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Fwd: Re: Illium
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Dear Listmembers:
As long as we're discussing genre-transcending sf, may I recommend the works
of Gene Wolfe? He's a writer of stunning complexity and has even been boldly
hailed by the Washington Post as "the Nabokov of speculative fiction."* My
own personal favorites include THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, PEACE, and the
author's four volume BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, as well as his first short story
collection, tautologically-entitled THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER
STORIES, AND OTHER STORIES. (Further examples of Wolfe's playfulness can be
found in the pages of the latter, the collection containing not only the
titular gem, but also its fugue sequels, "The Death of Dr. Island" and "The
Doctor of Death Island" [but not, alas, "The Death of the Island Doctor,"
which he wrote for another volume]).
One of Wolfe's grand themes? Memory and how it shapes us.
Severian-the-torturer, who narrates NEWS SUN, has a memory like Borges'
Funes and claims to forget nothing, while Latro, a brain-damaged soldier in
ancient Greece, must inscribe the events of his life daily because he has no
long term memory due to his injury--although as compensation he can see and
converse with the deities of Olympus. (LATRO IN THE MIST contains both
Soldier volumes.)
Wolfe, in the manner of Alfred Hitchcock's cameos, also likes to insert
himself into his works; and finding these various lupine avatars is as much
fun as decoding his elaborate onomastics and frequently jangled narrative
chronologies.
Please check out this writer if you're at all interested in "high-end"
science fiction and see if you agree with critic John Clute's observation
that "Though neither the most popular nor the most influential author in the
sf field, Gene Wolfe is today quite possibly the most important."
*http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62473-2002Apr4
rjb
----- End forwarded message -----
As long as we're discussing genre-transcending sf, may I recommend the works
of Gene Wolfe? He's a writer of stunning complexity and has even been boldly
hailed by the Washington Post as "the Nabokov of speculative fiction."* My
own personal favorites include THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, PEACE, and the
author's four volume BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, as well as his first short story
collection, tautologically-entitled THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER
STORIES, AND OTHER STORIES. (Further examples of Wolfe's playfulness can be
found in the pages of the latter, the collection containing not only the
titular gem, but also its fugue sequels, "The Death of Dr. Island" and "The
Doctor of Death Island" [but not, alas, "The Death of the Island Doctor,"
which he wrote for another volume]).
One of Wolfe's grand themes? Memory and how it shapes us.
Severian-the-torturer, who narrates NEWS SUN, has a memory like Borges'
Funes and claims to forget nothing, while Latro, a brain-damaged soldier in
ancient Greece, must inscribe the events of his life daily because he has no
long term memory due to his injury--although as compensation he can see and
converse with the deities of Olympus. (LATRO IN THE MIST contains both
Soldier volumes.)
Wolfe, in the manner of Alfred Hitchcock's cameos, also likes to insert
himself into his works; and finding these various lupine avatars is as much
fun as decoding his elaborate onomastics and frequently jangled narrative
chronologies.
Please check out this writer if you're at all interested in "high-end"
science fiction and see if you agree with critic John Clute's observation
that "Though neither the most popular nor the most influential author in the
sf field, Gene Wolfe is today quite possibly the most important."
*http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62473-2002Apr4
rjb
----- End forwarded message -----