_There are Doors_ Gene Wolfe

Lucy Kemnitzer · 23 Nov 2000, 02:49 · from sf-lovers.2000.mbox

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From: ritaxis at cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
Subject: _There are Doors_ Gene Wolfe
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 02:49:48 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v25-104-6 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V25 #104
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-25

I keep seeing Gene Wolfe discussions here, so I keep trying Gene Wolfe.

Usually I bump into pieces out of some immense series (is it _Long Sun_ or
_New Sun_ or both?) and I don't even bring them home. I brought home _Free
Live Free_ and I was interested but it was slow going and I didn't finish
it before it was due.  So I brought it home again, and also _There Are
Doors_.

This is a book I definitely should have read when I was a kid, when I was
gobbling up Saki and H G Wells's short stories.  It has just that feel -
or oh, Dunsany or Walter de la Mare: mysterious other worlds you find doors
into, ineffable longing, did I say mystery?  Unresolved.

I read the whole thing.  The writing is very fine.  But.

Nowdays I am a prosaic old lady and while I don't demand a neatly finished
story, I want the premise to be sensical and real.  Ineffable longing can
get me started, but that's all.

Lucy Kemnitzer

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