The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe

Richard Horton · 02 Mar 2004, 04:21 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2004.mbox

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From: Richard Horton <rrhorton at prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 04:21:22 GMT
Message-ID: <6ZT0c.20551$aH.16733 at newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <Xns949D9FE6F929Difyouwanttoemailvisi at 199.45.49.11> <c21d3ba0.0402290659.37671483 at posting.google.com> <+tv*P4jeq at news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> <394d822b.0402291845.58775386 at posting.google.com> <pQg*U8leq at news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> <pBG0c.19521$vm6.9205 at newssvr31.news.prodigy.com> <404405d0$0$28274$cc9e4d1f at news.dial.pipex.com>

On 02 Mar 2004 03:56:00 GMT, David Kennedy <dave at dkennedy.org> wrote:

>Richard Horton <rrhorton at prodigy.net> wrote:
>> [Cecelia] Holland [h]as also written one unambiguous SF novel: _Floating Worlds_,
>> from 1975 or so, set in a future in which the Solar System is pretty
>> much fully colonized, and Earth is something of a backwater.  An Earth
>> woman gets involved in the rather gothic politics of some heavy planet
>> folks.  I liked it a lot, thought it read very much like Historical
>> Fiction.  It was nominated for a Nebula but Holland withdrew the
>> nomination in favor of the paperback edition, with then did not get
>> nominated.
>
>It's still in print as I bought the bright yellow Gollancz edition
>just over a year ago.  I bounced off it hard. I gave it another
>month or so, then had another go before deciding that while
>many people like this novel, I'm not one of them.

I will say that I read it back then, when I was 16 or so, and not
since.  A couple of years later, my then girlfriend, also an SF fan*,
remarked only slightly caustically that much of my enjoyment probably
stemmed from a certain scene towards the middle.  (The main character
has been made a concubine of one of the heavy planet rulers.  (I can't
remember which planet.)  She takes the opportunity to initiate another
concubine into, well, the pleasures available to the concubines who
aren't currently in their master's bed.)

*(This woman was a bookstore manager.  She used her authority to keep
copies of Gene Wolfe's _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ on the shelves of
her bookstore, which happened to be quite close to Barrington, IL,
well past the date when it should have been stripped.  One day she
noticed a middle aged man browsing the book, with, as she put it,
great emotion -- tears even.  The man was Gene Wolfe.)

-- 
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton at sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)

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