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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, has won the Nebula Award, and has been nominated for the Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award multiple times.

Wolfe fought in the Korean War, and after returning to the United States became an industrial engineer, receiving his degree from Texas A&M University. For many years he edited the engineering review Plant Engineering, before retiring to write full-time. One little-known engineering achievement of Wolfe's is a contribution to the development of the mass production machine used to make Pringles potato chips, specifically the part which cooks the chips. He now lives in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Wolfe is possibly a distant relative of author Thomas Wolfe. *

Works

Wolfe's best-known and most highly regarded work is the multi-volume novel The Book of the New Sun. Set in a bleak, distant future (similar to that of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series), the story details the life of Severian, an apprentice torturer, exiled from his guild for showing compassion to one of the condemned, as he rises to power. The novel is composed of the volumes The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator (1981, winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel), 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. Several Wolfe essays about the writing of The Book of the New Sun were published in The Castle of the Otter (1982; 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 follow the priest of a small parish as he becomes wrapped up in political intrigue and revolution in his city-state. Wolfe then wrote a sequel of sorts, The Book of the Short Sun, composed of On Blue's Waters (1999), In Green's Jungles (2000) and Return to the Whorl (2001), dealing with colonists who have arrived on the sister planets Blue and Green. The three Sun works (The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun), generally thought to be his most popular writing, are often collectively referred to as the "Solar Cycle".

Wolfe has also written many stand-alone books. His first novel, Operation Ares, was published by Berkely Books in 1970 and was unsuccessful. He subsequently wrote two novels held in particularly high esteem, Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus. The first 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, dealing with colonialism, memory, and the nature of personal identity. The first story, which gives the book its name, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella.

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."

Importance

Although not a best-selling author, Wolfe is 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. Award-winning science fiction author Michael Swanwick has said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning.".

Among others, writers Neil Gaiman and Patrick O'Leary have credited Wolfe for inspiration. O'Leary has said: "Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period. And as Wolfe once said (in reference to Gaiman), 'All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.' No comparison. Nobody – I mean nobody – comes close to what this artist does."

Wolfe's fans regard him with considerable dedication, and one Internet mailing list (begun in November 1996) dedicated to his works has amassed over nine 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).

Bibliography

Introduction to Sandman VI: Fables and Reflections

Novels

  • Operation Ares (1970)
  • The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
  • 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)
    • Soldier of Sidon (forthcoming, 2006)
  • 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 Doctor of Death Island" and "The Death of Doctor Island", winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novella.)
  • 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)
  • The Young Wolfe (1992)
  • Strange Travelers (2000)
  • Innocents Aboard (2004)
  • Starwater Strains (2005)
  • Strange Birds (2006)

Chapbooks

Wolfe has published a number of short chapbooks; sometimes they are reprinted in his collections, like Starwater Strains republished "Empires of Foliage and Flower".

  • At the Point of Capricorn (1983)
  • The Boy Who Hooked the Sun (1985)
  • Empires of Foliage and Flower: A Tale From the Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky (1987)
  • The Arimaspian Legacy (1988)
  • Slow Children at Play (1989)
  • The Old Woman Whose Rolling Pin is the Sun (1991)
  • Talk of Mandrakes (2003)
  • Christmas Inn (2005)

Other works

  • The Castle of the Otter (a companion to The Book of the New Sun, later collected into Castle of Days)
  • Letters Home
  • Shadows of the New Sun: Essays
  • A Walking Tour of the Shambles (with Neil Gaiman) (2002)

External links

Interviews with Wolfe

Works available online

1931 births | Living people | American fantasy writers | American science fiction writers | Roman Catholic writers | World Fantasy Award winning authors | Nebula Award winning authors

Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe | Gene Wolfe

 

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