Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe (born May 7, 1931) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusion-rich prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, which he adopted after marrying a Catholic. He is a prolific short story writer as well as a novelist, and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and World Fantasy Award multiple times.

Wolfe fought in the Korean War and after returning to the United States became an industrial engineer. For many years he edited the engineering review "Plant Engineering" before retiring to write full-time. (One little known engineering achievement of Wolfe is that he is the co-inventor of the machine used to make Pringles potato chips; specifically the part which molds the chips). He now lives in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Contents

1 Works 2 Bibliography 2.1 Novels 2.2 Story collections 2.3 Other works 3 External links

Works

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His best-known and best-regarded work is the multi-volume The Book of the New Sun, set in a distant future much like that of Jack Vance's Dying Earth and detailing the life of Severian, an apprentice torturer, as he ultimately becomes a messiah. The work is composed of the novels The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator (1981), The Sword of the Lictor (1982), and The Citadel of the Autarch (1983). A coda, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), wraps up some loose ends but is generally considered a separate work. Castle of the Otter (1982) includes, among other writings, several Wolfe essays about the writing of The Book of the New Sun (the title refers to a misprint of the fourth book's title in Locus magazine).

In the 1990s, Wolfe published two more works in the same universe as The Book of the New Sun. The first, The Book of the Long Sun, consists of the novels Nightside the Long Sun (1993), Lake of the Long Sun (1994), Caldé of the Long Sun (1994), and Exodus From the Long Sun (1996). These books cover political intrigue and revolution on a generation starship sent from Urth to colonise a distant planet. Wolfe subsequently wrote The Book of the Short Sun, which is composed of On Blue's Waters (1999), In Green's Jungles (2000) and Return to the Whorl (2001), and deals with the colonists who have arrived on the planets Blue and Green. These three works, The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun form an oeuvre often called the 'Solar Cycle'.

Wolfe's stand-alone books are less popular than the Solar Cycle. Two held in particularly high esteem by readers and critics are Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Peace is the seemingly-rambling narrative of Alden Dennis Weer, a man of many secrets who reviews his life under rather mysterious circumstances. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is either a collection of three novellas, or a novel in three parts, about colonialism, memory, and the nature of personal identity. The first part won the Nebula Award for best novella.

Although not a best-selling author, Wolfe is extremely highly regarded by critics and fellow writers, and considered by many to be one of the best living science fiction authors. Indeed, he has sometimes been called the best living American writer regardless of genre. His fans regard him with considerable dedication, and one Internet mailing list dedicated to his works has amassed over six years and thousands of pages of discussion and explication; similarly much analysis and exegesis has been published in fanzine and small-press form (e. g. Lexicon Urthus). The writers Neil Gaiman and Patrick O'Leary have both credited Wolfe for inspiration.

Wolfe frequently creates an unreliable narrator to tell his stories. Sometimes this is a person who is simply naïve (Pandora by Holly Hollander, The Knight), or is not particularly intelligent (There Are Doors) or is not always truthful (The Book of the New Sun), or is suffering from serious illness (Latro in Soldier of the Mist, who forgets everything within 24 hours).

Some readers have found Wolfe's use of the unreliable narrator confusing, on the grounds that, if the reader cannot trust the narrator, there is no way to determine the "meaning" of the text. Others find that, while it requires more work on the part of the reader, this trope creates a wider and deeper space of possible meaning for the reader to discover and explore. Thus, Wolfe's texts encourage multiple readings. Wolfe himself has said, in a letter to Neil Gaiman (Gaiman 2002): "My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure."

Bibliography

Novels

• Operation Ares (1970)
• The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1973)
• Peace (1975)
• The Devil in a Forest (1976)
• The Book of the New Sun
  • The Shadow of the Torturer (1980)
  • The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
  • The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
  • The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)
• Free Live Free (1984)
• The Urth of the New Sun (1987)
• The Soldier series
  • Soldier of the Mist (1986)
  • Soldier of Arete (1989)
• There Are Doors (1988)
• Castleview (1990)
• Pandora, By Holly Hollander (1990)
• The Book of the Long Sun
  • Nightside the Long Sun (1993)
  • Lake of the Long Sun (1994)
  • Caldé of the Long Sun (1994)
  • Exodus From the Long Sun (1996)
• The Book of the Short Sun
  • On Blue's Waters (1999)
  • In Green's Jungles (2000)
  • Return to the Whorl (2001)
• The Wizard Knight
  • The Knight (2003)
  • The Wizard (2004)

Story collections

• The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980) (Not an error but a literary joke; the title story is "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories". Among others, the collection also includes "The Death of Doctor Island" and "The Doctor of Death Island".)
• Gene Wolfe's Book of Days (1981)
• The Wolfe Archipelago (1983)
• Plan(e)t Engineering (1984)
• Bibliomen (1984)
• Storeys from the Old Hotel (1988)
• Endangered Species (1989)
• Castle of Days (1992)
• Strange Travelers (2000)
• Innocents Aboard (2004)
• Starwater Strains (due August 2005)

Other works

• The Castle of the Otter
• Letters Home
• Shadows of the New Sun: Essays
• A Walking Tour of the Shambles (with Neil Gaiman) (2002)

External links

• Paul Duggan's extensive Wolfe site (http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfe.html)
• Ultan's Library (http://www.ultan.co.uk/), critical essays of Wolfe's work
• The Urth Mailing List (http://www.urth.net/), for discussion of Wolfe's work
• Overview of Wolfe's work in Washington Post Book World by the SF critic Nick Gevers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62473-2002Apr4)
• 2002 interview by Neil Gaiman (http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Issue09/GaimanWolfe.html) in Locus magazine
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