The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps

*WAVES ARMS* Read this! And if it's anything to go by, go ahead and pre-order all the other Tor.com novellas as well. BUT THIS REVIEW IS ABOUT THIS GLORIOUS BOOK.

"Sumptuous" doesn't really do the language here justice. I read a ton of short fiction with language that I truly enjoy, but nothing novella or novel-length in quite some time. This ended that drought. And the plotting sure isn't bad either (IT'S GODDAMN GREAT). The dialogue is fantastic, the world-building is amazing, and the action is visceral as hell. THE MAGIC IS SCIENCE-Y AND EARTHY. AND THE CHARACTERS! DEMANE. THE CAPTAIN. CUMALO. ALL THE CARAVAN GUARDS. Even the *vague eyebrow waggling* creature, in the same way the shark was a looming background character in Jaws.

"The show more Devil in America", and Wilson's other short fiction, has been on my list for a while, and I'm about to go on a spree, for sure. show less

I am not at all sure how to talk about this book. On the one hand, the writing and characterization are outstanding. I was in love with this author's prosody from the first page. I get stuck at trying to discuss the structure of the narrative. It manages to have depth and breadth while being very concise. If I were to attempt to explain it to you you wouldn't believe me when I also say that it's a satisfying read. Stepping away I can recognize that the structure is non-standard but I'm too much in love with the book to worry about it.

Let me just say this: [book:The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps|25819519] is a strong second world fantasy that is also a speculative future history. It will punch you in the gut and make you like it.

I am show more totally going to be reading this again. show less

Tight, gorgeous, and brutal. Homoerotic, humane, crushingly moving but utterly unsentimental. The premise as pure a sword-and-sorcery trope as you can get (superstitious and provincial bash-and-slash mercenary company traveling with erudite and sensitive mage-ish outsider far from his homeland), only minus the typical tired faux-Celtic trappings - this world is explicitly African in inspiration and Kai's chorus of pitch-perfect voices are all un-apologetically Black American. And the love story (because it is a love story...just one that contains more skull-smashing and battlefield gangrene than most) is so, so real. Not that any words are wasted on describing the state of being in love; it is just shown, beautifully, in tiny sharp show more shards of interactions - soul-deep love on the DL between two warriors in an intolerant world. This love story is tender in the way that a rare steak is tender - all bloody muscle and seared outsides, primal, sensual, and raw at the core. This little book is like the Sorcerer Demane's magic bag - physically slender but capable of holding unbelievably vast quantities of content. I can't wait for someone I know to read it so the full unpacking can begin. show less

Rating: 4.5
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a novella that packs in so much thought and heart. The pacing starts off feeling rather slow before galloping through the final act and yet none of the time spent with these characters is wasted as the author utilizing all tools available to tell the story of our main character. We explore the obvious themes of love and self-acceptance and masculinity as well as that of language and much more.

Probably the language play was above me (and I'm not speaking about the quirky French and Spanish phrases, which were funny). I followed the story all right, but several of the lore references and the oblique meanings evaded me.

I liked it? I think so, it was fascinating, this estrangement feeling, in a confusing kind of way; the characters - all of them - were singularly intriguing; the cross-sensorial descriptions, truly delectable. The book is short, slightly over 200 pages and considering the plot, the worldbuilding and complex prose it was a fine choice on the author's part.

My reading pace never suffered, even when I stopped to wonder if my wondering were actually immersion in the story or plain I'm-missing-something-here. Maybe show more it's just me. Or the book. Okay, I'm satisfyingly puzzled, the ending was fitting and if over-the-top smart storytelling is your preference, give this a try and see for yourself.

Of all words, none more purely distills the futility of human hope, mortal dreams. Did we but know the end is foreordained and soon, who could go on making such tender plans—someday I shall run my fingers through my lover’s hair—when the very next step we take shall pitch us into the sinkhole, there to be crushed to nothingness, smothered in an instant, by a thousand tonnes of earth?

“Someday.” Ha! show less

You have to pick it up, rub it into your face, smell it, breath it, mold it into different shapes in your head. Maybe bake those shapes into some kind of ocarina. Then you can understand it, and follow it as the prose skitters around like an unknown, three-footer mammal settling into the marsh. I am so glad books like this exist. Recommended. Poetic gore warning.

I hope this gets classified as a novella for the Hugos so it doesn't get crushed by The Fifth Season. The mixture of idioms and imagery and cultures and peoples is unlike anything else I've read, if not ever than for longer than I can remember. It works to immediately break and reset your expectations. I don't want to say much about the details, because I found I enjoyed knowing nothing about it when I began. I will say, I am in willful denial about the ending. Except I'm not, of course, because what *seems* to have happened of course did not happen at all. Of course not. Nope.