While I certainly understand Mr. McAuley's wish to pay a tribute to Wolfe's masterpiece "The Book of the New Sun," "Child of the River" lacks the clarity of vision, quality of writing, and strong story line of that masterpiece. Mr. McAuley's awkward writing style and bad grammar is terribly distracting. Although at times he manages to conjure interesting images and (very rarely) injects philosophical ideas into the story, the characters and plot devices are hopelessly cliched. Mr. McAuley is not without talent, but he needs to pare down the excessive verbiage and work harder on developing his characters. For better "Wolfesque" writing, try Paul Park's "Starbridge Chronicles" and Patrick O'Leary's "The Gift."