Endangered Species: Short Stories

by Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe, whose tetralogy The Book of the New Sun was the most acclaimed science fiction work of the 1980s, offered his second collection of short fiction in 1990 to universal acclaim.

Endangered Species is a hefty volume of over 30 unforgettable stories in a variety of genres-- SF, fantasy, horror, mainstream-many of them offering variations on themes and situations found in folklore and fairy tales, and including two stories, "The Cat" and "The Map," which are set in the universe of his New Sun novels. Wolfe's deconstructions/reconstructions are provocative, multilayered, and resonant.

This embarrassment of literary riches is a must for all Gene Wolfe fans, and anyone who loves a good tale beautifully told.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Collections, Horror

512 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1989

About the author

Gene Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He was a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.’ Wolfe joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as Connie Willis, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013.

While attending Texas A&M University Wolfe published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year, and was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He edited the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato crisps. He lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

A frequent Hugo nominee without a win, Wolfe has nevertheless picked up several Nebula and Locus Awards, among others, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He is also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endangered Species is an incredibly diverse collection of short stories going from child’s fantasies to exotic science fiction. And the majority of the tales are very original and written beautifully.
In the House of Gingerbread begins in quite an enticing way…

The woodcutter came up the walk, and the ornate old house watched him through venetian-blinded eyes. He wore a red-brown tweed suit; his unmarked car was at the curb. The house felt his feet on its porch, his quick knock at its door. It wondered how he had driven along the path through the trees. The witch would split his bones to get the marrow; it would tell the witch.

I especially enjoyed all sorts of macabre stories and extravagant fantasies based on legends, folklore and fairytales.
The Detective of Dreams is a noir fantasy of many fantastic colours…

He leaned forward and grasped my hand with a warmth of feeling that was, I believe, very foreign to his usual nature. “Find and destroy the Dream-Master,” he said, “and you shall sit upon a chair of gold, if that is your wish, and eat from a table of gold as well. When will you come to our country?”

Gene Wolfe’s unpredictable rendering of The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale is a true gem of storytelling…

Since that day, most of its blossoms have been crimson – the hue of old blood. But once in each year, always at the full of the last moon of summer, the bush bears a white rose spotted and dotted everywhere with scarlet; and it is said that he who picks that rose may choose any love he wishes for so long as the rose remains unwithered, and hold her forever.

The world is an endless labyrinth of enigma and moving through the unreal we cognize reality.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would question anyone who reads this whole book and fails to rate it 5 stars. What are you looking for in fiction? Sophisticated characters, complex subtexts, compulsively readable science fiction themes, lighthearted fantasy, excellent world-building, truly immaculate imagery, well-defined dramatic scenes, a huge variety of motifs, atmosphere and tense dichotomies? The list could go on and on. Stretched over 500 pages, this more than generous helping of Genius Wolfe is enough to satisfy anyone.

In 34 stories, Wolfe displays his brilliance on several levels. His usual fascination with ghosts runs through many stories, including a breathtaking traditional literary ghost story and a space opera that plays out as effectively as George R. R. Martin's Nightflyers. Many of the stories are long and incredibly engaging. Each has unexpected twists and mesmerizing, subliminal suggestions. I was bowled over by the completely convincing Dickens homage. There is also a ghost story that read like a Somerset Maugham tale. There were a few interconnected stories related to the Solar Cycle and the mythology of Thag. You will encounter anthropophagi and anti-matter entities, robots and rampaging unicorns, post-apocalyptic struggles and straightforward insurance fraud. There have been stories of synthetic human war machines and interdimensional battles with magical creatures before, but no one tells them quite like Wolfe. I was enchanted by the Arabesque and moved by the many interlaced storytelling elements throughout. This work represents a career well-realized and a talent well-developed.

Wolfe has an expert's understanding of science fiction's underpinnings, and displays them by incorporating microuniverses, macro DNA strands and genetic modifications. He ropes in traditional fantasy storytelling, epic space action, and parodies. His work is known for allegory and Biblical themes, and many can be found herein. Yet, it is not easy to pinpoint some of his references, and true to form, he leaves many pieces and strings for the reader to work out upon reflection. Speculation is part of the fun, whether a character's existence is called into question, or the reader must doubt another character's perception or sanity, this is part of the process of digesting these vivid creations and deriving the every bit of intellectual stimulation out of them as you can. Like all of his stories I've read so far, I think I'll be revisiting this collection.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to Endangered Species with decades of bias. I've been a Gene Wolfe fanatic since college, when I first read The Book of the New Sun. Since then I've read nearly everything the man has written. I've met him several times, and enjoyed his company immensely. I've actually gone in Wolfe-themed costume to a ball, and spent a while on the Urth email list.

So I'm a fan, yes. Predisposed to read Endangered Species' stories with awe and attention.

I've had this tome for years, and have been saving it up. This summer I brought it to bed with me, intending to read one story a night. And that worked well for a while, until I couldn't hold back and devoted more daylight to reading faster.

I've actually read at least half of these stories before, in various locations: Weird Tales, Orbits (I read every one I could find), various other anthologies. (I may have read some as a child, when I was reading every sf collection I could get my hands on, and been to mystified to remember) So there's the extra pleasure of rediscovering tales, along with their associated memories. (Reading one the bookstore I worked at, my friend L__ reading me another out loud...)

In this review I'm not going to say anything more about Wolfe's other writing. That's really too large a topic, and I want instead to focus on the stories here.

Gene Wolfe's stories are sneaky, slippery gems. His prose style is usually plain and direct, which makes the many misdirections and allusions even more frustrating and attractive. He avoids giving the reader background information, avoiding exposition more fiercely than just about any other writer I can think of. He plunges us into the action and setting in a way that's more direct and also alienating, forcing us to do the detective work of noticing and assembling clues. Wolfe plots steal in around the corners of dialog, barely glimpsed, then leaping into action before suddenly ending or withdrawing.

His stories remind me of the films of the great Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky, who also avoided traditional plotting. The two also share a deep religious conviction, that they sometimes cloak.

Endangered Species is not a best-of collection. Some of the stories are interesting for the Wolfe completist, or for scholars studying his development. Many are excellent, and include his best.

The stories span a huge range of genres and influences. Here Wolfe does Arabian nights, Dickens, space opera, pulp thriller, Poe, fantasy, comedy, myth, R.A. Lafferty, war. They are all fantasies in the classic, pre-Tolkien sense of imaginative twists on what we think of as the real world.

They were published throughout Wolfe's career, especially the 60s and 70s, up through the late 1980s. They don't connect closely with stories by other authors, standing somewhat apart from genre history.

To the individual stories: I won't explore each one at length, just the ones that especially moved me.

"A Cabin on the Coast" - a lovely mashup of American political family narrative with fairie story, with quite a sting in the tale.

"The Map", "The God and His Man", "The Cat" - nice fantasies from the Book of the New Sun's world.

"Kevin Malone" - a haunting, but one where a house owns a person.

"The Dark of the June", "The Death of Hyle", "From the Notebook of Dr Stein", and "Thag" are all parts of the same tale, and some of my favorite Wolfe stories. There are very cryptic and dream-like stories, based on the premise of an invention that's never been copied by other writers, to my knowledge. People can... exit this world, gradually, bouncing back and forth from our reality to something like a ghost state, sometimes inhabiting other people's bodies. Each story approaches this concept from a different angle, often with the same characters, but some varying perspectives. These are deeply moving glimpses of loss, murder, and suicide, but their emotional power lurks just beneath the surface. Here Wolfe comes closest to Borges.

Dream-like: "Death" especially has rich, dense paragraphs. Let me pull out a chunk of one:

I knew that I had lived my life among the shadows of shadows, that I had worked for money as I might have labored for fernseed, and spent my gains for watermarks on paper, paper in a picture, the picture in a book seen lying open in a projection from a lens about to crack in an empty room of a vacant house. I stood up then and tried to rub my eyes and found that I saw through my own hands, and that they possessed personalities of their own, so that it was as though I nuzzled two friends, the left quick and strong, the right weaker, withdrawn, and a little dull. I saw a man - myself, I might as well admit, now that he was myself - leave the room, walking through the misty wall and up into the sky as though he were climbing a hall: he turned toward me my own face cruel as a shark's, then threw it at me. I ducked and ran, lost at once until I met a tall, self-contained personage who was a tree, though I did not realize it until I had been with him for some time. (59-60)

"The Nebraskan and the Nereid" - a twist on the mythical creature meets the real world idea.

"In the House of Gingerbread" - another connection of fairy tale and the real world, but does not proceed like you might think.

"The Last Thrilling Wonder Story" - a postmodern romp wherein a writer sends a pulp hero into a two-fisted science adventure, and things don't work out as planned.

"House of Ancestors" -an ambitious but weaker, early (1968) story, about people exploring a Worlds-Fair-style giant model of a DNA molecule. Yet I love how the opening lines hurl us rapidly through invention and perspective:

The eye of the telescope looked upward giddy miles to where the last sphere, its sides pierced with yawning holes, swayed above the city. A treacher from Baton Rouge had paid her quarter, looked, and left a moment before. A man from Des Moines would come soon, but he would be too late. For a few seconds a figure stood at one of those holes; then another who struggled with him; then both were gone. (150)

"Our Neighbour by David Copperfield" - a Dickens pastische, told by that character about a strange man who stumbles into a devious moral investigation. I'm always surprised by this, how it starts in jovial homage, shifts into a kind of detective story, then morphs into science fiction of sorts (hypnosis), then becomes cruel, then desperate. Wolfe manages Dickens' emotional power but in a relatively very few words.

"When I Was Ming the Merciless" - one of my favorites, and not just because a dear friend read it aloud to me when I was in my 20s. Don't be put off by the goofy title. This is a riff on the Stanford prison experiments, a psychological/sociological experiment that goes very wrong. The narrator's voice is awesome and imperial, especially on rereading. The last few paragraphs are breathtaking.

"War Beneath the Tree" - a sinister fable about children's toys, a generation before the movie Toy Story.

"Eyebem" - about automation and obsolescence. I do admire that the opening line is "I am lying..." "The HORARS of War" is also about automation, this time in a Korean/Vietnam War setting, with a helping of Phil Dick. Here Wolfe explores well dehumanization of soldiers in war.

"The Detective of Dreams" - a 19th-century story about a French detective (either supposed to be, or inspired by Poe's Dupin) helping clients being visited in their dreams. I think the end is straight-up religion, but am not sure.

"The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus" and "The Woman the Unicorn Loved" share a world where we've figured out how to biologically engineer mythical creatures.

"The Peace Spy" - a too-fast Cold War thriller about defections.

"All the Hues of Hell" - a space adventure about three explorers trying to capture an alien life form. I'm reminded of the Disney Film The Black Hole, but don't let that dissuade you. This is a weird, powerful little gem.

"Procreation" - begins as tongue-in-cheek religious allegory as a scientist figures out how to create a tiny world in his office. Plenty of ho-ho jokes, like the two characters naming the world after themselves ("Gene" and "Sis", geddit?). But the tone shifts drastically in the second section, as cosmological issues get serious, and the third section takes up a nearly Ray Bradbury-like voice of wonder and lyricism. The whole thing's not even ten pages long.

"Lukora" - a science fiction setting which veers into folklore and myth, then back.

"Suzanne Delage" - an elegant, gentle fantasy, but you won't know it until the last lines.

"Sweet Forest Maid" - a very short midlife crisis story which ends on the verge of another one.

Lenor, then, had been disappointed by Love. She had (afterward) been disappinted by hate as well, and the experience had drained her for thirteen years, leaving her a women - a tastefully, an inexpensively, a sometimes not very neatly dressed woman - happy to arrive at her desk early every weekly morning... (368)

"The Other Dead Man" - a science fiction adventure where a spacecraft's crew tries to recover from an accident. Wolfe sketches the setting very, very lightly, forcing us to map it out and see the technology work; ditto the characters. Then things get Gothic.

"The Most Beautiful Woman on the World" - three men tell stories to each other, tall tales, each seeking to outdo the other. Feels a lot like R. A. Lafferty.

"The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It)" - an Arabian night's tale, or several.

"Silhouette" - a space adventure with strong religious overtones, concerning the first human exploration of a planet around another star. The Earth left behind is a wreck, and humanity there possibly extinct by the story's time, but the world ahead is disturbing, and the crew in a bad state. There's more exposition than in "The Other Dead Man", and more ambition. In lesser hands this could have been a novel. The end.... keeps making me reread the rest of it.

"The Headless Man", "Peritonitis", "My Book" - very silly, taking seriously goofy conceits.

...and I should stop. This review had sprawled out, and it's a big (516 pages) book. Go read it. Nibble one story at a time. Let each one reverberate in your mind, and be prepared to be mystified.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Especies en peligro’ (Endangered Species, 1989), del escritor estadounidense Gene Wolfe, es una antología que contiene treinta y cuatro relatos. Hay cuentos de ciencia ficción, de fantasía e incluso alguno de terror. Quien haya leído algo de este autor ya sabe que habrá un tanto por ciento de lo que narra que no le va a llegar, no por su complejidad, sino porque Wolfe se guarda información y a veces sus protagonistas son poco o nada fiables. Esto provoca la extrañeza mientras lees, y el decirte “hay algo que no estoy comprendiendo”. Pero bueno, cada lector es un mundo, y puede que esto me suceda solo a mí. Aunque hay que remarcar que esto sucede más en sus novelas que en sus relatos, como por ejemplo en su extraordinaria pentalogía de El Libro del Sol Nuevo.

La gran mayoría de cuentos me han gustado, pero he tenido que intercalar otras lecturas para no saturarme y poder disfrutarlos mejor. Me han gustado sobre todo ‘El hombre sin cabeza’, extraño e imaginativo, y ‘Guerra bajo el árbol’, mi favorito de la antología, donde se narra el conflicto que involucra a diversos juguetes.

Estos son los 34 relatos incluidos en ‘Especies en peligro’, junto a mis valoraciones:

-Una cabaña en la costa. (****)
-El mapa. (****)
-Kevin Malone. (***)
-El desaparecer de June. (***)
-La muerte de Hyle. (***)
-Del cuaderno de notas del doctor Stein. (***)
-Thag. (****)
-El hombre de Nebraska y la nereida. (****)
-La casita de mazapán. (****)
-El hombre sin cabeza. (*****)
-La última apasionante historia maravillosa. (***)
-La casa de los antepasados. (***)
-Nuestro vecino por David Copperfield. (****)
-Cuando yo era Ming el Cruel. (***)
-El dios y su hombre. (***)
-El gato. (***)
-Guerra bajo el árbol. (*****)
-Eyebem. (****)
-Los HOMOL de la guerra. (****)
-El detective de los sueños. (***)
-Peritonitis. (***)
-La mujer que amaba al centauro Pholus. (***)
-La mujer a la que el unicornio amaba. (***)
-Los espías de la paz. (***)
-Todos los colores del Infierno. (*)
-Procreación. (***)
-Lukora. (**)
-Suzanne Delage. (***)
-Dulce doncella del bosque. (**)
-Mi libro. (**)
-El otro hombre muerto. (****)
-La mujer más bella del mundo. (**)
-El cuento de la rosa y el ruiseñor (y lo que pasó). (***)
-Silueta. (*)

[Jaro]

A Cabin on the Coast (1981) 13/7-25 (3 stars)
The Map (1984)
Kevin Malone (1980) 11/7-25 (5 stars)
The Dark of the June (1974) 22/7-24 (4 stars)
The Death of Hyle (1974) 22-23/7-24 (4 stars)
From the Notebook of Dr. Stein (1974) 23/7-24 (4 stars)
Thag (1975) 23/7-24 (5 stars)
The Nebraskan and the Nereid (1985) 15/7-25 (4 stars)
In the House of Gingerbread (1987)
The Headless Man (1972) 21/7-24 (3 stars)
The Last Thrilling Wonder Story (1982)
House of Ancestors (1968) 24-25/8-23 (4 stars)
Our Neighbour by David Copperfield (1978) 11/7-25 (3 stars)
When I Was Ming the Merciless (1976) 11/7-25 (4 stars)
The God and His Man (1980) 14/7-25 (3 stars)
The Cat (1983) 14/7-25 (3 stars)
War beneath the Tree (1979)
Eyebem (1970) 16-17/2-24 (4 stars)
The Horars of War (1970) 19/7-24 (3 stars)
The Detective of Dreams (1980) 12/7-25 (5 stars)
Peritonitis (1973) 21/7-24 (3 stars)
The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus (1979) 11/7-25 (4 stars)
The Woman the Unicorn Loved (1981) 16/7-25 (3 stars)
The Peace Spy (1986)?
All the Hues of Hell (1987)
Procreation (1983, 1984) 15/7-25 (3 stars)
Lukora (1988) 15/7-25 (3 stars)
Suzanne Delage (1980) 11/7-25 (5 stars)
Sweet Forest Maid (1971) 22/2-24 (3 stars)
My Book (1983) 24/8-23 (4 stars)
The Other Dead Man (1987) 17/7-25 (3 stars)
The Most Beautiful Woman on the World (1987)
The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (1988)
Silhouette (1975) -13/7-25 (3 stars)

[Vanessa Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it can be very dangerous to give high praise to authors like Gene Wolfe. Fortunately, there aren't many authors like Gene Wolfe.

I believe the title Endangered Species is meant to refer to the short story form. I remember reading that somewhere but I can't remember where. I've had this collection of stories a long time. I've hung onto it in spite of throwing away hundreds upon hundreds of other books. So I think perhaps that Gene Wolfe himself is more of an endangered species than either his stories or the short story form.

The reason it's dangerous to praise him is that he is good in a way that few people ever can be. Seeing him praised, lesser writers might attempt to copy him. They would almost certainly copy the wrong things and write badly as a result.

One of his gifts is to do the unexpected thing. I don't mean he will give the story a twist at the end. I mean he will give the inspiration for the story a twist. And then perhaps another twist. Until he arrives at something sufficiently unusual to engage his imagination.

And then he will write out the story in his inimitably precise, pedantic and quirky style.

He can be meticulously literary and self-conscious at times, vain and yet somehow still startling, like the Salvador Dali of prose. But he can also be much more clever than this. He can write simply. He can put one word in front of another in exactly the right order in the most unpretentious and unstartling way, so as to convey the very clear sense of his extravagant and startling ideas.

These stories can be very challenging. When you start one, you never know what your are letting yourself in for. Anything could happen. It's like venturing into the unknown.

How brave are you feeling today?

[Kevin Lopez (on sabbatical) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I believe Gene Wolfe is not only one of the greatest SFF authors of all time, as well as the Melville of speculative fiction (an observation first made, I believe, by the late, equally great Ursula K. LeGuin), and also that he’s possibly even one of the greatest American writers the 20th century produced in any genre (and this, too, is an unoriginal opinion, one which has been given voice by others far more illustrious and qualified to opine on these matters than me), but despite my almost limitless reverence for Wolfe, I must admit that my primary motive in buying and reading this collection of Wolfe short stories was for the two short stories contained in the collection which are expansions of Wolfe’s undisputed masterpiece, the Book of the New Sun, which is both the epitome and the apogee of the genre which it did so much to develop and popularize and perfect: science fantasy. For any fans out there who haven’t yet had the unique pleasure of reading that work of genius, all I have to say is, “What the heck are you waiting for?!?”

Back to Endangered Species though, unfortunately I was disappointed, and not only by the stories which originally pulled me in (The Map, which features the character the character Eata from BotNS, and is the better of the two; and The Cat, a kind of ghost story told in the first-person by the elderly steward of Father Inire’s wing of the House Absolute, the Hypogeum Apotropaic.
In truth, I wasn’t much impressed by any of the stories in this collection, which is not only unfortunate but unexpected, as Wolfe has certainly shown himself to be more than capable of real genius in the art of shortform storytelling, which not all great novelists are (for some excellent Wolfean shorts, read The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, his best short story collection in my opinion, and which won a Nebula for best short story when it was published.)

So there it is. Definitely not worth it imo, not even if, like me, you’re mostly in it in the BotNS shorts—which, although good enough, fall far short of Wolfe’s capabilities—and, less important to me but still pertinent for BotNS fans, add little to nothing to the broader BotNS canon.

3 stars out of 5 (and that’s pretty generous imo!)
⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Sumant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another big collection from Wolfe where he explores all genres from sci-fi to fantasy, also Wolfe claims himself to be endangered species because he doesn't conform to norms regarding how short stories is to be written.

Wolfe writes his stories for the reader, and wants the reader to come back to them again and again, so that each time he gets something from the reading experience. He does not conform with the traditions of short stories where you have beginning, a middle section and finally a conclusion.

Almost all of his short stories start where in you are thrown in the middle of something, and it is left to the reader to interpret as to what is exactly happening, and what are the motivations for the characters in such a way.

Some of the stories which I can remember at the top of mind are

1.In the house of Gingerbread

This is an horror story, where the house plays the part of the monster, it is influencing and controlling the people living in it.

2.House of ancestors

How would you like to visit a museum which has a shape of DNA, also the whole museum has multiple floors where you are explained how evolution of humanity has happened through ages.

Also the whole museum is operated by an A.I. which captures your DNA when you enter the museum, and it also A.I. also develops a hologram of your ancestor, with which you can communicate while you traverse the museum.

I think this was my favorite story from the book, within this story all the characters were superbly developed, and their motivations were crystal clear.

3.Eyebem

Another story where you have a robot who is traveling with human being to far regions of earth, Wolfe always asks some serious questions to its readers regarding what it takes to be human.

I was reminded a lot of Bladerunner 2049 when reading this story, because I think the movie also asks us the same questions.

Really loved almost all the stories, but did not like the stories with which the book ended, that why I am giving it one star less.

4/5 stars and highly recommended read.

[Daniel Polansky]

hey, did you know I was a Gene Wolfe fan? Well, you're about to hear it again. This is not at all the best retrospective collection of Gene Wolfe's stories (not shockingly, that honor goes to self-selected The Best of Gene Wolfe), and if you are new to Wolfe's short fiction you are better off starting there. All the same this is very,very strong, with barely a misstep in five hundred pages. The plaintive stories are sad and wondrous, the scary stories are brutal and nasty, all the stories are strange, clever, and utterly unique.

[Michael O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection, the best of Wolfe's other than The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. A few are a bit predictable (rare for Wolfe), and a few show his Borges influence to the point of copycattery, but then there are others which are masterpieces of beauty, understatement, humor, horror and truth. I recommend "A Cabin on the Coast," "Eyebem," and "The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Became of It)." Especially the latter, one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read, which reads like a new entry in the Arabian Nights.

I'm a huge Wolfe fan, and I like his short stories because they are more manageable, if thereby less complex, than his novels. If you liked the New Sun series, I highly recommend this and his other collections for a new appreciation of the man's talents.

[Christopher McCaffery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of review I sometimes hate doing because the completest in me feels a burning need to comment on every single story in a collection . . . but there's more than thirty here! Either I do two words on each like some kind of literary speed dating event or I ramble on for a paragraph about each one and this becomes a kind of cautionary tale I never expected to star in.

Yet if there's any writer who deserves a close look at nearly everything he's done, its Gene Wolfe. He never sold books in such large numbers that he rolled down the street in a different Corvette every day but in terms of critical regard he was nearly untouchable. Few SF writers (or writers in general) were able to produce a consistent level of high quality work, on an ideas level, a pure writing level and a thematic level. You rarely read one of his novels simply for the story but for all the layers surrounding the story that were often more important than what was happening strictly on the page itself. His most famous work is probably "The Book of the New Sun" (which I need to reread at some point because it I read it at a point in my life where I no doubt missed half of what he was trying to do) but the nominal sequels "Book of the Long Sun" and "Book of the Short Sun" were among the richest SF works I had ever read, creating worlds and evocative shadows beyond the worlds themselves, works that required me to put in some effort that I felt was greatly rewarded.

Here in ShortStoryLand, that aesthetic isn't as apparent. Its not surprising because what Wolfe did in his longer works was let the mysteries and themes gradually overlay the story in succeeding sheets of gossamer, so subtle that you'd be deep into the story before you realize the tint of the terrain changed. This collection was originally published in 1989 so while he was still riding high on "New Sun" the later career peaks of the "Long Sun" and "Short Sun" series were yet to come and so the collection winds up being a mixture of styles but for the most part missing that sideways allure of maddening subtlety that I find marked the later stuff.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't Gene Wolfe laying it down straight and telling it like it is by any means. Most of the stories here are less than science-fictional, existing in a sort of magically surrealistic state not unlike a really mad fairy tale (opener "A Cabin on the Coast"), where peoples' lives interact with really strange forces that either we or they can't entirely comprehend, stumbling into the magic that exists at the very edges of the reality we know. Even in their shorter format, it can make for unsettling reading as the stories often leave you with a disquieting feeling, sketching an empty space where questions don't seem to belong because none of the answers are heartening. Those for me were the best stories here, and most of them come at the beginning where "Kevin Malone" and "Dark of the June" bring about events that have all the makings of a trauma, even if the shape of the bruise isn't exactly clear ("Dark of the June" in particular starts a run of linked tales that seem to act like nesting dolls, each one taking you deeper but obscuring the clarity you thought you had and replacing it with a different understanding).

Later on, we get tales like "The Nebraskan and the Nereid" and "In the House of the Gingerbread" that tinker with notions of folklore and myth, bringing them into the present day but still retaining an essential mystery. Whether working with entirely made-up stuff or delving into the shared tales of the past, this is the kind of thing that Wolfe often excelled at and it’s a shame we don't get more of that instead of stories that are the equivalent of him letting his hair down and having some fun. As decent as "The Headless Man" and "War Beneath the Tree" are, they do feel slight even compared to what's around them. And your mileage may vary in the stories where Wolfe plays with genre tropes, whether its "Our Neighbor by David Copperfield" (Dickens), "When I Was Ming The Merciless" (a cross between "Flash Gordon" and Burroughs' Mars) or whatever the heck is going on in "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story" (source: every pulp story ever) . . . you can admire the effort but some moments it feels like he's trying on different clothes to see how they fit.

Meanwhile, you get two more linked tales ("The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus" and "The Woman the Unicorn Loved") set in a world where myths have started to roam free thanks to science that actually make you wish he had done more with the idea. Which, aside from some scattered uncharcterizable works, leaves us with a bunch of SF tales that sometimes seems to depict what would have happened if Wolfe had decided to mimic M John Harrison more closely.

But first, two for the fans . . . both "The Map" and "The Cat" are set in the "New Sun" setting but seem to be tales happening after the main events or way, way, way off to the side and thus beyond Wolfe's penchant for using really bizarre words in that series, don't do too much to remind you of what made that series so good. But its nice to revisit, even briefly. After that we get into a series of tales set on spaceships that seem to start out nicely as typical genre tales before going sideways really quickly. Some ("Eyebem") are just somber tales set on other worlds while others like "The HORARS of War" come across as someone trying to pick apart the guts of one of those more militant Heinlein tales and cross it with something a bit more odd. Which is different than "All the Hues of Hell" which starts out as odd and then goes somewhere utterly sinister, as a spaceship crew has to contend with an evil force. Both prove that Wolfe wasn't capable of writing a "normal" SF story if he tried (and let's take a moment to note "Lukora" which has nothing normal about it at all, even if I'm not sure it works the way its supposed to). "The Other Dead Man" at times feels like "All the Hues of Hell" taken in a different direction (I mixed them up while writing this) but adds a bit more adventure and action to go along with the premise.

It all wraps up with "Silhouette", which at times feels a bit more conventional in its depiction of shiplife in space until you realize its his detailing of an insular culture slowly spinning off its axis under a decent amount of pressure that's doing most of the work at the margins and is perhaps telling the real story. Which is and was Wolfe in a nutshell . . . even across the various genres and styles, even across the timespan these stories were written in (most of the weaker tales are from earlier in his career, which at least proves he was human and had to keep working to get better at stuff like the rest of us) what he excelled at was teaching us how to react to the stories being told at the peripheries instead of what's in front of us, trained our eyes to study those sideways places without taking our eyes off the main action, fully aware that there may not be such a thing as a main action. Its all important, depending on how deeply you want to look. The real story perhaps is in the shadows cast, or even just the differences in the contours of the boundaries, what you expect versus what you finally realize is there. No matter what story of his I read I come out understanding that there is no such thing as an empty space, only a failure of perception. His best work isn't in here but its good enough that I would take a half dozen volumes just like it and still wish he'd found time for one more.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

"That’s what fantasy is—classical lit that’s still alive."

Wolfe's 1989 short story collection, "Endangered Species," collects several tales written around the time of his New Sun tetralogy (1980-1983). While Wolfe later in life was far more laconic in his writing, this period is Wolfe at his most prolix. That's not necessarily a bad thing (though the word implies as much), but it's often the hardest place/period for new readers to start.

Fortunately, this collection of stories remains accessible while still being a literary tease. We have temporally looping love stories ("A Cabin on the Coast"); midwestern boys and mermaids ("The Nebraskan and the Nereid"); a retelling of Hansel and Gretel that's somehow DARKER than the Brothers Grimm ("In the House of Gingerbread"); pseudo-android armies ("The HORARS of War"); mutinous spaceship zombies ("The Other Dead Man"); and a touching take on 1001 Arabian Nights ("The Tale of the Rose and the Nightengale").

There's less thematic cohesion in this collection than in some others, and that's ok. Persistent Wolfean themes of identity, memory, love (requited and otherwise), abound. There's less outright "horror" in this collection, though more than a couple tales have an unsettling quality about them. While a couple of the stories run overlong (the final offering: "Silhouette" being the main culprit) -- "Endangered Species" remains a beautifully written collection of tales from an amazing and multi-talented writer.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cabin on the Coast - 4
The Map - 4
Kevin Malone - 4
The Dark of the June - 4.5
The Death of Hyle - 5
From the Notebook of Dr. Stein - 4.5
Thag - 5
The Nebraskan and the Nereid - 4
In the House of Gingerbread - 4
The Headless Man - 4
The Last Thrilling Wonder Story - 3.5
House of Ancestors - 5
Our Neighbor by David Copperfield - 4.5
When I Was Ming the Merciless - 5
The God and His Man - 5
The Cat - 4.5
War Beneath the Tree - 4
Eyebem - 4
The HORARS of War - 5
The Detective of Dreams - 4.5
Peritonitis - 5
The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus - 4.5
The Woman the Unicorn Loved - 3.5
The Peace Spy - 4
All the Hues of Hell - 4
Procreation - 5
Lukora - 3
Suzanne Delage - 4
Sweet Forest Maid - 3
My Book - 3
The Other Dead Man - 3.5
The Most Beautiful Woman on the World - 4
The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale - 3.5
Silhouette - 4.5

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Offers a diverse cross-section of Wolfe's short fiction, and as such is inevitably a little variable - some stories will inevitably resonate with you more than others - but it's also a good summation of his different stylistic approaches over his first few decades as a writer. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 ⭐️

If you like love, death, & robots on Netflix you will like this book. Some of the stories were a bit dry but even if they were a bit hard to follow, they were still very original and his style of writing was a refreshing change of pace.

[Hobart Mariner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection, one I remember reading about 15 or 20 years ago and enjoying a lot then. Having now read the great majority of his work you can see some of these as studies for later novels, or just revisiting things that obsessed him throughout his career. Despite his often goofy good humor there's a mean, pessimistic, and conservative streak running through much of his work, one that I find harder to ignore as I get older. Also he is maybe typical for SF writers of his generation in his descriptions of women.

Possible SPOILERS below.

"Cabin on the Coast" A Kennedyseque political scion frolicking with his girlfriend. She is captured by a fairy ship and he must serve before their arcane mast to free her. Returns to find she is unchanged, but he has aged so much that he resembles his father. Resembles a Twilight Zone episode about astronauts, but becoming your own parent is a huge motif for GW (the Son and the Father are one, in the doctrine of the Trinity). Also the idea that time passes at different rates in different realms of existence is one of his go-to's, probably made most explicit in the Wizard-Knight. And of course, boats. Time, parents, boats

"The Map" Probably one of the stories most people would read the collection for, a sort of side-quest from the Book of the New Sun featuring one of the apprentice torturers as a boat captain. He ferries a wealthy optimate in possession of a treasure map down the Nessus to search the cannibal-sector for some relic. Boats, BotNS

"Kevin Malone" A nasty, wealthy couple, in need of money, accept a position living in a manor, pretending to be rich. It turns out the offspring of the servants (or is he?) has become a wealthy man and wants to simulate the way things were. Possession

"Death of the June"/"Death of Hyle"/"From the Notebook..."/"Thag": A four-part series about disembodied spirits traveling through time and even from the real to the fantastic realms. In the first, we are introduced to one of GW's dismal scenarios: people will go to clinics to have their spirit "de-naturalized" and projected into some pure ethereal realm. Here Harry Nailer tries to prevent his daughter June from using the service, to no avail. In the sequel, he joins her in the incorporeal realm, meeting some strangers from different eras (this reminiscent of the journey Severian goes in in Shadow of the Torturer). In "From the Notebook of Dr. Stein" one of the souls Harry and June meet is a troubled young woman in the early 20th century; GW lampoons psychoanalysis a bit here. Then in "Thag" there is a self-conscious, heavily Vancean fantasy realm in which the three preceding characters confront the trans-dimensional titular entity. Note: projection as a spirit into another world is a major part of the Book of the Short Sun.

"Nebraskan and the Nereid": Folkorist in Greece, lots of opportunity to show off little minutiae about Greek myth. Mention of the war between the Greeks and Persians, reminding me of the Latro series.

"Gingerbread...": Overdetermined reworking of Hansel+Gretel as a grisly crime/horror story. Ghosts? The man simply cannot do hard-boiled stuff in my opinion.

"The Headless Man": Very tender description of headless man having sex with a similarly disfigured person. The akephaloi appearing in this reminds me of "The Arimaspian Legacy" (collected in Starwater Strains).

"Last Thrilling Adventure Tale": Some vibes in common with A Borrowed Man, a stock character from the action genre is forced into a schlocky narrative. Everything is very Catholic (the whole book is very Catholic). Twins/clones -- another favorite GW trope. The bits where GW himself is arguing w/the protagonist are not successful but it's good to see him swing the bat a little.

"House of Ancestors": an injured guy with a nail in his heart (I believe this is saintly imagery) visits an enormous science exhibit, a scale molecule of a DNA strand in which each atom is a room. Meet/become your own parents, yet again. Also robotic guides of various forms, another of his favorites. How or why this enormous DNA molecule, which would jut miles and miles into outer space, would be be constructed is another matter; maybe it's a kind of cathedral constructed by a science-obsessed post-spiritual man, yadda yadda. Probably a stupid point to raise.

"Our Neighbor by David Copperfield": Hypnotizing the poor in Dickensian London so they spill their guts and make the rich feel sympathy for them. Doesn't work but the nasty Chestertonian paternalist can't resist.

"When I Was Ming the Merciless": A kind of Stanford Prison experiment but with different warrior bands instead fighting wars. The ability of the fantastic and primitive to overcome the scientific and rational, with ambiguous results <--- absolutely one of his go-to concepts. Symbols creating themselves like in BotNS. Interesting structure where we never see the interviewer's questions. One of my favorites in the volume.

"The God and his Man": Another BotNS entry, from the Brown Book. If you wanted to describe GW as Vance with the cartoony humor mostly strained out and the symbols enriched, this might be the go-to. Some questionable anthropology just like in Vance. Love that the lightsaber (?) is literally named Maser. One of my favs.

"The Cat": the last of the BotNS entries, a tidy tale of one of Father Inire's protegées exacting revenge on a bitchy aristocrat from beyond the grave. Ghosts. Maybe a literal version of Schrödinger's cat.

"War Beneath the Tree": A Christmas tale like many of his stories. Sentient dolls. Strident sexual anxiety: one of the new dolls is programmed to teach the kid Sex Ed. Fear of the pregnant mother. "Highly Freudian." One of my all-time favorite stories of his.

"Eyebem": Robotic park ranger trapped in memory loop, can't compete with the human colleague he was supposed to replace. The superiority of the old ways... Maybe a bit of Jack London in this one.

"HORARs of War": Genetically engineered clones fight against the Vietnamese, except one of them is an undercover journalist. Or is he just suffering from a Deckardian implanted memory? Unclear how useful this reporting would be, and the coda doesn't really clear thins up.

"Detective of Dreams": People in a Belle Epoque central European city have troubling dreams because they are Not Going to Church Enough.

"Peritonitis": Always had a soft spot for this fable about a skin germ from the Neck who must descend, like Orpheus, to rescue his beloved from the Stomach. In order to free her he shows the germs of that place how to eat the host body instead of scraps, dooming the whole world. Reading it now I see some shaggy or indulgent bits but still, lol every time.

"The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus"/"The Woman the Centaur Loved": Genetically engineered creatures happen to resemble the creatures of mythology and the military wants to shoot them all (not sure why). A ragtag band of academics intervenes. Lots and lots of quotes.

"The Peace Spy": a volunteer Soviet hostage in the US wants to go home because of another war, and the man who offers to help her is actually going to keep her put. Reminded me of "How the Whip Came Back" in its dorky evocation of real-world politics.

"All the Hues of Hell": A ship outfitted for the harvesting of dark matter/energy abducts, UFO-style, either an alien or a devil from hell, who proceeds to do Rosemary's Baby shit to one of their crew. Or the guy is just crazy.

"Procreation": A multi-part story in which a physicist recreates a magical world visited by him and his sister as children. Lots in common with the Twilight Zone episode that the Simpons Treehouse of Horror did with Bart's Tooth, which I love. Surely noteworthy that the protagonist's name is Gene. Seeding another universe with the magnetic monopole brings to mind the regeneration of the Sun that is supposed to come with the Claw in the Solar Cycle.

"Lukora": Somewhat Fifth-Head-esque tale in which humans (?) visit a planet in search of fairy-like Little People, instead become one with their lupine prey species. The rusted sword in the clearing is so strange. Are we the Little People?

"Suzanne Delage": On its face a banal story about an annoying guy in a small town living his life aware of the titular woman but never meeting her, until he sees her young daughter, toward whom he feels a creepy sexual pull. Maybe the most notorious of all the Gene Wolfe short stories, and its simplicity and apparent lack of punchline have inspired some extremely wild interpretations. Rationalist-adjacent Internet nanocelebrity gwern insists, despite the lack of any serious textual evidence, that it is a vampire story. (If you go down the truly insanely deep rabbit hole you will find him and other people citing blurbs and collection introductions with exegetical zeal. Truly this is one of the worst effects of GW's elliptical style, it's a blank culture on which these kind of growths can proliferate.) I'm inclined to believe that the guy had an affair with SD and then abandoned her, or it really is just a shaggy-dog story.

"Sweet Forest Maid" - Unhappy career woman seeks the Lady Bigfoot of Northern California to be her friend. Among the more misogynist tales.

"My Book" -- Story describing its own writing, in reverse. One-trick but clever, and fortunately doesn't overstay.

"The Other Dead Man" - One of a trio of stories involving ill-fated space ships (along with "...Hues..." and "Silhouette"). Gotta give GW some serious demerits for so blatantly ripping off "2001", down to the lip-reading. Another boat story, really. The appearance of a castle will be echoed in the following story.

"The Most Beautiful Woman on the World" - Subtle preposition shift clues us in. Are the narrators of these stories convicts serving out their sentences? Appearance of a castle.

"Rose + Nightingale": Feels like a study for Soldier of Sidon, a book I'm very fond of. Really a good one and not one I had any memory of. A "Pyramus and Thisbe"-esque tale told to a ragamuffin by a storyteller, who turns out to be a prince in search of a great treasure with the aid of a Mullah (in this story mullahs are like wizards). Very Arabian Nights. Along with the BotNS entries, "War Beneath the Tree," "Peritonitis", and "Ming," probably my favorite from this book. Another BOAT STORY, just like Soldier of Sidon.

"Silhouette": A large space ship (not a sleek rocket but a baroque, cellular structure, reminiscent of the ship in UotNS) explores space for a habitable planet. The protagonist is somehow infected with a shadow-like creature, who protects and assists him as he maneuvers between factions vying for control of this almost-a-generation-ship. Very much reminiscent of Long Sun/Short Sun, particularly the inhumi. Also we get an unruly shipboard AI, with the cool feature that as its central processing unit has been damaged it has dispersed itself among all the calculators and other tiny devices of the ship. The resurgence of primitive belief over and against rational technology. More dismal predictions about sexual relations: in this world you basically schedule sexual harassment in a ledger. The Captain belongs to a caste bred for height and command, not dissimilar from Thecla's caste in BotNS. A room containing a jungle -- this is something Wolfe loves, whether in Shadow of the Torturer or A Borrowed Man.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the Gene Wolfe I've read (New Sun series + Urth of the New Sun, first 2 Latro/Soldier books, first two Long Sun books), these stories are the most "science fiction" I've seen him attempt. He's still Gene Wolfe, and with that comes weirdness, confusion, frustration, and brilliance in equal parts, but its more apparent that a lot of these stories would have been headed for genre publications like Asimov and the like.

A lot of these stories are fantastic. Some are less than stellar. With any single author collection that goes over 500 pages that's likely to be the case. Personally I prefer his longer stories, including the final piece "Silhouette", as well as "The Other Dead Man", and "The HORARS of War". Of course, those stories seem to have a good deal in common in terms of plot and character anyway. A few stories, like "Lukora", are either weird for weird sake, or reference things I'm not familiar with. Thankfully most of those were short.

All in all I quite enjoyed the collection... I'd recommend it to Wolfe completists, mainly, or anyone interested in weirder science fiction.

[Frank Vasquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe is one of those rare writers whose shorter works can not compare to his novels because they are each entirely different beasts from beyond the stars. Despite thematic concerns and similar characterizations or plot structures/deconstructions, the stories here in Endangered Species are so richly imagined that even when he doesn’t WRITE the story you would get from most any other author you KNOW YOU READ IT. Is it a ghost, a predatory animal, a starship that’s no longer tethered to our physical place in time? Well, how did you read that? And did you notice this?
No Wolfe story reads the same way twice, and that does apply to his short stories and novellas. I’m glad I (finally) reread this collection. It was Teenaged Frank’s introduction to Wolfe’s short works, and they continue to baffle and amaze and inspire me, decades after publication and since I first read these. Highly recommended to readers that love the challenge of genres fiction that are tales in the realm of the literary, the puzzle, and the phantasmagoria.

[Kosuke Arai · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Ludder series
2. 90min
3. extinct, environmental pollution, The red list, Otter, biodiversity, The Cambrian explosion, Washington Convension
4 a. It is said that a rise in temperature of seawater by 1℃ correspond to a 10℃ rise on land.
b. This is a shocking fact that I didn't know. And I could understand temperature of seawater is very important matter because it is easy to think if temperature of land rises by 10℃, the environment will collapse.
5. I was intrested in The Cambrian explosion, too that was that's why a lot of species live on the earth. And this book is written not only about extinct species, but origin of species and some Convention about species.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I continue to like Wolfe, but this collection was more uneven than I was hoping. The beginning and the end are the strongest, and some dross is put in the middle. The vaguely Calvino-style metafictional The Last Thrilling Wonder Story was a real low point for me.

By contrast the highlights of this volume are strong. Wolfe is characteristically at his best in allusive, vaguely horror stories that defy explanation but are nevertheless strongly based in vivid character and narrative. Highlights in that mode include:
* A Cabin on the Coast: a young couple in the titular cabin on the coast suffer for love
* The Map: return to the world of the Book of the New Sun, into the abandoned city of Nessus.
* Kevin Malone: a young couple assume without explanation the roles of the owners of a prewar estate
* Suzanne Delage: the narrator remembers his teenage years and the woman that never was. Reminds me of the (very strong) Sarah Pinsker "Two Truths and a Lie"
* The Most Beautiful Woman on the World: a kind of refracted John Carter on Mars story, but through the lens of enigmatic horror.

Others not as strong but good:
* The Detective of Dreams is good but suffers from its ending and from the fact that its 'explanation' is not wholly convincing.
* The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It): a retelling of the Oscar Wilde short story, set in a kind of idealized Arabian Nights. Begins strong, with a nice twist; the ending is less strong.
* Silhouette: a cold sleep colonization ship story; allusively told, but overlong and with a little too much Star Trek in it (especially the bridge and the captain's office immediately off the bridge).

Based on the copyright dates, it looks like my favorite Wolfe is right around 1980, i.e. the same time as as The Shadow of the Torturer.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best short stories book I have ever read. And it ends with "Silhouette", what else would you need?

P. K Dick said that the problem with short stories is that the reader hardly has time to relate to one of the characters and I completely agree with him. But then, there are his short stories, Bradbury's, Lafferty's and there are Gene Wolfe's. These can be read with a lot of pleasure, maybe because the reader already feels related to the author ( never met him but when he passed away it was like a good friend had gone ) and maybe because they are so good.

And usually, they have the best introductions ever written ( Neil Gaiman has not just ripped off Gene Wolfe's stories and style - with less talent - but also he stole the idea of having these spirituous intros before any short story collection. But I admit, if I were an author I would write the same kind of intros. I admit that I am very biased against Gaiman, the person, but that is something that does not pertain here ).

And speaking of intros, we get this right at the start:

"The same critics who spend hundreds of pages discussing various peculiarities of the author's supposed nature often devote none to that much more significant person, the reader for whom he wrote. [...] It is a failure that disqualifies a great deal of head-scratching and hypothesizing. It amounts to saying that the letter is more important than its recipient, the signal more important than the changing image created from it, the bait more important than the fish." - Gene Wolfe

Wolfe wrote books for his readers, he had fun writing them of course, but he primarily targeted us.
And he always thought very highly of us.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The house felt his feet on its porch, his quick knock at its door. It wondered how he had driven along the path through the trees. The witch would split his bones to get to the marrow; it would tell the witch. It rang its bell.

Gene Wolfe’s versatility is on full display in Endangered Species.

The short story collection includes two stories building out his remarkable Book of the New Sun quartet, a quick but haunting seaside tale about commitment and loss, a fight to the death between toys on Christmas Eve, and a wilderness adventure centering a robot ranger. Add to that a Hans and Gretel retelling, David Copperfield fan fiction, and a Poirot-style mystery of a shared dream afflicting several town residents, among others. Finally, cap it all off with the novella Silhouette, a spacefaring gothic with notes of Faust and Brave New World.

Fans of Wolfe will roll around in this hefty collection as happy as a pig in mud. Newcomers might find it equally intriguing and frustrating. Stories like Suzanne Delage don’t hold the reader’s hand and the opacity can get to be too much. Additionally not all of these short stories hold up. The Last Thrilling Action Hero's Fourth Wall breaking will prompt some eye rolls. The resolution of Detective of Dreams will probably do the same, which is a real shame given the deft opening and intriguing premise!

But all in all, a lot to like and love. This one is not to be missed for a Wolfe fan. (I found Eyebem a particular standout.) 4/5.

[Björn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very middling collection of Sci-fi short stories that mostly feel either incomplete, needlessly obtuse, or blighted by the Sci-fi New Wave of the 60's and 70's. There are 34 stories here, and you'll likely find one or two that you admire. I did: "The Map," "House of Ancestors," "When I Was Ming the Merciless," "The Detective of Dreams," "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World," and "The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale" stand out. But for a 500 page collection, that's a lot of chaff to churn through. Wolfe is famously quoted as saying "My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure." I tried that for a few of these (Ming, Detective) with reasonable effect, but can we talk about "Suzanne Delange?" The major debate online about this work, even among fans, seems to be whether it's just a terrible short story or contains some byzantine puzzle maybe involving Bram Stoker. Nope. "Delange" is simply the worst of a common theme in the anthology. A lot of these are either "in the mode of Harlan Ellison," which a lot of folks seemed to be doing in the mid '70's (oh, how I hate the cultural products of the 1970's), which is it's own sort of problem, or they just feel unfinished and then presented as a disingenuous sort of intellectual puzzle. Again, nope. I've only ever read Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun quartet which I remember admiring but also finding needlessly obscure. This collection is not really what I look for in Sci-fi, and may be best enjoyed by die-hard Wolfe enthusiasts.

[Temucano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Antología de relatos extensa, donde podemos apreciar toda la inventiva de Wolfe, lástima que gran parte no se entienda, y languidezca hasta el bostezo. A la mayoría de los cuentos les falta acción, movimiento, y otros tan enrevesados que son un entuerto. No obstante, entre tanta paja se encuentran algunas cosas buenas que vale la pena mencionar:

"Cuando era Ming el Cruel": un experimento de reclusión que se escapa de las manos, transformándose en una sangrienta batalla por el poder.
" El hombre sin cabeza": claro ejemplo de que a nadie le falta Dios. Muy freak.
"El dios y su hombre": un dios envía a un hombre de Urth a eliminar la crueldad en el planeta Zed.
"El gato": la historia de un gato en los tiempos del autarca Severian.
"Los Homol de la guerra": androides muy humanos en plena batalla.
"El cuento de la rosa y el ruiseñor, y lo que pasó": fantasía árabe con eunucos, encantos y Sobek, el dios cocodrilo.

También me entretuvieron, la historia maravillosa, el otro hombre muerto, silueta y otros pocos. O sea estamos hablando de a lo sumo 10 cuentos buenos sobre un total de 34.

Hay promedios mucho mejores en otras antologías. (23.11.2004)

[Ron Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me say up front that I think Wolfe was one of science fiction / fantasy's great writers -- subtle plots, elegant language, slight-of-hand narration, all rewarding to those who enjoy a careful read that provide unexpected turns and pleasures.

That said, I find Wolfe's longer works much more rewarding than his short stories, so I found my interest in the pieces collected here to vary quite a bit. Short pieces that are a clever turn on a genre trope generally interest me least, and there are usually some stories like that in any of Wolfe's collections. The riffs on fairy tales, for example, don't do much for me.

But the gems more than make up for the filler, I think. The two (or three) stories set in the Book of the New Sun universe were good. The final story, Silhouette, is a great example of Wolfe working well at novella length, allowing characters in a situation to develop nicely. A Cabin on the Coast, Eyebem, The Other Dead Man, The Detective of Dreams, and Procreation were all very good.

[Yegor Voronin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing collection of stories spanning 70s and 80s. In every story you are thrown right into the deep end and have to figure out what's going on and, more often than not, something very strange is happening in a very strange place. There's sci-fi, there's horror, there's fantasy, there's a mix of all three. The characters are complex, the allusions are multiple, the story-telling is roundabout.
I just recently re-read some stories by Lafferty and Wolfe gives a very similar vibe. He's perhaps less strange, but his writing style is much-much better.
Some of the stories that definitely deserve to be revisited:
A Cabin on the Coast
The Map
Kevin Malone
Thag
The Nebraskan and the Nereid
In the House of Gingerbread
The Headless Man
Our Neighbor by David Copperfield
When I was Ming the Merciless
War Beneath the Tree
Eyebem
The HORARS of War
The Detective of Dreams
Procreation
Lukora
Suzanne Delage
My Book
The Other Dead Man
The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale

[Evan Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm usually sweating over anything I read of Gene Wolfe. My brow perspiration is proportional to the unreliability of any given Wolfian narrator. As far as this collection goes, it didn't quite inspire the same level of percolation I'm liable to soil my sheets with. I enjoyed most of the stories; a couple didn't do much for me. A handful were veritable armpit fonts--worthy of joyful speculation. I'm afraid Wolfe is graded on a curve, a curve which he reigns supreme, so I must be harsh. That said, this collection fondly haunts my sci-fi fantasies like all his others.

Recommended for those who speak with tongues.

[Robert (NurseBob) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe definitely has a writing style all his own tinged with humour and a touch of horror, unfortunately in this anthology it doesn't translate into very compelling stories. Some meander without making a point, others lead to a climax which fails to materialize, and some just read like a creative writing assignment.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

These seem good. I don't think I am smart enough to follow everything Wolfe writes on my own. I had a lot of help from the internet on New Sun and there isnt a lot of discussion of these shory stories that I can easily find, so Im sure I missed stuff. Totally worth the read for me though.