cover image The Sorcerer’s House

The Sorcerer’s House

Gene Wolfe. Tor, $24.99 (302pp) ISBN 978-0-7653-2458-0

World Fantasy Award–winning novelist Wolfe (An Evil Guest ) spins a complex, spellbinding web of otherworldly sorcery and hauntings. When scholar and ex-con Baxter Dunn arrives in the Midwest town of Medicine Man, he learns that a mysterious benefactor has deeded him a rambling old house. As the building grows around him, Bax encounters a number of wonders and terrors, including family secrets, windows into Faerie, and a murderous animal dubbed the Hound of Horror. However, the greatest challenge Bax faces may be his twin brother’s jealousy and rage. Both terrifying and touching, this book of wonders speaks eloquently about the nature of responsibility and family, but Wolfe’s unforgettable world is marred by stereotypes—a flighty and submissive Japanese woman, a scandalmongering journalist, a rapacious and sadistic dwarf—and a rushed, incoherent ending. (Mar.)