{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4804", "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": 4804, "subject": "Review: upcoming Wolfe anthology", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2007-04-01T22:34:50+00:00", "last": "2007-04-01T23:40:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Rabin", "address": "wolfe-lists at danrabin.com" }, "date": "2007-04-01T22:34:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Review: upcoming Wolfe anthology", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just thought the folks on this list might be interested in the \nfollowing review of mine that was just accepted by the online jounral \n_SF Silicon Valley_ concerning Wolfe's upcoming anthology.\n\n -- Dan Rabin\n\n-----------------------\n\nLong-time fans of Gene Wolfe's shorter fiction will remember with \ndelight a trio of thematically-unrelated stories having similar \ntitles: \"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\", \"The Death of \nDr. Island\", and \"The Doctor of Death Island\". The three works, all \ncollected in _The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other \nStories_, were joined in a long-unavailable volume appropriately \nentitled _The Wolfe Archipelago_ by a fourth permutated title: \"Death \nof the Island Doctor\".\n\nScholars of high-school algebra among Wolfe's readers have often \nnoted, however, that the words \"island\", \"doctor\", and \"death\" can be \npermuted in _six_ ways, not merely four. Some, assuming the author's \napparent omission to be intentional, have ascribed the absence of the \norderings island-death-doctor and doctor-island-death to deep \nprinciples developed by Christian Kabbalists (yes, there have been \nsome!) based on reordering the names of the Persons of the Trinity. \nOther critics have preferred to infer that the ever-fertile \nimagination of Gene Wolfe had just moved on, or that he gave the \nmissing titles to stories that were rejected (either by editors, or \nby comparison with the author's own notoriously high standards).\n\nNow, at last, Wolfe himself supplies the missing pieces of the \npuzzle. His new collection _Isolating Insulation, Doctor Death in \nPurr-Mutation!_ not only delivers the two entirely new novelettes \n\"Island of the Death Doctor\" and \"The Doctor's Island Death\", but \nalso indulges the author's bent for frame stories by including new \nversions of the pre-existing four works as is \"edited\" jointly by the \nengaging felines Mani (from _The Wizard Knight_) and G. Gordon Kitty \n(from _Castleview_).\n\nThese editorial changes constitute the \"purr-mutations\" of the title, \nas Wolfe deadpans in his brief introductory remarks in his own \nliterary persona. The changes, however, are minor in themselves: \nmost notable is the subsitution of felines for primates in \"The Death \nof Dr. Island\". As so often with this tricksy author, deeper \nmeanings emerge from an accumulation of hints, here hidden in Gordon \nand Mani's commentaries on the six stories.\n\nTHe commentaries, each written in one of the cats' first-person \nvoice, are all dated within a two-week period in the spring of an \nunspecified year. The last commentary, in the voice of G. Gordon \nKitty, casually mentions \"going over to my owner's in-laws for \nPassover\" before trailing off into an agitated and incoherent tirade. \nThe Gene Wolfe voice then returns in an afterword to say that, \nhowever distasteful it may appear to the reader, the last piece is \nincluded in the hopes of assisting the authorities in solving the \nrecent bloody killing of an ordinary Jewish family at their Seder in \na suburb of Chicago.\n\nReaders are left on their own to reflect that the Passover Seder, \nwhich occurs on a fixed date according to the lunar calendar used in \nJudaism, always takes place on the full moon, and that a plausible \nexplanation for the carnage alluded to is that old Wolfean favorite, \nlycanthropy (or the feline equivalent) on the part of G. Gordon \nKitty. \"Purr-mutation\" indeed." } ] }, { "message_id": "<6745.67.142.130.42.1175469516.squirrel@brunians.org>", "from": { "name": "brunians at brunians.org", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2007-04-01T23:18:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Review: upcoming Wolfe anthology", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sounds great.\n\nI've been hoping to hear more from Mani.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I just thought the folks on this list might be interested in the\nfollowing review of mine that was just accepted by the online jounral\n_SF Silicon Valley_ concerning Wolfe's upcoming anthology.\n\n -- Dan Rabin\n\n-----------------------\n\nLong-time fans of Gene Wolfe's shorter fiction will remember with\ndelight a trio of thematically-unrelated stories having similar\ntitles: \"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\", \"The Death of\nDr. Island\", and \"The Doctor of Death Island\". The three works, all\ncollected in _The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other\nStories_, were joined in a long-unavailable volume appropriately\nentitled _The Wolfe Archipelago_ by a fourth permutated title: \"Death\nof the Island Doctor\".\n\nScholars of high-school algebra among Wolfe's readers have often\nnoted, however, that the words \"island\", \"doctor\", and \"death\" can be\npermuted in _six_ ways, not merely four. Some, assuming the author's\napparent omission to be intentional, have ascribed the absence of the\norderings island-death-doctor and doctor-island-death to deep\nprinciples developed by Christian Kabbalists (yes, there have been\nsome!) based on reordering the names of the Persons of the Trinity.\nOther critics have preferred to infer that the ever-fertile\nimagination of Gene Wolfe had just moved on, or that he gave the\nmissing titles to stories that were rejected (either by editors, or\nby comparison with the author's own notoriously high standards).\n\nNow, at last, Wolfe himself supplies the missing pieces of the\npuzzle. His new collection _Isolating Insulation, Doctor Death in\nPurr-Mutation!_ not only delivers the two entirely new novelettes\n\"Island of the Death Doctor\" and \"The Doctor's Island Death\", but\nalso indulges the author's bent for frame stories by including new\nversions of the pre-existing four works as is \"edited\" jointly by the\nengaging felines Mani (from _The Wizard Knight_) and G. Gordon Kitty\n(from _Castleview_).\n\nThese editorial changes constitute the \"purr-mutations\" of the title,\nas Wolfe deadpans in his brief introductory remarks in his own\nliterary persona. The changes, however, are minor in themselves:\nmost notable is the subsitution of felines for primates in \"The Death\nof Dr. Island\". As so often with this tricksy author, deeper\nmeanings emerge from an accumulation of hints, here hidden in Gordon\nand Mani's commentaries on the six stories.\n\nTHe commentaries, each written in one of the cats' first-person\nvoice, are all dated within a two-week period in the spring of an\nunspecified year. The last commentary, in the voice of G. Gordon\nKitty, casually mentions \"going over to my owner's in-laws for\nPassover\" before trailing off into an agitated and incoherent tirade.\nThe Gene Wolfe voice then returns in an afterword to say that,\nhowever distasteful it may appear to the reader, the last piece is\nincluded in the hopes of assisting the authorities in solving the\nrecent bloody killing of an ordinary Jewish family at their Seder in\na suburb of Chicago.\n\nReaders are left on their own to reflect that the Passover Seder,\nwhich occurs on a fixed date according to the lunar calendar used in\nJudaism, always takes place on the full moon, and that a plausible\nexplanation for the carnage alluded to is that old Wolfean favorite,\nlycanthropy (or the feline equivalent) on the part of G. Gordon\nKitty. \"Purr-mutation\" indeed.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370704011640s556fc89ayaa630857e52e0b56@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-04-01T23:40:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Review: upcoming Wolfe anthology", "in_reply_to": "<6745.67.142.130.42.1175469516.squirrel@brunians.org>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And a very happy 1 April to you, too, Dan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/1/07, Dan Rabin wrote:\nI just thought the folks on this list might be interested in the\nfollowing review of mine that was just accepted by the online jounral\n_SF Silicon Valley_ concerning Wolfe's upcoming anthology.\n\n -- Dan Rabin\n\n-----------------------\n\nLong-time fans of Gene Wolfe's shorter fiction will remember with\ndelight a trio of thematically-unrelated stories having similar\ntitles: \"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\", \"The Death of\nDr. Island\", and \"The Doctor of Death Island\". The three works, all\ncollected in _The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other\nStories_, were joined in a long-unavailable volume appropriately\nentitled _The Wolfe Archipelago_ by a fourth permutated title: \"Death\nof the Island Doctor\".\n\nScholars of high-school algebra among Wolfe's readers have often\nnoted, however, that the words \"island\", \"doctor\", and \"death\" can be\npermuted in _six_ ways, not merely four. Some, assuming the author's\napparent omission to be intentional, have ascribed the absence of the\norderings island-death-doctor and doctor-island-death to deep\nprinciples developed by Christian Kabbalists (yes, there have been\nsome!) based on reordering the names of the Persons of the Trinity.\nOther critics have preferred to infer that the ever-fertile\nimagination of Gene Wolfe had just moved on, or that he gave the\nmissing titles to stories that were rejected (either by editors, or\nby comparison with the author's own notoriously high standards).\n\nNow, at last, Wolfe himself supplies the missing pieces of the\npuzzle. His new collection _Isolating Insulation, Doctor Death in\nPurr-Mutation!_ not only delivers the two entirely new novelettes\n\"Island of the Death Doctor\" and \"The Doctor's Island Death\", but\nalso indulges the author's bent for frame stories by including new\nversions of the pre-existing four works as is \"edited\" jointly by the\nengaging felines Mani (from _The Wizard Knight_) and G. Gordon Kitty\n(from _Castleview_).\n\nThese editorial changes constitute the \"purr-mutations\" of the title,\nas Wolfe deadpans in his brief introductory remarks in his own\nliterary persona. The changes, however, are minor in themselves:\nmost notable is the subsitution of felines for primates in \"The Death\nof Dr. Island\". As so often with this tricksy author, deeper\nmeanings emerge from an accumulation of hints, here hidden in Gordon\nand Mani's commentaries on the six stories.\n\nTHe commentaries, each written in one of the cats' first-person\nvoice, are all dated within a two-week period in the spring of an\nunspecified year. The last commentary, in the voice of G. Gordon\nKitty, casually mentions \"going over to my owner's in-laws for\nPassover\" before trailing off into an agitated and incoherent tirade.\nThe Gene Wolfe voice then returns in an afterword to say that,\nhowever distasteful it may appear to the reader, the last piece is\nincluded in the hopes of assisting the authorities in solving the\nrecent bloody killing of an ordinary Jewish family at their Seder in\na suburb of Chicago.\n\nReaders are left on their own to reflect that the Passover Seder,\nwhich occurs on a fixed date according to the lunar calendar used in\nJudaism, always takes place on the full moon, and that a plausible\nexplanation for the carnage alluded to is that old Wolfean favorite,\nlycanthropy (or the feline equivalent) on the part of G. Gordon\nKitty. \"Purr-mutation\" indeed.\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }