{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3932", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3932, "subject": "Short Story collections", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2003-04-14T13:43:13+00:00", "last": "2003-04-19T18:44:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Terry Lago", "address": "tlago at chass.utoronto.ca" }, "date": "2003-04-14T13:43:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story collections", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi all,\n\nCan any of you enlighten me about the various short story collections of\nWolfe? How would you rank them and which ones have overlap in content? I was\nlooking for _Castle of Days_ recently and stumbled upon _Endangered\nSpecies_, and I imagine I should have just picked it up, but didn't know\nwhat would be inside (of course that's part of the pleasure of a Wolfe book\nI guess, right?)\n\nCan any of you enlighten me?\n\n(I guess the reason I'm wary is because I generally don't like short\nstories. I usually prefer novels and there are only a handful of authors\nwhose short fiction I enjoy...though I would be surprised if Wolfe didn't\nalso turn out to be one of these. Still...I always hum and ha before picking\nup a short story collection.)\n\nThanks,\n\nT." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-04-19T13:51:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Short Story collections", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Going back to Terry's original question, on 4/14/03 8:43 AM, Terry Lago at" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "tlago at chass.utoronto.ca wrote:\nCan any of you enlighten me about the various short story collections of\nWolfe? How would you rank them and which ones have overlap in content? I was\nlooking for _Castle of Days_ recently and stumbled upon _Endangered\nSpecies_, and I imagine I should have just picked it up, but didn't know\nwhat would be inside (of course that's part of the pleasure of a Wolfe book\nI guess, right?)\n\nCan any of you enlighten me?\n\n(I guess the reason I'm wary is because I generally don't like short\nstories. I usually prefer novels and there are only a handful of authors\nwhose short fiction I enjoy...though I would be surprised if Wolfe didn't\nalso turn out to be one of these. Still...I always hum and ha before picking\nup a short story collection.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Confining myself to the five major-publisher collections, which are _The\nIsland of Dr. Death..._, _Castle of Days_, _Endangered Species_, _Storeys\nfrom the Old Hotel_, and _Strange Travellers_ (_Gene Wolfe's Book of Days_\nis completely reprinted in _Castle_), I'd say the first of these has several\nessential stories, the second has one essential story (\"Forlesen\") and a\ngreat deal of filler, and the others don't have any essential stories,\nthough there's certainly a lot of enjoyment to be gained from them. I'd\ndefinitely start with _Island_, which every Wolfe fan should have read (it's\nthe material collected here, along with 5HC, that originally brought Wolfe\nto prominence). After that it doesn't much matter, although _Strange\nTravellers_ is probably the most solid of the remaining collections, in the\nsense of having the fewest throwaway stories. And none of these five\noverlap at all, iirc.\n\nSeveral small-press collections have appeared, though I don't know if any\nare still in print. The only one of these I've seen is _Bibliomania_, which\nis fun, but lightweight, and should definitely come after the five\ncollections above.\n\nHope this helps,\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Fernando Q. Gouvea", "address": "fqgouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "2003-04-19T18:24:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Short Story collections", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've been following this discussion with some interest, because I do like\nmany of Wolfe's short stories. They are a very diverse bunch of stories, of\ncourse, with the novellas at one end of the spectrum and stories that are\nlittle more than jeux d'esprit at the other. Still, here's my take on the\nvarious collections:\n\nThe Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories includes\nseveral essential stories and several others that are fun but light. The\nbest, I think are the title story, \"The Death of Doctor Island\", \"The\nEyeflash Miracles\", \"Tracking Song\", and \"Seven American Nights\". In\naddition, I have a soft spot for \"La Befana\". Finally, there's \"The Toy\nTheater\", which I think is just brilliant, an elegantly cut gem that ends\nup making a significant point about whether it's worthwhile to sacrifice\none's life for one's craft.\n\nCastle of Days includes the short stories that originally appeared in Gene\nWolfe's Book of Days. As several people have pointed out, \"Forlesen\" is an\namazing story. I also like \"Beautyland\" (which has since lost some of its\npower because it was too correct), \"How I Lost the Second World War and\nHelped Turn Back the German Invasion\" (this one seems not to get much\nrespect, but I still think it's great fun), and \"The War Beneath the\nTree\". Castle of Days also includes \"The Castle of the Otter\", a collection\nof secondary pieces about the Book of the New Sun, of which the best, I\nthink, is \"These Are the Jokes\" (which is brilliant).\n\nEndangered Species includes several stories that stand out for me,\nincluding \"The Cabin on the Coast\", \"In the House of Gingerbread\", \"When I\nWas Ming the Merciless\", and \"The Detective of Dreams\". Several others are\nat least interesting: \"The Last Thrilling Wonder Story\", and the two \"The\nWoman Who Loved\" stories. Pound for pound, this is probably the weakest of\nthe collections.\n\nStoreys From the Old Hotel, though meant as a kind of collection of less\nsignificant stories, actually contains several that I think are among his\nbest: \"Westwind\", \"Parkroads\", \"A Solar Labyrinth\", \"Cherry Jubilee\", and\n(I'm sure choosing this one will annoy people) \"In Looking-Glass Castle\".\n\nIn Strange Travelers, there are several strange stories that I haven't\ncompletely processed yet. Still, \"No Planets Strike\" seems very fine to me,\n\"And When They Appear\" is disturbing but well done, \"Ziggurat\" is again\ndisturbing but packs a punch, and \"Counting Cats on Zanzibar\" is very\ngood. \"Bed and Breakfast\" is fun but minor. Some of the others I'm not sure\nwhat to do with yet.\n\nThat's quite a good bunch of stories, I think, of many different types and\nstyles. Perhaps not as good as the very best sf short story writers, but\npretty close.\n\nFernando" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea \nDepartment of Mathematics Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online\nColby College Mathematical Association of America\nWaterville, ME 04901 http://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu \n==========================================================\n\nGenua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way\nthat couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.\n -- Local-body politics explained\n Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2003-04-19T18:44:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Short Story collections", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 19 Apr 2003, Fernando Q. Gouvea wrote:\nCastle of Days includes the short stories that originally appeared in Gene\nWolfe's Book of Days. As several people have pointed out, \"Forlesen\" is an\namazing story. I also like \"Beautyland\" (which has since lost some of its\npower because it was too correct), \"How I Lost the Second World War and\nHelped Turn Back the German Invasion\" (this one seems not to get much\nrespect, but I still think it's great fun), and \"The War Beneath the\nTree\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Amazing no one has mentioned 'Against The Lafayette Escadrille', which is\none of my favorite short stories.\n\nI generally disagree with the various folks who think that GW is a weak\nshort story writer.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n." } ] } ] }