Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe"s "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

From: Jerry Leichter <leichter at yale-com.uucp>
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 1983 16:04:20 +0000

"The Fifth Head of Cerebrus" consists of three stories, each of which could
more or less stand alone - the second, with the same title as the book, was
originally published as a novella.  (I read it in one of Terry Carr's collec-
tions; I don't know where else it might have appeared.)  The stories take
place on one of two twin colony worlds; their common thread is a single charac-
ter, a visiting Earch scientist, who is an incidental character in the first
story - come to think of it, I guess THAT's the previously published one, the
narrator of the second (which is actually a re-telling of a myth told by the
conjectural (? - but the reason for the "?" is deep in the story) native
residents of one of the planets, and the central character in the third.

The book develops slowly.  If you really want to get the absolute most out of
the first story, read it a little bit at a time over a matter of a couple of
days.

Overall, it's a marvelous book.  It's beautifully written, much of it being in
Wolfe's typical "take some hackneyed style and do something totally unexpected
with it".  Thus, the first story is very much in the Gothic tradition - terrible
family secret, etc.

By all means, give it a read.
							-- Jerry