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Seven American Nights
Seven American Nights (1978)
Awards:
1979 Hugo Award - Best Novella (Nomination)
1979 Locus Poll Award - Best Novella (Place: 3)
1979 Nebula Award - Novella (Nomination)
Awards:
1979 Hugo Award - Best Novella (Nomination)
1979 Locus Poll Award - Best Novella (Place: 3)
1979 Nebula Award - Novella (Nomination)
84 pages, Paperback
Published June 28, 1989
About the author
Gene Wolfe
542 books3,811 followersGene 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.
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 was 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 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 was also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe
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 was 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 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 was also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 4, 2020
If science fiction, in one of its cruder formations, is the literature of engineers, then Gene Wolfe’s fiction is the literature of autistic engineers.
So strange, then, the degree to which he is held up within many circles as the genre’s premier literary figure. Indeed, David Hartwell’s short introduction to this story in Dark Descent says as much: “Wolfe is the finest writer in the contemporary science fiction field …” What irks about his writing – and what irks about this designation – is how devoid it often is of what makes fine writers fine (in the literary tradition, that is [which is what Wolfe’s sf critics are also referring to in their praise of him, given their apparent status envy and desire to elevate “one of our own” among an illustrious crowd]). Yet *spoiler alert for my point* Wolfe’s admirers needn’t actually stretch this far for genre work to have merit in its own right. It’s akin to the way you’ll sometimes hear people mention the three best composers of all time as Bach, Beethoven, and Duke Ellington. It not only patronizes; it obfuscates. Sure, it is as true as anything that Ellington was a “composer”, but the word conjures a world of connotations that cannot but end in prioritizing the conventions of European “classical music”, thereby diminishing all that falling outside its bounds. And thus, in bringing external generic terminology and critical parameters to bear on Ellington, it tells us little about what actually made him and his music great in its own distinctive lane (to say nothing of the needless attempt to launder renown from one tradition to another).
Regarding the topic at hand, it is not a florid style, antiquated syntax, or (god kill me, but you do see this from Wolfe’s advocates) a “big vocabulary” that people point to when they say “literature,” but more often a type of psychological insight and observational acuity, often buttressed by a steady lyricism in line with the standards of the age—i.e. precisely the elements commonly lacking in Wolfe’s fiction (but not in sf as a whole by any means!).
The degree to which this lack is true is, counter-intuitively, demonstrated by a portion of “Seven American Nights” that does exactly the opposite. About halfway in, our self-possessed protagonist is reflecting on his object of obsession, potentially a prostitute:
“In a moment the pain sobered me. For a quarter hour or more I stood at the curbside, spitting into the gutter and trying to clean and bandage my knuckles with strips torn from my handkerchief. A thousand times I thought what a sight I would be if I did in fact succeed in seeing Ellen, and I comforted myself with the thought that if she were indeed a prostitute it would not matter to her-I could offer her a few additional rials and all would be well. Yet that thought was not really much comfort. Even when a woman sells her body, a man flatters himself that she would not do so quite so readily were he not who he is. At the very moment I drooled blood into the street, I was congratulating myself on the strong, square face so many have admired; and wondering how I should apologize if in kissing her I smeared her mouth with red.”
This is good. Ask yourself, nonetheless, how often the sentiments expressed in those last few sentences appear in a Wolfe work. The more common Wolfe-isms are different: ellipses, Easter eggs (both deep and banal), mid-tier Proust rip-off deep memory mining mixed with mid-tier Jamesian convoluted syntax thick description, small hints at much bigger events (the world-building he hides in the middle of paragraphs), hypnotic narrativization (“how did we get from here to there?” [this isn’t a good thing, by the way]), and meandering alluisivity.
Primarily, though, what we’re given are puzzles – often elegantly presented puzzles, but puzzles nonetheless – consciously constructed and self-consciously convoluted. Wolfe storyboards his shit, clearly, consciously carving out a chasm in its emplotment— i.e. taking A to B to C to D and to E and then going back and cutting out b through d— and hopes that the winks in their direction throughout will suffice (save for the spots at which he instead just flat tells us at the end [Cerberus]). At best – and this is even if one is interested in indulging in the first place – the convolution is thin and the solution is visible through the fog. At worst, and I would say “Seven American Nights” deserves inclusion here, the over-mystification is thorough and the slots have been too far cleaved from each other, and any plausible read is as good as the other.
In short, and to return to my opening, this game might be why some people come to fiction, but it is not mine. And indeed, it is admittedly such a queer conception even within sfnal spaces that I’m always a bit perplexed by his prominence within the genre as a point of reference for newcomers! I imagine much of this has to do with some tiresome but enduring correlation between heft and significance (New Sun) and/or the assumed imprimatur of that laundered prestige. An equally cynical interpretation is that the incomprehensibility is the game and the import all at once. I mean, how else to understand this review of Cerberus: “ … here is my take away … in Gene Wolfe — I think in general in his works, and not just in this one story — it’s not about absolute understanding. It’s about living with uncertainty, and ambiguity.” And this is one of the SMART reviews! Said reviewer goes on to basically acknowledge that he has no idea what’s happening, but that, surely, that MUST be the point and that, surely, that MUST mean this is the work that most elevates sf into “literature.” Pfui.
As for the story, this sfnal Of Human Bondage, there is, of course much more there – such as the clearly post-colonial reversal (ie these aren’t Arabian, but American Nights, and the exotic locale for the cultured foreign traveler, driven to un-civilization by the allure and adventure of the foreign world and its delights), although one can only go so far with this turn-the-tables POV; at some point, and at this length, the story needs to work a bit at justifying itself – but I feel I’ve exhausted the take as is.
At this point, and maybe as a final say on the matter, I’ll quote some others who’ve managed to say the same more succinctly. From waggishblog [https://www.waggish.org/2007/more-on-…], re: Joyce comparisons (which come up often as a comparison point for Wolfe [more of that laundered prestige]): “Now, I can enjoy Ulysses and draw much from it without knowing whether or not Bloom gives a condom to Alec Bannon at the impenetrable end of chapter 14. Unlike Joyce, Wolfe stakes so much of his book on these sorts of narrative obscurities that (a) in the absence of their resolution, the book does not reveal itself sufficiently, and (b) Wolfe subordinates thematic and conceptual integrity to the mere challenge of these games. Many people are content to enjoy the ride and pass over these issues, and Wolfe deserves the attention they give him, but this is not enough for Wolfe to satisfy his books’ ambitions.” And from, actually, the comments to waggish’s post, by a Ray Davis, in which he both identifies and critiques Wolfe’s method – here termed a “machine metaphor” – more concisely than most: “he’s simply not doing the job he wants to do. His factory produces too much smoke and noise for its nanoproduct to be discernible. What seems worthwhile in the work (and it’s not negligible) is a side-effect of its main intent.” There it is.
So strange, then, the degree to which he is held up within many circles as the genre’s premier literary figure. Indeed, David Hartwell’s short introduction to this story in Dark Descent says as much: “Wolfe is the finest writer in the contemporary science fiction field …” What irks about his writing – and what irks about this designation – is how devoid it often is of what makes fine writers fine (in the literary tradition, that is [which is what Wolfe’s sf critics are also referring to in their praise of him, given their apparent status envy and desire to elevate “one of our own” among an illustrious crowd]). Yet *spoiler alert for my point* Wolfe’s admirers needn’t actually stretch this far for genre work to have merit in its own right. It’s akin to the way you’ll sometimes hear people mention the three best composers of all time as Bach, Beethoven, and Duke Ellington. It not only patronizes; it obfuscates. Sure, it is as true as anything that Ellington was a “composer”, but the word conjures a world of connotations that cannot but end in prioritizing the conventions of European “classical music”, thereby diminishing all that falling outside its bounds. And thus, in bringing external generic terminology and critical parameters to bear on Ellington, it tells us little about what actually made him and his music great in its own distinctive lane (to say nothing of the needless attempt to launder renown from one tradition to another).
Regarding the topic at hand, it is not a florid style, antiquated syntax, or (god kill me, but you do see this from Wolfe’s advocates) a “big vocabulary” that people point to when they say “literature,” but more often a type of psychological insight and observational acuity, often buttressed by a steady lyricism in line with the standards of the age—i.e. precisely the elements commonly lacking in Wolfe’s fiction (but not in sf as a whole by any means!).
The degree to which this lack is true is, counter-intuitively, demonstrated by a portion of “Seven American Nights” that does exactly the opposite. About halfway in, our self-possessed protagonist is reflecting on his object of obsession, potentially a prostitute:
“In a moment the pain sobered me. For a quarter hour or more I stood at the curbside, spitting into the gutter and trying to clean and bandage my knuckles with strips torn from my handkerchief. A thousand times I thought what a sight I would be if I did in fact succeed in seeing Ellen, and I comforted myself with the thought that if she were indeed a prostitute it would not matter to her-I could offer her a few additional rials and all would be well. Yet that thought was not really much comfort. Even when a woman sells her body, a man flatters himself that she would not do so quite so readily were he not who he is. At the very moment I drooled blood into the street, I was congratulating myself on the strong, square face so many have admired; and wondering how I should apologize if in kissing her I smeared her mouth with red.”
This is good. Ask yourself, nonetheless, how often the sentiments expressed in those last few sentences appear in a Wolfe work. The more common Wolfe-isms are different: ellipses, Easter eggs (both deep and banal), mid-tier Proust rip-off deep memory mining mixed with mid-tier Jamesian convoluted syntax thick description, small hints at much bigger events (the world-building he hides in the middle of paragraphs), hypnotic narrativization (“how did we get from here to there?” [this isn’t a good thing, by the way]), and meandering alluisivity.
Primarily, though, what we’re given are puzzles – often elegantly presented puzzles, but puzzles nonetheless – consciously constructed and self-consciously convoluted. Wolfe storyboards his shit, clearly, consciously carving out a chasm in its emplotment— i.e. taking A to B to C to D and to E and then going back and cutting out b through d— and hopes that the winks in their direction throughout will suffice (save for the spots at which he instead just flat tells us at the end [Cerberus]). At best – and this is even if one is interested in indulging in the first place – the convolution is thin and the solution is visible through the fog. At worst, and I would say “Seven American Nights” deserves inclusion here, the over-mystification is thorough and the slots have been too far cleaved from each other, and any plausible read is as good as the other.
In short, and to return to my opening, this game might be why some people come to fiction, but it is not mine. And indeed, it is admittedly such a queer conception even within sfnal spaces that I’m always a bit perplexed by his prominence within the genre as a point of reference for newcomers! I imagine much of this has to do with some tiresome but enduring correlation between heft and significance (New Sun) and/or the assumed imprimatur of that laundered prestige. An equally cynical interpretation is that the incomprehensibility is the game and the import all at once. I mean, how else to understand this review of Cerberus: “ … here is my take away … in Gene Wolfe — I think in general in his works, and not just in this one story — it’s not about absolute understanding. It’s about living with uncertainty, and ambiguity.” And this is one of the SMART reviews! Said reviewer goes on to basically acknowledge that he has no idea what’s happening, but that, surely, that MUST be the point and that, surely, that MUST mean this is the work that most elevates sf into “literature.” Pfui.
As for the story, this sfnal Of Human Bondage, there is, of course much more there – such as the clearly post-colonial reversal (ie these aren’t Arabian, but American Nights, and the exotic locale for the cultured foreign traveler, driven to un-civilization by the allure and adventure of the foreign world and its delights), although one can only go so far with this turn-the-tables POV; at some point, and at this length, the story needs to work a bit at justifying itself – but I feel I’ve exhausted the take as is.
At this point, and maybe as a final say on the matter, I’ll quote some others who’ve managed to say the same more succinctly. From waggishblog [https://www.waggish.org/2007/more-on-…], re: Joyce comparisons (which come up often as a comparison point for Wolfe [more of that laundered prestige]): “Now, I can enjoy Ulysses and draw much from it without knowing whether or not Bloom gives a condom to Alec Bannon at the impenetrable end of chapter 14. Unlike Joyce, Wolfe stakes so much of his book on these sorts of narrative obscurities that (a) in the absence of their resolution, the book does not reveal itself sufficiently, and (b) Wolfe subordinates thematic and conceptual integrity to the mere challenge of these games. Many people are content to enjoy the ride and pass over these issues, and Wolfe deserves the attention they give him, but this is not enough for Wolfe to satisfy his books’ ambitions.” And from, actually, the comments to waggish’s post, by a Ray Davis, in which he both identifies and critiques Wolfe’s method – here termed a “machine metaphor” – more concisely than most: “he’s simply not doing the job he wants to do. His factory produces too much smoke and noise for its nanoproduct to be discernible. What seems worthwhile in the work (and it’s not negligible) is a side-effect of its main intent.” There it is.
March 30, 2025
A wealthy tourist from Iran comes to visit the scenic ruins of Washington D.C. where the monuments have crumbled, and Americans have degraded in various misshapen ways or have mutated into something else entirely while a few vainly attempt to keep a few old relics alive.
Wait a second... did Bethesda Todd lift from this entirely?
I think the narrative structure of this is brilliant. Having it be a travelogue of an unreliable narrator leaves plenty of room for the leeway of ignorance and vagaries. It's dark, funny, dreamlike and forebodingly prophetic. There's simply a little bit of everything here mixed together. At <90 pages it is well worth your time if you're a Wolfe fan.
Wait a second... did Bethesda Todd lift from this entirely?
I think the narrative structure of this is brilliant. Having it be a travelogue of an unreliable narrator leaves plenty of room for the leeway of ignorance and vagaries. It's dark, funny, dreamlike and forebodingly prophetic. There's simply a little bit of everything here mixed together. At <90 pages it is well worth your time if you're a Wolfe fan.
February 17, 2025
This is a wacky novella, about the future of the United States, following a hideous precipitous decline. A traveller from Iran arrives to this ruined country, trying to discover what once made it great, and gets drawn into the same things that caused it to decline in the first place. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that one of the sources of decline in this story is mind-altering drugs. You find that out within the first pages.
So, what we get is a very trippy story that from its mid-point on exists in a liminal space where it's never really quite clear how many of the events are real, and how many of them are just hallucinations. Nevertheless, it does come together with clarity, which is an achievement in itself. I don't think it ends on a surprising note (I'd say that it pretty much goes where you would expect it to), but it does it in a way which is quite dramatic and stylish, so it's a thumbs up from me.
So, what we get is a very trippy story that from its mid-point on exists in a liminal space where it's never really quite clear how many of the events are real, and how many of them are just hallucinations. Nevertheless, it does come together with clarity, which is an achievement in itself. I don't think it ends on a surprising note (I'd say that it pretty much goes where you would expect it to), but it does it in a way which is quite dramatic and stylish, so it's a thumbs up from me.
October 17, 2024
Dude is Complicated.
A wealthy foreigner tourist travels to a ravaged post-apocalyptic America for a seven-day tour through the few remaining still habitable coastal cities, before returning to his family and betrothed. His plans taking a dramatic turn when during a visit to a local theater he meets the graceful and beautiful actress Ardis.
This may prove to be a much more complex story that I originally perceived. Researching this story in various forums trying to understand what the hell I just read I find I missed several important cues or plot points, either because I didn't notice their relevance, or because I may have skimmed them due to extreme boredom at the beginning.
I wish I had the willpower to reread and appreciate this story/novella better, but I don't. I have biggerfish authors to fry, and Wolfe's writing, at least in this case, seems to be rather borderline or downright speculative in nature, a genre I have never, ever, fully understood, grasped, or even liked.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1989] [89p] [Sci-Fi/Horror] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ The Dark Descent
-----------------------------------------------
El Tipo es Complicado.
Un adinerado turista extranjero viaja a una devastada América post-apocalíptica para un recorrido de siete días por las pocas ciudades costeras que aún quedan habitables, antes de regresar a su familia y prometida. Sus planes dando un giro dramático cuando durante una visita a un teatro local, conoce a la hermosa y elegante actriz Ardis.
Esta puede llegar a ser una historia muchísimo más compleja de lo que percibí originalmente. Al investigar esta historia en varios foros tratando de comprender que diablos acabo de leer, descubrí que me perdí de varias pistas o puntos importantes de la trama, ya sea porque no noté su relevancia, o porque es posible que los haya salteado debido a un terrible aburrimiento al principio.
Desearía tener la fuerza de voluntad para releer y apreciar mejor esta historia/novela corta, pero no la tengo. Tengoasuntos autores más importantes que freír, y la escritura de Wolfe, al menos en este caso, parece ser mas bien de naturaleza bordeando lo o directamente en esencia especulativa, un género que nunca, jamás, he llegado a entender, captar o siquiera apreciar.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1989] [89p] [Sci-Fi/Horror] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
A wealthy foreigner tourist travels to a ravaged post-apocalyptic America for a seven-day tour through the few remaining still habitable coastal cities, before returning to his family and betrothed. His plans taking a dramatic turn when during a visit to a local theater he meets the graceful and beautiful actress Ardis.
This may prove to be a much more complex story that I originally perceived. Researching this story in various forums trying to understand what the hell I just read I find I missed several important cues or plot points, either because I didn't notice their relevance, or because I may have skimmed them due to extreme boredom at the beginning.
I wish I had the willpower to reread and appreciate this story/novella better, but I don't. I have bigger
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1989] [89p] [Sci-Fi/Horror] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ The Dark Descent
-----------------------------------------------
El Tipo es Complicado.
Un adinerado turista extranjero viaja a una devastada América post-apocalíptica para un recorrido de siete días por las pocas ciudades costeras que aún quedan habitables, antes de regresar a su familia y prometida. Sus planes dando un giro dramático cuando durante una visita a un teatro local, conoce a la hermosa y elegante actriz Ardis.
Esta puede llegar a ser una historia muchísimo más compleja de lo que percibí originalmente. Al investigar esta historia en varios foros tratando de comprender que diablos acabo de leer, descubrí que me perdí de varias pistas o puntos importantes de la trama, ya sea porque no noté su relevancia, o porque es posible que los haya salteado debido a un terrible aburrimiento al principio.
Desearía tener la fuerza de voluntad para releer y apreciar mejor esta historia/novela corta, pero no la tengo. Tengo
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1989] [89p] [Sci-Fi/Horror] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
February 18, 2025
Even as gene Wolfe is concerned this is a pretty dense story. There are a lot of small things packed into less than 100 pages. I am rereading it and the second time through I am finding plenty of things I missed on previous reading and I think that I will get the same feeling even on my tenth reading. Definitely one of his more complex short stories.
December 26, 2022
3.75 Stars
What is America?
The late Gene Wolfe attempted to answer this question in a novella that has been one of the genre's best works of short fiction since its publication in the Damon Knight's 1978 anthology Orbit 20. Seven American Nights won the 1979 Hugo Award for best novella and nominated for 1979 Nebula Award for the same category. The story has appeared in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories collection and as Tor Double Paperback with Robert Silverberg's Sailing to Byzantium. Also, the story is in the Best of Gene Wolfe collection as well.
Wolfe uses the framework of One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic, and translated to English in the early 18th century - the frame story being about king Shahryar and his story-telling wife Scheherazade. Wolfe remixes that narrative by taking the frame story from the journal of an Iranian tourist visiting a post-apocalyptic Washington DC, foolishly falling in love with a woman there.
The tourist gets caught up in several adventures that include a near robbery, being attacked by a rabid dog, and trying American food for the first time. Wolfe is known for using the unreliable technique throughout his major works, and it happens here in Seven American Nights. Is the narrator hallucinating? Is the journal a figment of his imagination? What does he truly think of America? Those questions will get answered by the end of the story. However, Wolfe takes the reader on a journey that is reminiscent of his best work, The Book of New Sun, Peace, and the Wizard Knight series.
Seven American Nights is not my favorite Wolfe story, however it is an excellent introduction to one of the best American writers that never gets mentioned outside of science-fiction and fantasy circles. I have read several Wolfe novels over the years and believe he has earned his reputation as the genre writer deserving to be mentioned in the same neighborhood with Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and John Updike.
Unfortunately, Wolfe may be too fantastical for some serious readers' taste, but he has addressed major themes of religion, male friendship, identity, aging, and the hero's journey in his oeuvre. Now that he is no longer with us, I hope the mainstream literary reading class takes a closer look at his work like they are doing with Octavia Butler (rightly deserves it). Gene Wolfe was the real deal, and he produced literature right under our noses and Seven American Nights was a solid example of such a claim.
What is America?
The late Gene Wolfe attempted to answer this question in a novella that has been one of the genre's best works of short fiction since its publication in the Damon Knight's 1978 anthology Orbit 20. Seven American Nights won the 1979 Hugo Award for best novella and nominated for 1979 Nebula Award for the same category. The story has appeared in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories collection and as Tor Double Paperback with Robert Silverberg's Sailing to Byzantium. Also, the story is in the Best of Gene Wolfe collection as well.
Wolfe uses the framework of One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic, and translated to English in the early 18th century - the frame story being about king Shahryar and his story-telling wife Scheherazade. Wolfe remixes that narrative by taking the frame story from the journal of an Iranian tourist visiting a post-apocalyptic Washington DC, foolishly falling in love with a woman there.
The tourist gets caught up in several adventures that include a near robbery, being attacked by a rabid dog, and trying American food for the first time. Wolfe is known for using the unreliable technique throughout his major works, and it happens here in Seven American Nights. Is the narrator hallucinating? Is the journal a figment of his imagination? What does he truly think of America? Those questions will get answered by the end of the story. However, Wolfe takes the reader on a journey that is reminiscent of his best work, The Book of New Sun, Peace, and the Wizard Knight series.
Seven American Nights is not my favorite Wolfe story, however it is an excellent introduction to one of the best American writers that never gets mentioned outside of science-fiction and fantasy circles. I have read several Wolfe novels over the years and believe he has earned his reputation as the genre writer deserving to be mentioned in the same neighborhood with Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and John Updike.
Unfortunately, Wolfe may be too fantastical for some serious readers' taste, but he has addressed major themes of religion, male friendship, identity, aging, and the hero's journey in his oeuvre. Now that he is no longer with us, I hope the mainstream literary reading class takes a closer look at his work like they are doing with Octavia Butler (rightly deserves it). Gene Wolfe was the real deal, and he produced literature right under our noses and Seven American Nights was a solid example of such a claim.
July 22, 2025
Gorgeous, baffling, dealing in the shadows and the lights that shine upon them. What is simulation? What is hallucination? What is truth?
What does it mean if a symbol is only reflecting itself?
What does it mean if a symbol is only reflecting itself?
January 28, 2025
four stars for wolfes beautiful prose but this story is kind of incomprehensible and should probably be read in one sitting if you want to understand it, it's easy to lose track of what's going on if you aren't giving it your full attention or split it into multiple sessions. i had lost the plot involving the secret police by the end of the story because of this. the world building of american fallout is interesting, with physical decay seeming to represent empires fall, and the narrators infatuation with aedis and america almost felt to me like it could represent the folly of all of us who fall infatuated with civilizations and people's and cultures loss : a grotesque underside even more grotesque than our morbid fascinations . unlike some of gene wolves other stories and novellas, not everything that has happened is answered or spelled out and that can feel a bit unsatisfying. the reveal at the end is more of ardis and the nature of "decay" and less about what actually caused the collapse and does not give lucid answers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2025
weird, quick read that I didn't really get and have no desire to read again to see if I understand it.
March 11, 2026
Listened to this, 4.5 prob need to reread on paper
January 12, 2020
Good old Gene Wolfe, we’re only a few pages in to this novella when he has the narrator start dosing himself with possible hallucinogens, just in case the frame narrative of the account being found by a private detective looking for a payday didn’t make the whole thing unreliable enough. Later on we get even more reason to question the story as written, with the narrator admitting that he has gone back and excised some of the text (though him documenting doing so seems counterproductive), and crossing paths with someone that has the technology to fabricate handwriting.
This was actually a reread for me, as I’d forgot that Seven American Nights closed out the collection The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, but it never hurts to reread Wolfe’s work. Here, though, experiencing this text again didn’t do too much for me, as there isn’t enough substance here to form a convincing hypothesis other than the straightforward version of the narrative: that this is the journal of an Iranian man coming to a future United States that has been devastated by chemicals (likely for the purpose of stealing some art), who subsequently falls in love with an actress and then
With all the unreliability that Wolfe lathers on you can of course come up with a range of other hypotheses of the “true” story, but the work is so short you can’t support them with much evidence. I usually find the analysis on wolfewiki interesting, but the analysis for this story is completely off the rails, making numerous huge assumptions not proven by the text. The parallels to the last week of Jesus’s life are likely intentional though, that’s true.
Since I hadn’t even remembered reading it before, this is inevitably a 3/5 for me. Typical Wolfe in terms of features, but not elevated like some of his other works.
This was actually a reread for me, as I’d forgot that Seven American Nights closed out the collection The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, but it never hurts to reread Wolfe’s work. Here, though, experiencing this text again didn’t do too much for me, as there isn’t enough substance here to form a convincing hypothesis other than the straightforward version of the narrative: that this is the journal of an Iranian man coming to a future United States that has been devastated by chemicals (likely for the purpose of stealing some art), who subsequently falls in love with an actress and then
With all the unreliability that Wolfe lathers on you can of course come up with a range of other hypotheses of the “true” story, but the work is so short you can’t support them with much evidence. I usually find the analysis on wolfewiki interesting, but the analysis for this story is completely off the rails, making numerous huge assumptions not proven by the text. The parallels to the last week of Jesus’s life are likely intentional though, that’s true.
Since I hadn’t even remembered reading it before, this is inevitably a 3/5 for me. Typical Wolfe in terms of features, but not elevated like some of his other works.
February 7, 2026
A very different type of Sci-Fi. Gene Wolfe loves unreliable narrators, and the way he made the main character not trust what he sees was clever.
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