Gene Wolfe News and Rumors Logged by Paul Duggan
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
According to io9.com, you can collaborate with Neil Gaiman on a novel via TwitterToday at noon EST (that's 9am Pacific time), Gaiman will begin an exquisite corpse story on the BBC Audiobooks America Twitter account with a single tweet. Other Twitter users can then contribute to the story with their own tweets (all tweets must include @BBCAA and #bbcawdio, cutting into those precious 140 characters). Once the tale reaches 1000 tweets, the BBC editors will edit it into a (hopefully) coherent story. An audio version of the story will be made available in the iTunes store for free.It has begun!
posted by pduggie 12:21 PM | leave a comment |
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Sorcerer's House
is forthcoming in March of 2010, according to Amazon. You can pre-order it at the link. According to Risingshadow.net it is an epistolary novel
about a confidence man who is released from jail and goes to buy an old house in the country, offering to do the work of renovating it in exchange for a deal on the price. His offer is accepted in accordance with the will left by the former owner, a dead sorcerer, a will which mentions the man by name.
posted by pduggie 7:24 PM | leave a comment | Gene Wolfe will be a guest at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA, September 4-7.
posted by pduggie 4:35 PM | leave a comment |
Friday, July 17, 2009
A detailed an interesting article by Carlo Rotella about the influence and work of Jack Vance is in the New York Times
No mention of Wolfe though.
What is mentioned is Songs of the Dying Earth
Also arriving in bookstores this month is “Songs of the Dying Earth,” a collection of stories by other writers set in the far-future milieu that Vance introduced in some of his first published stories, which he wrote on a clipboard on the deck of a freighter in the South Pacific while serving in the merchant marine during World War II. The roster of contributors to the collection includes genre stars and best-selling brand names, among them Simmons, Neil Gaiman, Terry Dowling, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin and Dean Koontz. It’s a literary tribute album, in effect, on which reliable earners acknowledge the influence of a respectably semiobscure national treasure by covering his songs.Looking forward to it.
posted by pduggie 4:02 PM | leave a comment |
Monday, July 13, 2009
Mike Mearls, a D&D 4th Edition designer, comments on the literary inspiration for some of the new classes and mechanicsAvenger: Ripping aside the ethereal nature of Wolf's Book of the New Sun and treating it as a comic book of sorts, Severian the torturer was a major influence on this class's initial feel and direction. Obviously its divine roots steered in a different direction, but I can easily see playing an avenger based on fantasy's most famous torturer.
posted by pduggie 1:35 PM | leave a comment |
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Internet Review of Science Fiction has put up an article by Michael Andre-Driussi: What Gene Wolfe Expects of His Readers. He discusses how Urth of the New Sun makes clear some of the mysteries that the original tetralogy left concealed.Michael Andre-Driussi is the author of the Lexicon Urthus, an excellent guide to the New Sun books. The Lexicon is now in a new edition.
posted by pduggie 10:16 AM | leave a comment |
Thursday, March 26, 2009
At the National Review Online, John J Miller interviews Gene Wolfe about The Best of Gene Wolfe
, a new collection of some of Wolfe's best short stories. “Petting Zoo,” “The Tree Is My Hat,” “The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories,” “The Hero as Werewolf,” “Seven American Nights,” “Westwind,” “The Detective of Dreams,” and “A Cabin on the Coast” are among the stories.posted by pduggie 9:35 AM | leave a comment |
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
XKCDs latest comic Fiction Rule of Thumb implies "Book of the New Sun for the Win!" at least.posted by pduggie 10:56 AM | leave a comment |
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Amazon is listing The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction as a hardcover release from Tor books in March of 2009.The Tor Spring catalog says
From a literary perspective, this will certainly be the best collection of the year in science fiction and fantasy. Gene Wolfe, of whom the Washington Post said, "Of all SF writers currently active none is held in higher esteem," has selected the short fiction he considers his finest into one volume. There are many award winners and many that have been selected for various Year's Best anthologies among the thirty-one stories, which include:"Petting Zoo," "The Tree Is My Hat," "The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories," "The Hero as Werewolf," "Seven American Nights," "The Fifth Head of Cerberus," "The Detective of Dreams," and "A Cabin on the Coast."You can preorder it at the link.
Gene Wolfe has produced possibly the finest and most significant body of short fiction in the SF and fantasy field in the last fifty years, and is certainly among the greatest living writers to emerge from the genres.
This is the first retrospective collection of his entire career.
It is for the ages.
posted by pduggie 6:42 PM | leave a comment |
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The anthology of stories inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series was mentioned a while back. The editors are George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.It seems the Hardcover edition from Subterranean Press
is up for pre-order on Amazon.com, with a December 10, 2008 release date (click the link). That release date may be somewhat optimistic.The product page at Subterranean Press provides more details on the book, including cover art by Tom Kidd and interior art (by Charles Vess, I think)
My thanks to anyone who pre-orders it from Amazon, as your purchases help support the site.
posted by pduggie 3:58 PM | leave a comment |
Friday, August 08, 2008
Today I discovered the following:- A Wolfe Wiki
- Another Wolfe blogger (Hoof & Hide)
- Japanese editions of Wolfe covers. Also see this.
Update: Like Hoof and Hide's comprehensive gallery of Wolfe covers. Very nice. I like the Japanese one for Island of Doctor Death.
posted by pduggie 12:56 PM | leave a comment |
Monday, August 04, 2008
Clarkesworld Magazine published an Interview with Gene Wolfe by Jeremy L. C. Jones. Lots of comment on writing, revision, and the teaching of writing.posted by pduggie 9:39 PM | leave a comment |
Monday, July 14, 2008
Michael Andre-Driussi informs me that the Lexicon Urthus, Second Edition
, the wonderful reference to Gene Wolfe' Urth series is forthcoming soonI am pleased to announce that on August 1, 2008, the Second Edition of Lexicon Urthus will go on sale.Apparently the book will have an introduction by Wolfe.
Hardcover: $39.95
Paperback:$19.95 (the current Amazon price of $29.95 is wrong and we're fixing it)
Specifications: 440 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 20 b/w illustrations, 10 maps, 24 tables
This is a print on demand book, available through Amazon.com and through us directly, but Amazon will almost certainly offer a discount and we're not doing that yet. We expect most sales to be through Amazon and specialty bookstores, but since there are cases where Amazon might not reach a country or something, we offer to try and fill those orders.
posted by pduggie 2:52 PM | leave a comment |
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Charlie Jane Anders writes of 7 Reasons Why Scifi Book Series Outstay Their Welcomes at io9.com. Under the category of "the need to explain the meaning of everything, Wolfe crops upAnother example: Gene Wolfe's Urth Of The New Sun series, which is a five-book follow-up [sic] to the four-book Book Of The New Sun series. In the Urth books, Wolfe tries to tie everything from the first series together, while throwing in a lot of mystical ideas, including kabbalah.
Clearly theres a small boo-boo there in terms of Urth's size. It's one book.posted by pduggie 10:41 PM | leave a comment |
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Centipede Press, publisher of high-end, pricey illustrated limited editions of famous SF and Horror works (along with artbooks), is publishing a high-end, pricey ($225) limited (300 copies) edition of Shadow of the Torturer. Their single image web page about the book is viewable, and they appear to be taking orders.Cloth - Printed on 100# Mohawk Superfine. Bound in suedel luxe cloth, with seven full color illustrations and a map with a cloth covered slipcase.They state it will have seven illustrations by Alexander Preuss, whose website I've linked to previously. You can see some new New Sun related illustrations by the artist currently, including a map of sorts. It looks like the artists site is a fair preview of the illustrations to be included in the limited edition.
The Centipede Press Site image says that the full set of all four books will be available in "Spring of 2008", but that the Shadow of the Torturer would be available in "August". I can only assume, since the Millipede Press site that is actually taking the orders (millipede and centipede are the same company) says that only Shadow is available, that we may not be getting the full set of all the books for a while longer.
posted by pduggie 10:19 PM | leave a comment |
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Amazon lists Wolfe's forthcoming Lovecraftian novel An Evil Guest as forthcoming in September. You can pre-order the book by clicking on the link, which takes you to Amazon.com. Neil Gaiman commented on this earlier. Nick Gevers, who is reading an advanced copy says of its style:
It's third person, near-future, which squares with "Memorare", and shapeshifters appear to be involved.
posted by pduggie 3:51 PM | leave a comment |
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
It seems that the long out-of-print Lexicon Urthus may be due for a second edition. The publisher is taking email addresses to be notified of its publication at the Sirius Fiction Home Pageposted by pduggie 9:01 PM | leave a comment |
Monday, February 18, 2008
Tor Books to offer social networking, original short fiction and nonfiction online.Tor is Wolfe's publisher, but no mention of Wolfe's involvement.
The first free books for signup
Our next free book is Old Man's War by John Scalzi, 2006's winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Next week, Through Wolf's Eyes by Jane Lindskold.
posted by pduggie 8:51 PM | leave a comment |
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Gene Wolfe will be appearing on several panels at Capricon, a pirate-themed con February 14-17, in Arlington Heights, Illinois.posted by pduggie 8:08 PM | leave a comment |
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Easter Sunday, is a straightforward religious short by Wolfe.Or...is it?
posted by pduggie 3:17 PM | leave a comment |
