Gene Wolfe's "Ziggurat"

John Boston · 02 May 1996, 23:54 · from sf-lovers.1996.mbox

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From: jboston at delphi.com (John Boston)
Subject: Gene Wolfe's "Ziggurat"
Date: 2 May 1996 23:54:03 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v21-177-8 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V21 #177
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-21a

A few days ago someone wondered why this novella wasn't nominated for
the Hugo.  After reading it, so do I.  It is one of the best Wolfe pieces I
have read in a long time, on a place with his best novellas of the 70s and
early 80s ("The Death of Doctor Island," "Seven American Nights," etc.):
beautifully written, beautifully characterized, plain and straightforward
on top and disturbingly ambiguous underneath.  It was originally in FULL
SPECTRUM 5; I just read it in David Hartwell's YEAR'S BEST SF, and it makes
most of the other contents seem like, gee, I don't know, like a bunch of
goddamn pulp fiction or something.

John Boston

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