Gene Wolfe’s take on an Alice in Wonderland “rabbit hole” story which follows an American teen who finds himself in a layered fantasy world based on Arthurian legend, British folklore, Greek mythology, Norse mythology, and more… All at the same time…

This is something only Gene Wolfe could/would write.

There’s a lot to like here and as is common in Wolfe’s work, every chapter is filled with more interesting ideas than most novels have. Making for a perfect book club / buddy read book.

Our POV character is Sir Able of the High Heart, an American teen who’s physically transformed into a strong adult man’s body, but retains his naive and relatively simple mind.

The process of his transformation is particularly fraught and definitely worth thinking about, and I’m interested to see how that all plays out (cw: child abuse ).

Able really wants to become a knight, and he’s got both the body and the determination for it. With the help of his dog Gylf, his sailor / manservant Pouk, his two fire elf slaves Uri and Baki, his Ogre follower Org and a really big cat (TBD), he’s got everything he needs to achieve his goal except wisdom, experience, and brains.

He’s got BIG main character energy and he seems fated for success but his path to it isn’t as smooth as it could be due to his unique set of weaknesses.

Perhaps, this is one of Wolfe’s funniest books due to this discrepancy between your expectations about the story and the curveballs Wolfe’s is constantly throwing at the reader.