The Devil In A Forest

by Gene Wolfe

Finstere Mächte reißen den jungen Mark aus seinem beschaulichen Leben in einem einsamen Dorf hinter den Wäldern einer mittelalterlichen Welt. Da sind der mordgierige Gegelagerer Wat, die dämonische Mutter Ciot und der unheimliche Mann aus dem Hügel. Sie zwingen Mark zu einer Entscheidung, die jeder einmal treffen muß,- auf welche Seite in dem ewigen Kampf zwischen Gut und Böse soll er sich stellen ?
Mit diesem Roman abseits der üblichen ‚Schwert-und-Magie'-Klischees ist dem Autor ein kleines Meistewerk der Fantasy in der Tradition Tolkiens gelungen.
Gene Wolfe gilt Kennern als einer der interessantesten Autoren der modernen amerikanischen SF.
Für eine seiner Kurzgeschichten erhielt er den begehren NEBULA AWARD.
Deutsche Erstveröffentlichung

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical, Novels, Science Fiction Fantasy

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Gene Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He was a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.’ Wolfe joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as Connie Willis, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013.

While attending Texas A&M University Wolfe published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year, and was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He edited the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato crisps. He lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

A frequent Hugo nominee without a win, Wolfe has nevertheless picked up several Nebula and Locus Awards, among others, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He is also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe

Reviews

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy a good fantastical forest novel as much as the next guy. Gene Wolfe's dependably polished writing delivers thrills and chills in this relatively early work. Set alongside Fifth Head of Cerberus, and Peace, The Devil in a Forest reads almost like children's literature. That is not to say that it is not well-conceived and substantial. However, it is pretty straightforward in its plot and characters. It conveys many traditional storytelling devices through effective dialogue and complex motivations, and is reminiscent of Robin Hood. (Just don't go walking into a forest alone if you live in Dark Ages Europe).

Truth is an elusive specter in this murder-filled adventure. The perspective is skewed by narrative distance and enhanced by precise description. Historically accurate weapons and surgery places these events some time in the remote past, more pagan than Christian. This is a time for alchemy and witches to hold sway over superstitious townsfolk. Wolfe peppers the dialogue with subtle variance - not a real language barrier by any means, but just enough archaism to flavor and flesh-out the characters.

For a pulp s-f, pseudo-obscure adventure tale the prose is too heady. For canon Gene Wolfe readers, this is definitely a minor work, reading more like the aborigine section of Fifth Head of Cerberus than otherwise. I was nonetheless intrigued and enthused by the quick pace, the mysterious atmosphere and the careful world-building. I become a bigger Wolfe fan with every foray into his oeuvre , but this is not the place to start if you are new.

The Barrow Man and lady Cloot were enjoyable versions of medieval legends/ folktale elements. Without them, this book would have bordered on pedestrian. It needed an infusion of magical realism, to undercut the vicious backwoods mentality of its characters. Make it a point not to miss this delightful novel.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 – 3 stars

I am leery of making such a pronouncement as I imagine I am likely to be proven wrong, but _The Devil in a Forest_ seems like a strange thing indeed: a straightforward narrative penned by Gene Wolfe with little to no obfuscation or confusion apparent. I would have thought this was the answer to my prayers, but I have to admit that despite being fond of the subject matter and era in which the story takes place (medieval Europe with possible hints of magic in the background) I wasn’t really very overwhelmed by this story…I was, in fact, quite whelmed. When I compare it to his other, perhaps more mature, works I have to admit that despite the fact that they tend to give me a headache, they are also more enjoyable. That’s not to say that this was at all a bad tale, but it wasn’t one that kept me compulsively reading either.

It is the story of a young orphan peasant boy named Mark who is apprentice to the weaver in a small village in an unidentified portion of Europe that houses a grand total of ten souls (though the population is about to plummet). The village has come on hard times as few people bother to visit the miraculous spring of St. Agnes which once brought in a thriving business from pilgrims, and the fact that a highwayman named Wat haunts the nearby woods, killing and robbing any passersby foolish enough to come near, isn’t helping either.

Mark lives a rather ordinary life for a peasant. When he is not being ignored by his master or suffering the occasional beating when his master has had too much to drink he is trying to charm extra food from the innkeeper’s daughter or daydreaming about the romantic highwayman that his elders wish could be eliminated. Starvation is always a looming presence, though some in the village are better off than others, such as Philip the cobbler, a self-proclaimed freethinker and miser. The staid pace of everyday life soon unravels, however, after Wat kills an itinerant peddler and the villagers decide that enough is enough: they will form a militia and hunt the rascal down themselves. This proves to be easier said than done, as Wat has eyes and ears everywhere, and soon the villagers find themselves face-to-face with the charming sociopath who has his own ideas and a clear understanding of the maxim ‘divide and conquer’.

Plots unravel and reform and alliances shift as Mark finds himself veering between Wat and his fellow outsiders (including the suitably creepy ‘witch’ old Mother Cloot and the taciturn charcoal burner Gil) and the villagers he has grown up around. Mother Cloot provides a focus around some never fully explained subplots that revolve around possible magic occurrences and the mysterious tribal patron of the forest folk, though these could just as easily be the results of peasant credulity in the face of the unknown and those clever enough to make use of it. There are a few quite literal mysteries that revolve around questions of who killed whom as the story progresses, but most of them appear to be rather tidily cleaned up by the end of the tale.

As I say I imagine I may have missed some subtlety that Wolfe embedded in the story, but must admit that I came away from it with few questions and without the ‘normal’ feeling that I missed most of what was ‘really’ happening. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a bit disorienting for a work by Wolfe. I don’t think I’d recommend this as an entry into Wolfe simply because it doesn’t seem to be very emblematic of the kind of work he normally does and might give new readers a false sense of security if they then decided to tackle something else, but it is not an unenjoyable tale on its own by any means.

[Greg B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chivalry be damned, it must've sucked ass to be a medieval peasant – just look at Mark, the protagonist of Gene Wolfe's The Devil in a Forest. An orphan, he lives in a small village that at best treats him with indifference; at worst with outright spite and beatings. The village has reason to be frustrated: once thriving via a steady stream of pilgrims coming to the maybe-magical St. Agnes' fountain that sits in its center, it's now a ghost town thanks to the attentions of a sadistic highwayman named Wat. When the village council decides to band together to form a militia to bring Wat to justice, it sets off a chain of events that ends in horror, murder and miracles.

Most of Wolfe's best novels are puzzleboxes; some with locks that can only be opened after two or three reads. For being written in 1976 (for reference, this is around the time Wolfe was writing brainbusters like The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace), TdiaF is a surprisingly straightforward novel. It takes most of the canonical literary tropes of medieval stories – everything from faerie tales to Beowulf and Robin Hood – and twists them into clever and sometimes unrecognizable forms, but the actual plot is fairly simple to follow and even a surface reading of the text is very enjoyable. The enigmatic, murderous Wat is Robin Hood's evil twin brother, stealing from the poor and bribing the rich, while the arrogant Sieur Gamelon plays the Sheriff of Nottingham as envisioned by Cormac McCarthy, embodying the brutality and arbitrary nature of medieval law – and putting the lie to the oft-repeated fantasy idea of “the King's justice.” Of special consideration is the almost Lovecraftian character of Mother Cloot, a village witchwoman who lives in a suspended treetop hut (shades of Baba Yaga!) and is 'married' to the Barrow Man, an enigmatic figure who sleeps beneath nearby Stonehenge-esque ruins and 'is dead but can never die,' if you catch my drift. Stolen identies, sylvian ambushes and eerie nighttime visitations punctuate this medieval tale. If TdiaF has any weakness, it's that the last couple of chapters are a little bit heavy on the exposition – all of the book's loose ends (save one that's left to reader speculation) are tied up nicely, but the vehicle to do this feels like a Sherlock Holmes (or Nero Wolfe, har har) story was injected into what was otherwise a fantasy tale. The Devil in a Forest is probably not going to be in my top 5 Gene Wolfe novels, but if anything that just highlights how amazing Wolfe is; that a book this good doesn't make the cut. It's still head-and-shoulders above most everything else out there and a damn good place to dive into this incredibly underrated writer's body of work.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Estamos tan mal acostumbrados que, a veces, lo bueno es enemigo de lo excelente-.

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. El asesinato de un buhonero en las cercanías de una pequeña aldea medieval trae el desasosiego a sus habitantes. El protagonista, Mark, un aprendiz de tejedor, comparte con sus vecinos las dudas y sospechas sobre la autoría del crimen. ¿Tendrá algo que ver la Madre Cloot, la bruja? ¿Y Wat, el asaltante de caminos? ¿Será algo sobrenatural o se han sugestionado los habitantes del pueblo? La llegada de un destacamento de soldados a la villa complicará más la situación.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relatively early Wolfe (1976), and relatively less oblique than some of his later works, although there is at least one puzzle, and all of the clues are given if only you look for them.

This is a historical novel (no actual fantastical elements, at least none that I could see) loosely inspired by a Christmas carol: There's that verse in Good King Wenceslas

Hither, page, and stand by me,
If thou knowst it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?
Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes fountain.

And that, apparently, sparked Wolfe's imagination. The peasant in question is Mark, a young apprentice to a weaver, living in a village that had seen better days; and that was before the bandit Wat started making his home in the greenwood, suborning the local charcoal burners and putting the odd arrow into the odd wandering pedlar.

And of course Mark's path will cross Wat's; and, being a Wolfe protagonist, Mark will explain everything in clear, precise language that more often than not misses the actual point.

And along the way there'll be plenty of other intriguing characters, including Josselin (the young & attractive innkeeper's daughter), Gloin (Mark's master), Cope (the village smith), and Mother Cloot (who lives up on the Mountain and who may or may not be a witch). And the pleasure of the enterprise will be in Wolfe's language and the careful construction of the story, which may or may not leave you

[feeling] for the first time the thrill of superior knowledge, the masterful buoyancy of having outmatched a really able mind.

[Amanda]

I adore Gene wolfe

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

You don't "read" a Gene Wolfe novel as much as you "unpack" it. Despite a simple-sounding premise in a limited setting with relatively few characters, each element in analysis reveals layers and connections. This gets more complicated as the characters share what he or she thinks is going on, and the reader has to parse those statements for bias and for how those statements are sculpted for the audience. Largely, the entire truth is never said: each character is motivated to modify the truth for various reasons.

The back cover of the Ace edition--that of the ridiculous cover--casts the story in terms of Good and Evil, which is not nearly complicated enough for Gene Wolfe. The characters divide into factions which can be characterized over time as being Law versus Outlaw, Christian versus Pagan, Reason versus Mysticism, and later even as Belief versus Skepticism. How you pin a character into a spectrum is increasingly difficult.

Mark himself, the viewpoint character, is an unlettered apprentice weaver, lowly in the small society, but immediately reveals himself as intelligent and crafty, and aware of situations. He is capable of following the logic of the abbe and emulating the use of that reasoning--to use it as a tool for his purposes--yet gives equal weight to the traditional mysticism and pagan practices of Mother Cloot. He has no skepticism, no critical analysis of belief systems. But then, was he honest with the lord/sheriff at the end? Again, he knew more than he said, and knew enough not to say. The reader is left to decipher.

[iSamwise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really evocative scenes and fun moments, but overall not my favorite from Wolfe by a long shot.

This reads like a Robert Eggers movie

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Estamos tan mal acostumbrados que, a veces, lo bueno es enemigo de lo excelente-.

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. El asesinato de un buhonero en las cercanías de una pequeña aldea medieval trae el desasosiego a sus habitantes. El protagonista, Mark, un aprendiz de tejedor, comparte con sus vecinos las dudas y sospechas sobre la autoría del crimen. ¿Tendrá algo que ver la Madre Cloot, la bruja? ¿Y Wat, el asaltante de caminos? ¿Será algo sobrenatural o se han sugestionado los habitantes del pueblo? La llegada de un destacamento de soldados a la villa complicará más la situación.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A medieval tale of peasants, bandits, forests, and old gods at odds with new ones.

I really liked this; it feels both simple and so intense that one could spend the greater part of a long career working out the ramifications. I certainly can see reflections of this book in a lot of his other works. If you're a Wolfe fan, I highly recommend this as a background text for many other things.

Based on the carol "Good King Wenceslas," which makes the narrator's name a terrible pun.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe does not disappoint, even in this (relatively, for him) straightforward tale.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why is it *A* forest? I think the last chapter and the epilogue give the explanation, because they suddenly move this story of a village to the local lordship, then to the present-day. Whereas before we'd been deeply enmeshed in a very local tale, in the last sections we can see how small it is in the wider concerns of the world. Everyone may think of their own forest as THE forest, but to others it's just A forest.

Who is the devil? The most obvious answer is Wat, the bandit whose capture is the whole point of the book. However it could just as easily be the old witch in the forest or the Barrow Man who haunts the dreams of its residents. Perhaps it's the unknown which the Barrow Man represents: the death and darkness outside our mortal ken. Or, it could even be every character, because there seems to be a devil of wrong in each of them. (I want to say except the inn keeper's daughter, but I suspect that just means that I missed some of her devilishness.) I'd personally go with the last explanation.

Overall, Wolfe's style is already obvious in this 1976 book. He doesn't tell and he rarely explains, but instead presents us with events and expects us to solve the the cycle of cause-and-effect ourselves. There are still a few things that befuddle me (like why Wat decides to kill people at various times) and I might or might not understand them with additional reads. That's Wolfe; it's much of what makes him wonderful. It'd reach a much fuller form in The Book of the New Sun, shortly after this.

Beyond that, this is a nice realistic-feeling Medieval fantasy. It's not unicorns and dragons, but instead indentured servitude and all-powerful lords. It's not evil overlords, but instead a more insidious abuse of power.

In some way this feels like a light offering from Wolfe, but I'd say the same of his more recent works. Fortunately, it's also a delightful one.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short novel is fourth in line of my long quest to read all of Gene Wolfe's published novels and story collections. Although I was fascinated by some of the ideas in the "Fifth Head of Cerberus" and "Peace", I have to say this is the first book of his I've really enjoyed. Set in a medieval village tucked away in a deep forest, the story focuses on 14 year old Mark, a young man struggling between hero worship and absolute terror of Wat, the local "highwayman". The book opens when the town decides to get rid of Wat; his constant thieving of anyone on the road is keeping pilgrims from travelling the roads through their town, bringing down their local economy. It becomes quickly obvious that the tavern owner, miller and shoemaker leading the crusade are outclassed by Wat in virtually every way. Through nearly every turn Wat manages to lie, trick, cheat and threat his way into getting everything he wants. In an early section of the book, Wat finds Mark wandering lost in the woods and both takes him under his wing and uses him as an intermediary between himself and the townsfolk.

The book works largely because of Wat; he studied to be a priest as a young man and tossed it all away for a life of hiding, travelling and theft. This creates a fascinating man who will debate points of religion one moment, then calmly tell you he will kill to get want he wants, and end his day by helping an old woman gather supplies.

Written for his Wolfe's own kids, the bookflap describes this as a children's book. If published today, I think it would probably sell as Young Adult----not just because Mark is 14 but also because of the emotional and mental place Mark's at in his life. This is a book of crossroads for Mark---does he follow the staid life of living in the town as every expects of him, does he chase after his new idol, or perhaps strike out on a path all his own?

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never meet your heroes. A nuanced and sometimes brutal coming of age take on the Robin Hood legend.

Wolfe's 1976 "The Devil in a Forest" immediately gets points for its title. A subtle tweak that immediately makes you look askance at each character you meet in this brief, tightly constructed, and well-paced novel.

The setting is medieval England near the church/fountain of St. Agnes and a reference to the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslaus" ("Sire, he lives a good league, hence // Underneath the mountain // Right against the forest fence // By Saint Agnes' fountain") -- we have a small village that hasn't seen as many pilgrims lately, but the people go about their daily lives in a Tolkien-esque way. Small dramas and romances, and everybody meets at the inn in the evening to episodes and evening to drink and gossip. Very Shire-like in its execution and lyricism, and that feels by design.

We learn of the recent murder of a traveling peddler at the hands of local bandit/highwayman Wat, and the villagers decide to form a militia to hunt down this dastardly brigand. Our protagonist, 14yo weaver's apprentice Mark, both admires and fears Wat and has dreams of heroically killing him himself. Wat, of course, evades the slapdash militia and ends up taking Mark into his confidence and gives a glimpse of what his bandit life in the woods is like. While Mark sees romance in this, there's a creeping unease that Wat is not as romantic as a figure as may be thought. That uneasiness becomes more acute as Wat does the things that bandits do, the King's Soldiers arrive looking to capture Wat (and abusing the villagers in the process) and Mark is left with hard choices to make.

The initial idyllic setting soon gives way to the harsh brutality of powerless people pressed between lawlessness on one side and oppressive authority on the other -- all the while young Mark has his loyalties tested and the innocence of his youth stripped away.

This might be the most straightforward of Wolfe's novels that I've read, and while there are some mysteries and puzzles therein, it's not nearly so heavy-handedly "Wolfian" as some of his other works. The characters are all well drawn, and while there are light elements of magical realism (mostly in the form of peasant superstition), "The Devil in a Forest" feels very grounded. The story and conflicts develop and escalate organically and beautifully such that the climax and character moments feel earned.

Wolfe has a well-deserved reputation for writing layered and challenging fiction that warrants multiple readings and interpretations. But sometimes he just writes a damn fine little story. Sometimes both. "The Devil in a Forest" is both and a damn fine little story.

[Wombat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this little surprise book.

I had heard it mentioned as a good little fantasy which was more grounded - but to be honest it doesn't feel like fantasy at all, but a more personal historical fiction. It follows the story of a young apprentice weaver named Mark (14 years old, and an orphan) living in an out of the way village falling on hard times because the pilgrims and peddlars have stopped coming - thanks to a local bandit by the name of Wat.
Mark gives us a tale of local gossip and petty feuds amongst the villagers who pretty much ignore him, and the wild tales of the forest and the almost heroic bandit Wat. The trouble starts when a Peddlar is found killed (by Wat) and the local priest and "village notables" come together to try and organise a militia to drive out Wat...

This felt very grounded, but still full of the strangeness of odd beliefs (like Mother Cloot the "witch" who lives in the forest, and the Barrow Man) and casual violence (like the local lord's soldiers who casually beat the villages). But there is always questions about what is being said by the characters, as everyone bends the truth to their own motives.

[Jendy Castillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just going to do a quick review. Fully ready to give this a straight 3/5 but he did elevate this quite a bit by one somewhat major reveal in the last chapter. Even though it was laid out, I thought of this was as a very straightforward Wolfe story. Of course, it has its typical trends like moving around from the end of one chapter to the next, with events that happened before being described later on casually, etc.

Mark was a cool character and easy to follow, but I think Wat was the best character throughout this entire story, esp after finishing this. I don’t think there were any memorable Wolfe characters however which I think this book suffered for. This is a weird book as it’s between Peace (Wolfe’s favorite novel he’s written) and Book of the New Sun, and doesn’t even come close to those at all, but it seems like he wanted to make this a very simple one in that period of time. 3.5/5.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Gene Wolfe novel! I can see why Wolfe is a favorite fantasy author. This was really quite unlike anything else I've read in the fantasy genre. It often had a Agatha Christie-mystery vibe to it. Along the way various events happen and characters say and do things that make little sense. At a few points I began to get a little frustrated. But Wolfe usually sucked me back in with details of his characters and the unfolding events of the plot. When I was about thirty pages short of finishing the book I had thought, "The title and cover art are completely deceiving for this book AND I have no idea how the author is going to tie all of the plot threads up by the end." I can report after having finished that the title and cover art DO make sense and Wolfe did indeed tie everything together in a very satisfying way. I'm intrigued to read more of Wolfe. Recommend!

[Andrew Mongue · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my reading hobbies is diving as deep as I can into the works of my favorite authors. So just as I've been doing with Zelazny, here I am now with Gene Wolfe's lesser works. I say this to foreground that I'm grading on a curve here. If you want the best of Wolfe, check out The Soldier of the Mist, the Book of the Long Sun, Peace, etc.

That said, The Devil in a Forest has everything I expect from Wolfe, if a bit unrefined: a layered plot, musings on faith and religion, good vocab words, and a solidly grounded in-world narrative perspective. It's less eventful than his more famous stories and the unveiling of that layers is less organic for the reader to uncover than at his best, but it's a quick and easy read that I can recommend without caveat to Wolfe fans.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a good ways through and starting to grow tense expecting the Wolfian shoe to drop: finding that this world was hiding worlds of which I could only catch the briefest glimpse but invited me to the promise. But I kept waiting.

The final chapter introduced a few themes and dropped a plot twist that I was not tracking in the slightest (not my most concentrated reading to my shame) that certainly stirs desires for a reread. Yet it still felt a simpler affair than the before and after of Wolfe’s career.

But I am very ready to have missed the train barreling through the background, such is the trust Wolfe has established with me. Likewise, perhaps he desired a simpler affair.

All in all, fun with some intriguing twists.

[Daniel Polansky]

A weaver's apprentice in a small European village is caught between a charismatic, brutal outlaw and a savage squad of guardsmen. Wolfe has a real gift for being able to think his way into specific situations, how and why people act in the way they do, but he also has this exhausting tendency to relate critical narrative bits in deliberately incoherent ways, then explore them through lengthy expository dialogue. If you haven't read Wolfe (what are you doing?) probably don't start here, but as far as completists go it's worth a look.

[Jeremy Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early Wolfe novel, more easily accessible than some of his others yet still the signature puzzle with which he's associated. Something beyond the medieval setting reminded me of Stevenson's Black Arrow. Less of a fantasy than it is a medieval mystery-adventure, it still retains enough fantasy elements to sate fans of the genre.

Engrossing and well-written, the kind of novel I look forward to reading again after it's settled.

[Abe Something · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

More like a YA-Wolfe when compared to his later works, but still enjoyable. A boy finds himself in a position where he must choose between two paths that will shape the rest of his life, one good the other evil. However, the evil may just be perceived as such by the good people around him, while those same good people aren't always as good as you'd expect. In short, good and evil present themselves as relative -- how to choose among them?

[Caleb Stallings · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Gene Wolfe book. Was hoping for a bit more magical realism and a kernel of the King Wenceslaus myth, but I like the sort of philosophical dualism that unfolds in a Christendom filled with skeptics and superstitions.

[Soren Kisiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual for Wolfe in its straightforward style — there’s no puzzle to piece together, no questionable narrator to distrust, no dazzling fireworks of surprises. Still, a unique and worthwhile tale, particularly for those of us fascinated with Gene Wolfe.

[Sol · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a misleading blurb! No battle for good and evil, just deadly forest hijinks and murder mysteries.

A more truthful blurb: The murder of a wandering peddler by the highwayman Wat plunges a small forest village into slowly stewing chaos.

Mark was a good viewpoint: intelligent but not knowledgeable, open-minded but not to the point of his brain falling out. Not quite a "coming of age" story, but there was some definite growth there - Mark at the beginning never would have demanded that the Boar leave his friends unharmed, or made that quip about the coal. I'd have liked some more exploration of how events affected Josellen. Wat's vicious charisma was delightful, as was the abbé's reasoned erudition.

I really enjoyed the lost pagan flavour - the ruined bronze age city of Grindwalled, the xoanon worshipped by the charcoal burners, the huge Barrow with its stone marker, Mark's sleep paralysis nightmare of the Barrow Man, the witch Mother Cloot, gouged out eyeballs, virgin sacrifice...

There were some things where I wasn't sure what Wolfe was getting at: Wat's discussion of the xoanon as changing identities over, the abbé's strange metaphor of misplaced skepticism for Josellen's father, the scooby doo-esque rational explanation of everything (hell that Ganelon twist), followed by the apparent miracle of the abbé being healed, that sort of thing.

This seems to be one of Gene Wolfe's easier novels overall. There were some twists and turns here and there, especially of people's apparent motivations, but overall it was easy to follow, and only a dozen or so archaisms. There was definitely a lot of playing around with which objects were left where, who was at various places at different times, who had heard what, but overall it wasn't hard to figure out. Sometimes there was a Soldier of the Mist-esque discontinuity between chapters, but never a gigantic one and usually the missing pieces were filled very quickly.

I'm really struck by the respect Wolfe seems to have for pagan worldviews, something that also struck me while reading Soldier of the Mist.

[Adam Calhoun · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off: I don't know what book the blurb for The Devil in a Forest is talking about, because it certainly isn't this one. This is not about an epic battle between good and evil. It is a story of the amoral and mystical world that a peasant in the middle ages would have lived through. The protagonist, Wat, is an apprentice in a tiny village with bare knowledge of the world that exists more than a few miles away. He interacts with an old witch, a forest brigand, and the remains of ancient village whose warrior hero is still respected in the form of a stonehenge-esque marker outside of town (the Barrow Man!).

Having said that, this book is so well-written that the plot alone gives it five stars. The fact that the examination of the world is so insightful, knowledgeable and intriguing only adds to that. It is more historical fiction than fantasy. Really, the only bad thing I will say is that the last chapter is a bit of an explanatory one, and things that could have been left ambiguous to be interpreted/figured out by the reader are explained straight out. But regardless, a truly great book.

[Brent Dunn]

I enjoyed this book, although it would be easy to misunderstand what it is going into it.

First of all, this is usually listed as a fantasy but it's more like historical fiction. It takes place in medieval Europe. There isn't much magic. There are a few things that could be magic, or they could be given natural explanations.

The book cover makes this story out to be an epic battle of good vs. evil. There isn't one single villain, though. It's more about a group of people and the circumstances that split them into smaller and smaller factions. My own interpretation is that "The Devil" in the story isn't a visible character, but more of an unseen force that turns people against each other.

I found the story to be enjoyable. For a Wolfe book, it's pretty straightforward. There are a couple of mysteries that I didn't solve, but that doesn't detract from the reading experience at all. This isn't considered to be a major Wolfe book, but it's a fun read and you can see the development of some ideas he would flesh out more in later works.

[Evan Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This man--nay, this legend--is incapable of writing a poor story. If you run the numbers, and I have, this tale should be a complete bore. It is medieval fantasy without a lick of fantasy; it also features characters so wishy washy and mundane that you really believe they could exist in the Middle Ages; to top it all off, the cover of this specific edition is anathema to any artistic sensibilities--the only reason I proceeded through the horrid cover was purely on Gene Wolfe's name.

Given all the reasons not to read this book, the very downfall of said reasons vaults this work into the great beyond! The Devil In A Forest is wicked good and should be praised in chanted chorus like all the books I've read of Wolfe's so far. Do yourself a favor and read to the end...ooh baby he finishes a book like no other.

Recommended for those who spend more time looking up definition for words than reading words.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is yet another book toward my goal to read/remove all the books I added to my to-read list in 2009. The library had this book listed as a Fantasy. It isn't a fantasy at all. It is more of a historical fiction book that tells a story about the strange and difficult transition between pagan religions and Christianity. I really liked Mark. I also like how the evil characters (the Devil if you will) were from several different walks of life. Mark saw his Christian neighbors as blameless through most of the book, but Gene Wolfe seemed to be saying that there was guilt on both sides of the issue. This is a great book for anyone interested in medieval history to read. I really don't know how much research the author did, but it certainly took my imagination into medieval Europe.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, reflecting my level of engagement and enjoyment. Because it's Wolfe, I'm assuming I'm missing something and it's really terrific and boy, was I fooled into thinking it was so-so—I will eagerly await reading other people's take on it. But for me, the characters didn't behave in a compelling and reasonable way, I didn't understand for large swathes of the plot what was going on and why (in a general way, i.e. what were the context and reasons for these events).

At one point (very near the end) one character says to Mark essentially "you know so much about this subject that it's difficult for you to explain it to me in a clear way," and I fel that applied to the story itself. Wolfe knows what's happening, he's made it up, but he explains it to the reader in such a stilted, oblique manner, that I'm left struggling.

(I do like, no love, other works of his. I'm not entirely sure why. Something for an AI personal assistant to explain to me in the future).

Perhaps because of my steady diet of fairy tales in my youth—or perhaps just because I'm human—I want to know who's bad, who's good. Maybe someone seems bad but is good (i.e. a Snape) or someone seems good but is bad (Frozen's Prince Hans). Generally this is seen as a shocking twist. But in Wolfe's novel, people seems to change on a dime, for no apparent reason (so far as I could see).

And this isn't an "everyone has shades of grey" kind of thing, where no one's all bad or all good, no, characters are literally murdering other characters. They literally veer from bad to good and back again.

I know he's a great writer, I'm sure I'm missing something, maybe he's making a point. It flew over my head, hence three stars. I think it's historical fiction, unless, again, I'm missing something (it could be a fantasy set in a land that never existed, or SF in a parallel universe. There are no dates or cultural signifiers other than mention of Mary and what seems to be the Christian religion).

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)