outcolder 's review for:

Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe

5.0

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Genius. [a:Ursula K. Le Guin|874602|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg] called it a masterpiece and who am I to argue with her? Some of the things I liked about it: psychedelia, ambiguous morals, the "magic" always has some kind of bizarre explanation... These books are full of characters who give the (anti-)hero some object or knowledge that will serve him later. There are more figures like that maybe even than adversaries. I loved that... it adds all this mystery, like, what is that thing really, who is that person really... there's a kind of [b:The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare|184419|The Man Who Was Thursday A Nightmare|G.K. Chesterton|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1403181403s/184419.jpg|195447] thing happening too. Awesome. Somewhere near the beginning he meets a blind librarian... after that I was hooked good and proper.