Pandora/Gene Wolfe

seth alan tisue · 12 Feb 1991, 03:17 · from sf-lovers.1991.mbox

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From: tisu at quads.uchicago.edu (seth alan tisue)
Subject: Re: Pandora/Gene Wolfe
Date: 12 Feb 91 03:17:40 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v16-53-7 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V16 #53
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-16a

bairds at eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Shawn L. Baird) writes:
>_Soldier of the Mist_ is an excellent book, one of my favorite Gene Wolfe
>novels. I didn't find _Soldier of Arete_ as pleasurable, unfortunately. As
>far as short stories go, you can't beat _The Death of Doctor Island and
>Other Stories and Other Stories_ or his rather new anthology _Endangered
>Species_.

I FINALLY found a copy of TDoDIaOS after literally years of looking.  Dug
it up in a used bookstore.  I think it went out of print due to the demise
of Pocket's SF line in the early eighties.  I enjoyed _Endangered Species_
quite a bit, although I don't think any of Wolfe's stories match any of his
novels.  This is probably just a personal preference I have for novels in
almost all cases.  If I thought about for a while I might be able to argue
that his talents are more suited to novel-length work.

>   I must say that I feel that one of the prerequisites for being a Gene
>Wolfe fan is being able to take a sort of surreal outlook on life and, in
>fact, one has to wonder sometimes if these stories aren't associated with
>hallucinogens or some such. Sometimes, I almost feel like I'm full of
>hallucinogens because it all gets so weird.

I strongly doubt that Wolfe takes drugs.  From what I've read I've gotten
the impression that he's straight as can be; Korean war veteran and editor
of a plant engineering magazine.  (Then again, at least one prospective
Supreme Court justice smoked pot in the sixties.)

Seth Tisue
University of Chicago                              
P.O. Box 5975

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