Customer Reviews

The Wolf and the Crown

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The third book in AA Attanasio's fabulous telling of the King Arthor myths, the Wolf and the Crown follows the young king through the first year of his reign. He must prove to his subjects that he is a worthy king, and must prove to himself that he is a good man even though he fell prey to his witchy half sister's seductions. This book, as all of Attanasio's, is very different from its predecessors. The chapters are short, perfect two-page cliff hangers that whirl the reader between the various characters and situations. In some ways, this book is much more horrific than the ones that came before, but it is leavened with great humor. It focuses on Arthor's humanity, but has the elements of the strange and magical we've come to expect from Mr. Attanasio. Gods old and new, ghosts, witches, demons, angels, vampires, dwarves, a monkey, elves, stolen and misplaced souls, the hell that is our present day, the fabulous world tree that is the magnetic field surrounding the earth, the hollow hills above the dragon at the heart of the earth, heroic adventure, and selfless sacrifice, it is all there weaving a tapestry of magic and realism. Attanasio is not bound by any of the old tellings of this myth, he takes the characters and elements and makes them uniquely believable, uniquely his own. As in many of Attanasio's books, such as his fantastic first novel Radix and the rare The Moon's Wife, the heros are flawed by their own humanity and must take on painful journeys of self-discovery and change. Don't miss this book, I can't wait for the next ones. I hope he follows the King to Avalon and on, to that far future day of need that is predicted for the King's return.

Attanasio is one of my favorite writers - constantly innovative, frequently lyrical, and until this book he hadn't disappointed me. It's not a bad story, but it falls far below the standard of work that I've come to expect from this man. The first two books in this series are delightful, and as good as anything Attanasio's ever done. I finished this one, however, only to keep up with the series. Rerad this book if you've been drawn into the series, but by no means let it be your introduction to the work of this talented author.

Attansio's interpretation of teh Arthurian legend is fascinating and well-written, but it took this reader nearly 100 pages to become acclimated to the author's bizarre shortened chapters. Attanasio abbeviates his scenes so that they last no longer than 1 1/2 pages at the most.

Interestingly, it doesn't appear that his work suffers because of it...yet it was still disconcerting. This was the first Attanasio book I've read. Despite what others have written, it is possible to use this as a jumping-off point into his novels.

I have had the first three books from this series on my bookshelf for a long time along with Radix and Last Legends of Earth, and couldn't remember why I didn't like this series.

Now I remember. Its this book.

The first two books are wonderfully lyrical in their writing, and full of the hallucinatory blend of quantum physics and mysticism that I think is Attanasio's trademark. This books isn't any of those things, and seems, as others have said, hurriedly written to fill a deadline.

What I find most painful is the page-and-a-half "chapters" that are the book's structure. The books winds up being just a set of vignettes, really, advancing in parallel the four or five stories that are being advanced. While this technique might be intended to keep the pace brisk, what it really does is completely distance the reader from the characters and the action. Why should I care about any of this given how I'm not invited to connect with it in a meaningful way.

Also, the "Merlin as a lisping dwarf" thing gets old real quick.

I'm slogging my way through and will buy the concluding volume just because I'm a sucker for punishment (and it seems more well-regarded than this book), but as others have said, you read this one because you like the series, not because you like this book.

The Wolf And The Crown is a beautiful weaving of the classic story of Arthur, except now the tale has an original factor to it. Attanasio is a very talented author; he combines legend with his own mythology. I loved it because Attanasio used characters from several beliefs; he didn't just focus on Christianity. You may believe this weird, but I think that his stories compare with The Wild Road, mostly because King's and Attanasio's details are similar. Such as: They both describe the weather, surroundings, features of an animal or person, and attitudes very thouroughly. I reccomend this book to everyone in the universe!!!

I was disappointed to find almost none of the elements in the third installment of Attanasio's treatment of the Arthur cycle that I have read his other books for--it seemed to me that he was out of ideas, hurrying to meet a deadline, or both. The plot was rushed, the usual musical descriptions were all but absent, and there were no significant developments in the story at all. I hope that there will be a fourth volume that is as complex and lush as "The Dragon and The Unicorn," much as "Last Legends of Earth" was a worthy follow-up to "Radix" after the tepid "In Other Worlds" and "Arc of the Dream."

A.A. Attanasio is a wonderful writer I loved all the arthur books, the dragon and the unicorn, the eagle and the sword, the wolf and the crown, and the serpent and the grail. I have talked to him many years ago he's very nice he even sent me a signed copy of The Wolf and The Crown before it hit the shelves! He is very good at capturing your imagation and sending you into where he's writing about. I would recomend his books to anyone even young adults that's when I got started. Attanasio is very good and telling every detail of the fantasy world.

This is A. A. Attanasio's third book in a truly unique retelling of the legend of Arthur (or Arthor in this case). Attanasio brings to this new interpretation all the tools at his considerable disposal and they are extremely well used. This series is a slight departure in form in several ways from much of his earlier works since it is meant to be read as a whole; the books in the series draw heavily one upon the other and to read the second and third without the first is to do the series and yourself a terrible injustice... Some may be a bit confused at this unfamiliarity, but it is a result of a thorough attention to detail and the fantastic imagination which readers of Attanasio have come to expect. The series is not a string of stand alone books - it is a real multi-book epic. The plot of this, the third book in this Arthurian series, takes Arthor to the age of budding manhood. So far the boy king has been exactly that - a boy king who has been a lowly servant all his life, with all of the limitations which his lack of age, experience and aspirations would give him in such extraordinary circumstances. But, Arthor is only really a small part of this saga. The story is infinitely more complex than it's "main" figure. Attanasio has again pushed the limits, but this time in the realm of fantasy rather than sci-fi. Those who are looking for the phenomenal leaps of imagination and the amazing worlds which his sci-fi displays like no other's, will perhaps find this a bit sedate, but it is written with a very different intent and should not be judged in the same way as a work from the sci-fi genre. Fantasy is not sci-fi, though Attanasio blurrs the distinction with wonderful skill and those seeking the stimulation of the realm of ideas will NOT be disappointed if they look at the work for what it is. Meticulous research has gone into this series to bring home the amazing diversity and fantastic clash of cultures and their religions which was the very real scene in the British Isles of the 5th century A.D. In most of the books one reads about this part of the world at that time, eveything is candy coated and the truly potent (and completely alien to the modern industrial world/age) intensity of what living in those times would mean is completely lost in a false dream of an age which never existed except in the minds of hackneyed idealistic dreamers. Attanasio has tried valiantly to infuse this dream with a much needed breath of reality and boundary stretching all at once... Some readers may not stretch as well as others, but for a deeply thought provoking and attentive read - this book and series is a masterpiece. I honestly think this is some of his best work to date. I would hazard that if you do not find the book rewarding it is perhaps because you are reading too fast and missing the ideas! And remember that every life goes through stages... This story is describing such a journey and some will find different aspects of a coming of age story more interesting than others... and this story isn't ended with this book...