Reviews

An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe

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Gene Wolfe turns his hands to writing a Cthulhu Mythos novel. The end result is pretty solid, though it's perhaps several notches pulpier than we're used to from Wolfe. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2021/10/15/eldritch-evil-beneath-a-pulp-facade/

eabourland's review

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5.0

This is a lovecraftian time traveling lycanthropism mystery thriller radioactive love story. It's Wolfe having a great time. He relaxed for a little while, and wrote a novel that is simply fun. Wolfe's deep affection for all of his characters, and for the story he is leading them through, rises from every page. There are a dozen dreams at work here, many of them working at the same time, in the same places, on the same characters. One of joys of reading Wolfe is to parse his clues and understand what's really going on. The story does make sense. It adds up; Wolfe is too good a storyteller to do otherwise. If you have any interest in Lovecraft or lycanthropy or FTL travel or love, then parts of this story will be riveting and quite fun. Imagine the U.S. Navy dropping depth charges on R'lyeh, and how Cthlulu and his minions might react to an incursion from a modern military. Like most Wolfe stories, the story is subtle. I doubt I found all of Wolfe's clues, but I had a great time trying.

Just a fun little book. Very entertaining.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780765318794-2

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780765321343-1

vincent1126's review

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

crowyhead's review against another edition

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3.0

Like so many of Gene Wolfe's books, this was absolutely wonderful and intriguing and fascinating, and then the last quarter of the book left me going, "Wait, what?" I loved it and at the same time found it to be one of the most frustrating books I've read recently. This seems to be a theme with Wolfe, and yet I can't stop reading his novels.

rubel's review against another edition

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3.0

This book charmed me, then took a few left turns without, I think, enough clues to bring me along. It's worth a little more puzzling out, and it was certainly fun while it lasted, but....

bookmonkey98's review

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3.0

This is really a 2.5 stars. I enjoyed the general subject matter and some of the conversations, but I totally lost the plot. And I don't think it was my fault. Really weird and hard to follow at the end.

cheezvshcrvst's review

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4.0

Dialogue was superb, and it was an excellent multi-genre novel. Somehow felt a bit severed at the end there, almost as though there was more story to tell or else the main part of the story was omitted. Enjoyable read still the same.

skolastic's review against another edition

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2.0

I had added this to my to-read list a long, long time ago after seeing rave reviews along the lines of "Wolfe does Lovecraft right", and it's been gathering dust for a while.

I had really enjoyed Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series (despite how much it made my head spin); An Evil Guest surprised me with how little I enjoyed it. It has its moments, but getting to them is a slog through a boring story. I'm aware that Wolfe's whole thing is an ostensibly simple surface concealing something complex, but...well, even when I didn't understand what was going on in the Book of the New Sun, I was able to sort of drink in the scenery as Severian wandered about. Cassie Casey's future America fails to produce that same sense of wonder and discovery. (I have to say that even looking up analysis of this online doesn't drive me to reread it the same way that looking up information about Book of the New Sun did) The ending is pretty interesting, but it's just too little, too late.

Maybe it's unfair of me to compare a big, dense series like New Sun to a single novel, but that's all the Wolfe experience I've got, and I just feel like this one failed to grab me.