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A review by skolastic
An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe
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.
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.