Urth Net
The Waif, A Traveler, and Shields of Mars
Various notes about GW short stories:
I was asked for my comments on "The Waif"--well, this
is what I said in the February LOCUS:
"...Decidedly more weighty is “The Waif” by Gene
Wolfe, that author at his magnificent subtle best, a
tale of superstition and religious repression in a
rustic post-holocaust community. A young boy acquires
a doppelganger from among a transcendent branch of
humanity that might as well be the Fairy Folk; he is
persecuted; and the final intersection of two worlds
is deeply shocking, part of an acute critical take on
faith that is doubly interesting coming from such a
resolutely religious writer."
Wolfe has a new story in the anthology MARS PROBES
(DAW, June, ed Pete Crowther.) Gene's own description:
5 quoted lines
The MARS PROBES story is "Shields of Mars."
It's about a human and an
alien who have grown up together and are the last
workers at an air plant in
a remote location that is about to be shut down.
And a final point: I've just read a little-known Wolfe
story, "A Traveler in Desert Lands", which appeared in
2000 in a limited edition anthology of stories set in
Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. It's very good indeed,
a sort of alternate take on the analeptic alzabo
notion fom NEW SUN. A wandering ne'er-do-well enters a
necropolis inhabited by people who are either ghoulish
or ghouls indeed, and becomes ensorcelled. The
conclusion is shocking, very well executed. A
question: does anyone know in what language "Mahes"
might mean "golden lion"? And how it might pair with
the Greek "Endymion"?
--Nick Gevers.