Gene Wolfe Books

Nancy Lebovitz · 21 Nov 2005, 14:53 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2005.mbox

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From: nancyl at panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe Books
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:53:20 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <dlsn0v$gi7$1 at reader2.panix.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <2dkgf.27307$rc7.1415 at fe12.lga> <dlslhc$rd$1 at reader2.panix.com> <rZkgf.1264$Jq4.1034 at fe09.lga>

In article <rZkgf.1264$Jq4.1034 at fe09.lga>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <eleeper at optonline.net> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>> In article <2dkgf.27307$rc7.1415 at fe12.lga>,
>> Evelyn C. Leeper <eleeper at optonline.net> wrote:
>> 
>>>Assume one has the following books by Gene Wolfe and is trying to trim 
>>>down one's collection:
>>>	Book of the New Sun (4 vols.)
>>>	Devil in a Forest
>>>	Fifth Head of Cerberus
>>>	Nightside the Long Sun
>>>	Soldier of the Mist
>>>	Urth of the New Sun
>>>
>>>Which would people say are his major works and which could be gotten rid 
>>>of?  (Yes, I know some will say "keep everything", but that way lies 
>>>madness.)
>> 
>> 
>> Do I gather you haven't read some or all of them so that you aren't sure
>> what you'd want to reread or refer to?
>
>Correct.  I think the only Wolfe I have read are short stories (those 
>collections I will keep).
>
>My initial implulse is to keep BotS and get rid of the rest.  (We have 
>reached a point when we are really trying to at least hold the line on 
>the book volume in the house.  This concept is, of course, a whole 
>nother thread.  As are infixes.)

For what it's worth, BotNS is the only one on the list I'm enthusiastic
about, but I'm not a huge Wolfe fan and I haven't read all of them. You
might want to keep Urth of the New Sun since it's a sequel.

I recommend going with your impulse--used copies of reasonably common sf 
books are cheap and easy to get these days, and I suspect they're going to
get cheaper for a while --you're not the only person who feels a need to
declutter. 
-- 
Nancy Lebovitz     http://www.nancybuttons.com  
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov

My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".

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