I finished reading the book, I slept and had a very interesting dream, so I suppose the text is worthwhile in some regard.

This is another Wolfe book that will make little sense on the first read through. There are ample clues to understanding everything that is going on, but these clues are presented as offhand comments and meaningless flavor-text, scattered haphazardly. No attention is ever drawn to what is really important, but almost every sentence could signify multiple things if you wanted to read that far into it.

This would be a hard book to recommend because it's filled with almost nothing but dialogue and eating for the first 2/3rds. None of it seems to have anything to do with the story at a glance. The strange thing is, the words people use, the way they are described to walk, addresses, walking distances and even the foods that people order have a very large bearing on understanding what has happened after the story ends. This isn't made apparent at any point. Beware this, because you will have absolutely no idea what is really going on for your first read. It can be pretty aggravating to complete a novel that is recommended to you as deep and instead get a story about diners and changing rooms.

The story seems very simple on the surface, but it's got a few extra "un-lockable" stories (in the same sense that you'd use it in a video game) that require very close attention to trivial details. I'd say, as a complete story, the first 2/3rds are read, then the last third, then the first 2/3rds again, focusing on what may or may not have been altered by characters playing around with time and space.

This book also ties into the short story "The Tree is my Hat", from Wolfe's collection 'Innocents Aboard'. There doesn't seem to be a very deep connection between the two stories, besides a minor character or two, but it does tell you a lot more about the Takanga Islands and the strange things that happen to tourists there.

Recommended - a return to form after 'Wizard Knight' and 'Pirate Freedom' which struck me as a bit boy's-own-story-ish. This is classic Wolfe in the 'Free Live Free', 'Castleview' style: combining mundane reality and mystery, beautifully written, not yielding everything on the initial reading. Terrific.

I've very recently become a huge fan of Gene Wolfe's works and as soon as I saw this novel, and heard that it was going to be a 'Lovecraftian' style horror novel, I put it on my preorder list. Keep in mind I haven't read much of Lovecraft's stories, but I did enjoy the ones that I've read.

So what was the novel about? Pretty hard to say. At its core, it appears to be a love triangle between a woman and two men. Each character has their own apparent motivations and their interactions are rather complicated. Each of the two men appear to have connections to 'another world' (outside of Woldercan which is some alien planet that's referred to but not really given much depth). For the most part the novel is fairly mundane until the horror elements start to intrude in the 2nd half.

I definitely get the sense there is more to this novel than meets the eye, especially the connections between a 'play' in the story and actual events later. I also had a sense that somehow one of the main character's eating habits was highly inconsistent and might be some sort of a clue. The problem for me is really that I was left at the end wondering what the heck had happened, and not in a good way. Some of Wolfe's other books have led to "Aha, so this is what's going on moments." This one never got there. It might merit a re-read to see if some elements make more sense but I'm not sure I trust that the connections will be made more clear, enough, to do so when I have more than a few other books on my to read list.

Two more things. The first is that while this is apparently set about a century in the future, it feels more like it's set in the mid 19th century. The second is that the dialogue really is very well written. It doesn't quite ring true in that I can't see people talking that way in the real world, but there's a lot more give and take than monologues, and the pace is very nicely done. It reminded me a bit of the pacing and tone of "Oceans 11" (the movie) though with less humor. Alone, that made me enjoy the book.

As far as recommending the book? I'm not sure. Gene Wolfe readers may paradoxically be more disappointed and more forgiving. More disappointed because it really doesn't give the same sense of "Ah ha! Now this makes more sense!" that some of his other novels do. More forgiving because they might think that there's more than meets the eye.

People who like horror novels probably won't like this much, as except for a few brief scenes (some of which are admittedly quite good) this doesn't come off as a horror novel.

I'm finding it hard to end this review conclusively, which I guess is appropriate for the kind of book I've just read.. so I'll end here.

Gene Wolfe is surely one of the masters of modern literature, and perhaps unappreciated due to his origins in sci-fi/fantasy. Anyone with a yen for intricate plot construction, ornate prose, and classic themes of love and honor would surely flock to this book and try very hard to love it. But this potentially loveable book just isn't very easy to love. As can be seen in the reviews here, some people find it brilliant, others find it incomprehensible, and most of us seem to be falling in the middle. Strangely, everyone is right. Wolfe has done a lot of experimenting here, blending together seemingly incompatible styles from horror to science fiction to detective noir, all in a vaguely-constructed near-future setting that mixes many archetypes from speculative fiction and pulp novels. But most of these stylistic flourishes seem extraneous and tacked on to a mystery/thriller storyline that becomes too ambitious and confusing for its own good. The mood of the novel is inconsistent, the bizarre love triangle that centers the story is not entirely believable, and too many supernatural elements remain under-explained.

Wolfe is a master of many different styles, and only he could even conceive of the post-modern genre-bending experiment that he attempts here. But much of this novel feels like progression just for the sake of progression, and experimentation just for the sake of experimentation. That makes the story more impressive than fulfilling. [~doomsdayer520~]

This felt like a book of riddles. It was chock full of allusions to other modern fantasy stories, other reviewers mentioned "The Tree is My Hat". I noticed "Someone Comes to Town..." among many others. Even the name "Woldercon" sounds like a convention. I'm sure there are hundreds that I missed. If you read a lot of modern fantasy, this book is delightful, if just in looking for those clever references.

In my estimation, this book was Wolfe's version of Hamlet's speech to the players -- sly advice to his contemporaries. It seemed to have a lot to say, allegorically, about publishing and storytelling and even modern entertainment cinema. In some ways, it encompasses the history of sci-fi/fantasy from it's pulp roots to becoming the driving force behind mass market entertainment. It's a love letter and a warning to the genre itself. Maybe that's just my reading and Wolfe intended none of that -- but that's what I saw in it, and one of the most brilliant things about Wolfe's work is that he gives us a glass to gaze into and find our own meaning within.

But regardless of a deeper meaning, the plot itself is a wonderful puzzle. It's tricky and intricate, and I can't say I completely understand it. But there's a lot of it that seems disjointed and random, but when you happen to notice certain connections (like the hoppers) it fits together.

This book's only failing is that it doesn't quite work on the surface level. Many of Wolfe's best stories can be enjoyed without worrying about the deeper meanings or the "loose ends" of the plot (which, when tugged on, unravel new levels of insight about the worlds and characters). This is even more disappointing because of the "pulp" feeling of the whole thing, the disjointed nature of the plot distract from simply enjoying this as a story.

I've read "An Evil Guest" twice so far, and look forward to future re-readings. It is one of the more frustrating of his stories, but I keep coming back to it. To me, it's certainly one of the best books published last year, and essential reading for anyone who is a serious fan of modern fantasy.

So sure I am that I will love them, that I buy all of Gene Wolfe's books in Hardcover as soon as they are released, and have done so for quite some time. Many of his earlier works and short story compilations are among my favorite for this genre. And everything about this book screamed I would love it - a masterful author writes Lovecraftian hard-boiled sci-fi... not something you find everywhere.

I have to admit though, that this story was even more obtuse than expected, and seemed more like an outline of a good story needing completion than the engrossing and ultimately understandable mind-rides I've come to expect from this author. Admittedly, my opinion may change upon a few re-reads, but I usually follow the slippery time sense and wild plotting the first read through, more or less.

I found the main characters here pretty unlikable. I found it hard to care if any of them achieved their goals. And I was a little disappointed at the very minor role the "Cthonic" aspects of this story played... the jacket led me to think there might have been more of that, but it was late and light.... just a subtle touch of the tentacle.

I don't regret picking it up, but new readers to Mr. Wolfe might be advised to start with some of his earlier works. Any of the various "Books of the xxx Sun" are brilliant and highly recommended of course.

I'm probably also ranking it a bit low just because I expect so much from this terrific author. : )

"The distinctions we draw between past, present, and future are discriminations among illusions." Be sure to keep that in mind while reading the novel. It may help...or it may not. It's easy to read, too easy in fact--there is barely any narrative or description, mostly dialogue, and that is delivered with deadpan directness. The conversations in the first part of the book reminded me of an old Thirties film and they were a little disconcerting since the characters seemed to have a habit of saying the same thing several ways in case the reader didn't understand it the first time. A genius wizard, whose father was ambassador to a planet called Woldercan, is asked by the government to help find and kill a former ambassador to the same planet who's become a spy. The wizard enlists the aid of a young actress with whom he immediately falls in love. She in turn falls in love with both him and the spy while the genius becomes a turncoat and takes up the spy's cause, also. There's such a lack of passion revealed in the scenes these people have with each other and this utterly blinding desire is professed so coldly it just might be overlooked. I confess to liking the first section but then, confusion set in. Somewhere along the way, the original premise seems to have been lost or forgotten or something...what with all the Shark Gods and aliases and innocent bystanders and ex-husbands getting killed just to show that it can be done and human sacrifices... Like a good meal that doesn't settle, it needs something--I just don't know what. The ending is so sad as to be almost poignant and I had to reread it several times to make sure I understood what was happening (refer back to that first sentence) and I'm still not certain I have it correct. Perhaps the fact that Gene Wolfe is called the Greatest Writer in the English Language Alive Today daunted me a little. Perhaps I'm just too dense to get all the ramifications. Using the blurb alone, a totally new and different novel could be written. All I know is that I went into reading this with the idea that it was one type of story and immediately discovered it was nothing like I thought. I'm not even certain I liked it. I don't think I did. It definitely left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease. The villain (if there is one), the hero (if there is one) and the girl (she's the only one who's definite) all deserved a more thorough explanation and better than they got.