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Starwater Strains
Gene Wolfe follows his acclaimed all-fantasy short story collection, Innocents Aboard , with a volume devoted primarily to his science fiction. The twenty-five stories here amply demonstrate his range, excellence, and mastery of the form. A few tantalizing
"Viewpoint" takes on the unreality of so-called "reality" TV and imagines such a show done truly for real, with real guns. "Empires of Foliage and Flower" is in the classic Book of the New Sun series. "Golden City Far." is about dreams, high school, and finding love, which Wolfe says "is about as good a recipe for a story as I've ever found." You're sure to agree.
"Viewpoint" takes on the unreality of so-called "reality" TV and imagines such a show done truly for real, with real guns. "Empires of Foliage and Flower" is in the classic Book of the New Sun series. "Golden City Far." is about dreams, high school, and finding love, which Wolfe says "is about as good a recipe for a story as I've ever found." You're sure to agree.
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 2000
36 people are currently reading
401 people want to read
About the author
Gene Wolfe
506 books3,573 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.
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
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
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 14, 2012
I'm really glad to have discovered Gene Wolfe. His short stories invariably give me something to chew over and he's one of the few writers that seems to naturally know how to use the form. I couldn't pick favourites from this volume -- they're all pretty good. He has a good sense of voice and he seems to have had a good share of luck with the intriguing plot idea fairy.
Overall, starting to think I'll read anything by Gene Wolfe without second thought.
Overall, starting to think I'll read anything by Gene Wolfe without second thought.
September 29, 2020
Something interesting about reading two short story collections from the same author fairly close together but chronologically much further apart is that you can see the stylistic changes and/or progressions that happened in the interim that maybe weren't entirely clear from reading him in scattered chunks over the years.
Most of my impressions of Gene Wolfe were formed during a lengthy run where I read his "Book of the Long Sun"/"Book of the Short Sun" right in a row. Prior to that I had read "Book of the New Sun" quite a few years before and "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" a little while after that but with such a long gap between reading his most famous series and, oh, almost everything else he ever wrote I remember being struck by how allusive and elusive his writing was in those later series, like someone trying to describe the shape of a rainstorm that kept forming behind you and then vanishing when you turned around. Other novels like his "Latro in the Mist" series and the "Wizard Knight" series were in the same vein, so not a hundred percent remembering "New Sun" I had assumed that had always been his dominant vibe. Which was fine with me, because I enjoy that vibe quite a bit.
Reading the "Endangered Species" short story collection a few weeks back one of the first things I noticed was how that slippery style wasn't something he came directly out of the writing womb with and while I won't go as far to say that he was straightforward, there was a certain quality missing from those earlier works that that made those later works stand out a bit more for me. Who knows, maybe I just like when Everything Means More Than One Thing.
Well, if you're on the same page as me in that regard then you're are going to be absolutely delighted by this collection. The last one released in his lifetime (other than a "Best Of" in 2010, which I assume is previously collected material) and perhaps the last new collection ever depending on how prolific he was short-story-wise between this publication in 2006 and his death in 2019. If this is the case and there aren't enough uncollected short stories remaining to compile, this one is a good way to go out.
Most everything here dates from the early 2000s, around the time he was publishing "Book of the Short Sun", which for me was peak Gene Wolfe ambiguity, where I finally figured out it was more important to pay as much attention to the main action as it was to taking note of what the shadows were doing alongside the main players. And if you like your stories where absolutely nothing is spelled out except the bare minimum, then welcome to a land where no one ever answers a question directly and all your narrators are working without the full information at hand, only they don't realize it.
There's a number of stories here that are kind of the equivalent of Wolfe letting his hair down (so to speak), most of them clustered toward the beginning of the collection. So you have stuff like "Viewpoint" (about reality TV with the emphasis on "reality" and probably the only one that doesn't hit that hard since "what if reality TV was really real" has been done quite a bit) or "Calamity Warps" (people own a teleporting dog) or "Shields of Mars" (two friends hang on the Red Planet) or "Black Shoes" (which reads like the EC Comics stories he must have always wanted to do) that are good but don't quite have the layers to them that you want in the meatier stories. Even a more multi-part effort like "From the Cradle", where a book seems to be waiting for the right owner dips into mythology but doesn't quite have the "iceberg under the surface" feel that his longer stories have.
Around "Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?" that side of Wolfe starts to emerge again and suddenly things start to get interesting. I don't completely understand "Junie Moon", with its elements of a narrator who doesn't have the capacity to understand that he's perhaps not interpreting events around him correctly and the kinds of mythological allusions that I definitely didn't study in college but overall it does what Wolfe often seems to do so effortlessly . . . create this sense of two overlapping realities that are in front of you simultaneously, like a kind of magic eye where the images keep swimming in and out of focus.
Its something that carries over into "Pulp Cover", with its mundane scenario ultimately hinting at an entirely different reality happening in plain sight, with consequences that can be measured without being grasped. Then you step into "Of Soil and Climate", where the fantasy is just another level of reality we aren't able to access and dreams are just a question of sensation.
Wolfe himself seemed to like "Petting Zoo", a poignantly brief tale of about growing up without your dinosaur (which, as someone who vowed to be a paleontologist one day, I'm prone to) but even more effective is "Hunter Lake" which takes its title literally and turns into something utterly terrifying where people realize too late in the best Lovecraftian style that they've irritated something that is beyond comprehension ("Try and Kill It" falls that category as well but not as potent).
"New Sun" fans will be pleased at "Empires of Foliage and Flower", set in the same world but both more and less straightforward than the Urth stories that were in "Endangered Species" (which felt more like sketches that didn't quite catch the flavor). Here a little girl and someone named Thyme roam across the world, encounter a prince and an emperor and interact with the world at an angle, falling into a story and becoming myth even as the story unfolds, where it should be dream logic but everything feels too concrete, except when it starts to slip away.
That same feeling exists in "The Seraph From Its Sepulcher", which on some levels feels like it echoes parts of "Short Sun" but has its own mystery as an anthropologist visits a world overseen by a priest that used to be home to another species many years before. Its has events glimpsed through quick slivers of light, seen through sideways memory, a blending of science and religion where the lines aren't clear until its evident they've already been crossed.
It comes together in "Golden City Far", which is at its heart a boy-meets-girl story as William starts to grow up toward the tail-end of high school while at the same time spending time in a magical realm that has echoes in his world (unless it’s the other way around) where the ground rules aren't completely clear, although it seems like William understands them better than he lets on. Its one of those stories where the action seems to happen just outside the pages, and sometimes literally between the lines on the page, all wrapped in an endearing blend of young love and coming of age tale.
And that's when Wolfe is at his best, when he can unspool perplexing scenarios that don't reveal the whole even when confronted head-on but is still able to stab at you with genuine emotion, not only horror but a sweetness sometimes leavened by loss and sometimes just the nostalgia of loss itself. He's a ride on a merry-go-round, where the world outside speeds up and transforms itself into an unfamiliar blend of colors and sounds, where the story its telling you isn't the story it was originally trying to tell, where the world you're in starts to feel like the real world until the slowdown and the stop allows the old velocities to reassert themselves, before you step off woozy and not quite in sync with what you left behind. I'm sure he has collections that have won more awards, that have more fan-favorites or heavy-hitters but for my money there are few that so perfectly encapsulate what he was capable of doing with such a frightening consistency.
Most of my impressions of Gene Wolfe were formed during a lengthy run where I read his "Book of the Long Sun"/"Book of the Short Sun" right in a row. Prior to that I had read "Book of the New Sun" quite a few years before and "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" a little while after that but with such a long gap between reading his most famous series and, oh, almost everything else he ever wrote I remember being struck by how allusive and elusive his writing was in those later series, like someone trying to describe the shape of a rainstorm that kept forming behind you and then vanishing when you turned around. Other novels like his "Latro in the Mist" series and the "Wizard Knight" series were in the same vein, so not a hundred percent remembering "New Sun" I had assumed that had always been his dominant vibe. Which was fine with me, because I enjoy that vibe quite a bit.
Reading the "Endangered Species" short story collection a few weeks back one of the first things I noticed was how that slippery style wasn't something he came directly out of the writing womb with and while I won't go as far to say that he was straightforward, there was a certain quality missing from those earlier works that that made those later works stand out a bit more for me. Who knows, maybe I just like when Everything Means More Than One Thing.
Well, if you're on the same page as me in that regard then you're are going to be absolutely delighted by this collection. The last one released in his lifetime (other than a "Best Of" in 2010, which I assume is previously collected material) and perhaps the last new collection ever depending on how prolific he was short-story-wise between this publication in 2006 and his death in 2019. If this is the case and there aren't enough uncollected short stories remaining to compile, this one is a good way to go out.
Most everything here dates from the early 2000s, around the time he was publishing "Book of the Short Sun", which for me was peak Gene Wolfe ambiguity, where I finally figured out it was more important to pay as much attention to the main action as it was to taking note of what the shadows were doing alongside the main players. And if you like your stories where absolutely nothing is spelled out except the bare minimum, then welcome to a land where no one ever answers a question directly and all your narrators are working without the full information at hand, only they don't realize it.
There's a number of stories here that are kind of the equivalent of Wolfe letting his hair down (so to speak), most of them clustered toward the beginning of the collection. So you have stuff like "Viewpoint" (about reality TV with the emphasis on "reality" and probably the only one that doesn't hit that hard since "what if reality TV was really real" has been done quite a bit) or "Calamity Warps" (people own a teleporting dog) or "Shields of Mars" (two friends hang on the Red Planet) or "Black Shoes" (which reads like the EC Comics stories he must have always wanted to do) that are good but don't quite have the layers to them that you want in the meatier stories. Even a more multi-part effort like "From the Cradle", where a book seems to be waiting for the right owner dips into mythology but doesn't quite have the "iceberg under the surface" feel that his longer stories have.
Around "Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?" that side of Wolfe starts to emerge again and suddenly things start to get interesting. I don't completely understand "Junie Moon", with its elements of a narrator who doesn't have the capacity to understand that he's perhaps not interpreting events around him correctly and the kinds of mythological allusions that I definitely didn't study in college but overall it does what Wolfe often seems to do so effortlessly . . . create this sense of two overlapping realities that are in front of you simultaneously, like a kind of magic eye where the images keep swimming in and out of focus.
Its something that carries over into "Pulp Cover", with its mundane scenario ultimately hinting at an entirely different reality happening in plain sight, with consequences that can be measured without being grasped. Then you step into "Of Soil and Climate", where the fantasy is just another level of reality we aren't able to access and dreams are just a question of sensation.
Wolfe himself seemed to like "Petting Zoo", a poignantly brief tale of about growing up without your dinosaur (which, as someone who vowed to be a paleontologist one day, I'm prone to) but even more effective is "Hunter Lake" which takes its title literally and turns into something utterly terrifying where people realize too late in the best Lovecraftian style that they've irritated something that is beyond comprehension ("Try and Kill It" falls that category as well but not as potent).
"New Sun" fans will be pleased at "Empires of Foliage and Flower", set in the same world but both more and less straightforward than the Urth stories that were in "Endangered Species" (which felt more like sketches that didn't quite catch the flavor). Here a little girl and someone named Thyme roam across the world, encounter a prince and an emperor and interact with the world at an angle, falling into a story and becoming myth even as the story unfolds, where it should be dream logic but everything feels too concrete, except when it starts to slip away.
That same feeling exists in "The Seraph From Its Sepulcher", which on some levels feels like it echoes parts of "Short Sun" but has its own mystery as an anthropologist visits a world overseen by a priest that used to be home to another species many years before. Its has events glimpsed through quick slivers of light, seen through sideways memory, a blending of science and religion where the lines aren't clear until its evident they've already been crossed.
It comes together in "Golden City Far", which is at its heart a boy-meets-girl story as William starts to grow up toward the tail-end of high school while at the same time spending time in a magical realm that has echoes in his world (unless it’s the other way around) where the ground rules aren't completely clear, although it seems like William understands them better than he lets on. Its one of those stories where the action seems to happen just outside the pages, and sometimes literally between the lines on the page, all wrapped in an endearing blend of young love and coming of age tale.
And that's when Wolfe is at his best, when he can unspool perplexing scenarios that don't reveal the whole even when confronted head-on but is still able to stab at you with genuine emotion, not only horror but a sweetness sometimes leavened by loss and sometimes just the nostalgia of loss itself. He's a ride on a merry-go-round, where the world outside speeds up and transforms itself into an unfamiliar blend of colors and sounds, where the story its telling you isn't the story it was originally trying to tell, where the world you're in starts to feel like the real world until the slowdown and the stop allows the old velocities to reassert themselves, before you step off woozy and not quite in sync with what you left behind. I'm sure he has collections that have won more awards, that have more fan-favorites or heavy-hitters but for my money there are few that so perfectly encapsulate what he was capable of doing with such a frightening consistency.
March 11, 2020
Summary: A very good collection from Gene Wolfe. I loved 16 of the 24 stories, 5 were good and the other 3 I didn't like - this is a great ratio for a collection and I can highly recommend it. It's not as brilliant and memorable as The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories but if you like Gene Wolfe then you will have a wonderful time.
Review
I started to read the stories in 2009 and for some reason I stopped after finishing 17 of them. I read the remaining stories in 2013 and the first thing that surprised me a bit was how little I remembered. I had a lot of fun with most of the stories but there was none in the league of, let's say, The Fifth Head of Cerberus. This is something to keep in mind and it doesn't mean that the collection is bad. Au contraire! Gene Wolfe is a remarkable story teller and I love the way how he creates his characters and drops them into fantastic situations. The reader must always look out for hidden clues but sometimes it was too much for me and I didn't enjoy a story as much as I could have (e.g. "Game in the Pope's Head").
Although the subtitle is "new Science Fiction stories" we actually get a wide variety of stories, from horror to SF to variations of old myths, from funny to creepy. Don't be surprised if a dog starts talking or doing crazy things!
Using my usual rating for stories (A = great, B = okay, C = didn't like it) here is the list with my opinion. I might add more comments later but feel free to ask me questions or leave a comment yourself if you want to know more!
(B) Viewpoint
(C) Rattler
(A) In Glory like Their Star
(A) Calamity Warps
(A) Graylord Man’s Last Words
(A) Shields of Mars
(A) From the Cradle
(A) Black Shoes
(A) Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
(A) Pulp Cover
(A) Of Soil and Climate
(-) The Dog of the Drops (Note: I had to skip this one, I wasn’t ready for the dialect.)
(B) Mute
(A) Petting Zoo
(A) Castaway
(A) The Fat Magician
(A) The Boy Who Hooked the Sun
(C) Try and Kill It (Note: well written but is it more than a hunting story?)
(B) Game in the Pope’s Head
(A+) Empires of Foliage and Flower
(B) The Arimaspian Legacy
(B) The Seraph from Its Sepulcher
(A) Lord of the Land
(A) Golden City Far
Review
I started to read the stories in 2009 and for some reason I stopped after finishing 17 of them. I read the remaining stories in 2013 and the first thing that surprised me a bit was how little I remembered. I had a lot of fun with most of the stories but there was none in the league of, let's say, The Fifth Head of Cerberus. This is something to keep in mind and it doesn't mean that the collection is bad. Au contraire! Gene Wolfe is a remarkable story teller and I love the way how he creates his characters and drops them into fantastic situations. The reader must always look out for hidden clues but sometimes it was too much for me and I didn't enjoy a story as much as I could have (e.g. "Game in the Pope's Head").
Although the subtitle is "new Science Fiction stories" we actually get a wide variety of stories, from horror to SF to variations of old myths, from funny to creepy. Don't be surprised if a dog starts talking or doing crazy things!
Using my usual rating for stories (A = great, B = okay, C = didn't like it) here is the list with my opinion. I might add more comments later but feel free to ask me questions or leave a comment yourself if you want to know more!
(B) Viewpoint
(C) Rattler
(A) In Glory like Their Star
(A) Calamity Warps
(A) Graylord Man’s Last Words
(A) Shields of Mars
(A) From the Cradle
(A) Black Shoes
(A) Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
(A) Pulp Cover
(A) Of Soil and Climate
(-) The Dog of the Drops (Note: I had to skip this one, I wasn’t ready for the dialect.)
(B) Mute
(A) Petting Zoo
(A) Castaway
(A) The Fat Magician
(A) The Boy Who Hooked the Sun
(C) Try and Kill It (Note: well written but is it more than a hunting story?)
(B) Game in the Pope’s Head
(A+) Empires of Foliage and Flower
(B) The Arimaspian Legacy
(B) The Seraph from Its Sepulcher
(A) Lord of the Land
(A) Golden City Far
October 30, 2011
In general: I like Wolfe's language, and he must be a dog person, dogs in general and coonhounds in particular all over these stories. Along with country folk and accents. I think I might really dislike short story collections as a format, because of the constant context switching (if you like to read and keep reading, like I do, instead of being sensible and reading one story at the time and something else in between them).
I generally liked the longer stories better, with two exceptions, Of Soil and Climate being the long story exception and Petting Zoo being the short story exception.
The stories, in short:
Viewpoint - Reality show hick contestant meets the IRS and gets a girl
Rattler - Sort of funny and cute. Not a great fan of dialect in books though.
In Glory like Their Stars - SF so-so
Calamity Warps - Plane changing dog, what's not to like?
Graylord Man's Last Words - Robotic child meets dying human.
Shields of Mars - Okay
From the Cradle - This is my favourite so far, it follows a young man who grows up to work in a bookstore with a very special book in it.
Black Shoes - This felt kind of Lovecraftsian, and was okay, but not great. More horror than SF.
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon? - I liked this one too (I seem to like the longer stories that have a bit more plot more in general).
Pulp Cover - One of the shorter stories (10 p) that I also quite liked, grown up falling in love with 15 year old squick aside.
Of Soil and Climate - I'm not sure if this was supposed to be satire over really bad D&S type fantasy (in which case it lacked humour) or if it was just bad. I realize it was all in an inmates head, but I still had to read far too much crap to justify that particular point. It was like the worst bits of Amber (and I didn't particularly like Amber).
The Dog of Drops - Written in extra super thick accent. I skimmed this one and probably missed half the point of it.
Mute - This is one of the horror stories in the collection, probably the one I liked the most of that genre, a creepy and weird After the Apocalypse kind of story.
Petting Zoo - Yay! Dinosaurs! (yes, I'm an 8 year old boy at heart) With an added wistful twist to it.
Castaway - Meh.
The Fat Magician - This was alright I guess, but I've never been much fond of WWII type stories and this kind of fit that bill.
Hunter Lake - This was a rather silly horror story.
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun - Cute little fable.
Try and Kill It - Who knew Zombie Bears could be kind of dull? I think hunting stories in general don't work so well on me, since I think it's absolutely fair game is the animal you try to kill tries to kill you in return (you started it after all).
Game in the Pope's Head - This is a short Jack the Ripper yarn, which felt Zelasny flavoured to me.
Empires of Foliage and Flower - A morality tale about war, set on a sort of fantasy Earth with added pedophilia.
The Arimaspian Legacy - Short little bookish story.
The Seraph and Its Sepulcher - SF meets horror meets Catholicism
Lord of the Land - Took me a couple of minutes to remember what this was about (and I only read it 2-3 hours ago), but it's Lovecraftian type horror story with Egyptians and added aliens.
Golden City Far - One of the longest stories about love and high school and dreams.
I generally liked the longer stories better, with two exceptions, Of Soil and Climate being the long story exception and Petting Zoo being the short story exception.
The stories, in short:
Viewpoint - Reality show hick contestant meets the IRS and gets a girl
Rattler - Sort of funny and cute. Not a great fan of dialect in books though.
In Glory like Their Stars - SF so-so
Calamity Warps - Plane changing dog, what's not to like?
Graylord Man's Last Words - Robotic child meets dying human.
Shields of Mars - Okay
From the Cradle - This is my favourite so far, it follows a young man who grows up to work in a bookstore with a very special book in it.
Black Shoes - This felt kind of Lovecraftsian, and was okay, but not great. More horror than SF.
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon? - I liked this one too (I seem to like the longer stories that have a bit more plot more in general).
Pulp Cover - One of the shorter stories (10 p) that I also quite liked, grown up falling in love with 15 year old squick aside.
Of Soil and Climate - I'm not sure if this was supposed to be satire over really bad D&S type fantasy (in which case it lacked humour) or if it was just bad. I realize it was all in an inmates head, but I still had to read far too much crap to justify that particular point. It was like the worst bits of Amber (and I didn't particularly like Amber).
The Dog of Drops - Written in extra super thick accent. I skimmed this one and probably missed half the point of it.
Mute - This is one of the horror stories in the collection, probably the one I liked the most of that genre, a creepy and weird After the Apocalypse kind of story.
Petting Zoo - Yay! Dinosaurs! (yes, I'm an 8 year old boy at heart) With an added wistful twist to it.
Castaway - Meh.
The Fat Magician - This was alright I guess, but I've never been much fond of WWII type stories and this kind of fit that bill.
Hunter Lake - This was a rather silly horror story.
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun - Cute little fable.
Try and Kill It - Who knew Zombie Bears could be kind of dull? I think hunting stories in general don't work so well on me, since I think it's absolutely fair game is the animal you try to kill tries to kill you in return (you started it after all).
Game in the Pope's Head - This is a short Jack the Ripper yarn, which felt Zelasny flavoured to me.
Empires of Foliage and Flower - A morality tale about war, set on a sort of fantasy Earth with added pedophilia.
The Arimaspian Legacy - Short little bookish story.
The Seraph and Its Sepulcher - SF meets horror meets Catholicism
Lord of the Land - Took me a couple of minutes to remember what this was about (and I only read it 2-3 hours ago), but it's Lovecraftian type horror story with Egyptians and added aliens.
Golden City Far - One of the longest stories about love and high school and dreams.
Currently reading
May 5, 2024Viewpoint (2001)
Rattler (2004) (with Brian A. Hopkins)
In Glory like Their Star (2001)
Calamity Warps (2003)
Graylord Man's Last Words (2003)
Shields of Mars (2002)
From the Cradle (2002) 5/5-24 (5 stars)
Black Shoes (2003)
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon? (1999)
Pulp Cover (2004)
Of Soil and Climes (2004)
Dog of the Drops (2002)
Mute (2002)
Petting Zoo (1997)
Castaway (2003)
The Fat Magician (2000)
Hunter Lake (2003)
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun (1985)
Try and Kill It (1996)
Game in the Popes Head (1988)
Empires of Foliage and Flower (1987) New Sun
The Armaspian Legacy (1987)
The Seraph and the Sepulchre (1991)
Lord of the Land (1990)?
Golden City Far (2004)
Rattler (2004) (with Brian A. Hopkins)
In Glory like Their Star (2001)
Calamity Warps (2003)
Graylord Man's Last Words (2003)
Shields of Mars (2002)
Black Shoes (2003)
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon? (1999)
Pulp Cover (2004)
Of Soil and Climes (2004)
Dog of the Drops (2002)
Mute (2002)
Petting Zoo (1997)
Castaway (2003)
The Fat Magician (2000)
Hunter Lake (2003)
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun (1985)
Try and Kill It (1996)
Game in the Popes Head (1988)
Empires of Foliage and Flower (1987) New Sun
The Armaspian Legacy (1987)
The Seraph and the Sepulchre (1991)
Lord of the Land (1990)?
Golden City Far (2004)
March 26, 2022
"It's about dreams, high school, and finding love, which is as good a recipe for a story as I've ever found." -Wolfe on "Golden City Far" from the Introduction to "Starwater Strains"
Wolfe's 2005 collection "Starwater Strains" bills itself as a collection SF stories but that's not wholly true. Oh sure, there are stories of interdimensional hopping dogs ("Calamity Wraps"), dystopian reality shows ("Viewpoint"), far future tales of synthetics ("Graylord Man's Last Words"), and mock Martian swordfights among friends ("Shields of Mars"), but there are just as many horror featuring people of the deep ("Black Shoes"), murderous bodies of water ("Hunter Lake"), boardgames in Hell ("Game in the Pope's Head"), unsettling stories about children returning "home" ("Mute"), and ManBearPigs ("Try and Kill It"). We also have high fantasy wordplay ("Of Soil and Climate"), fables ("The Boy Who Hooked the Sun"), and magical realist fantasy "Pulp Cover."
Nearly all the stories in this collection have "meat" on their bones. Most run fairly brief which is a blessing and curse as Wolfe parcels out just enough to keep the reader engaged but not so much that everything is explained or the pacing falters. There are allusions and illusions, and nearly every story practically screams "READ ME AGAIN" because you know you missed something, damnit. My major critique were those stories that heavily featured written dialect (think when people write the heavy accents of characters), it's hard to write and harder to read -- a couple stories feature that heavily and those are generally the weaker efforts.
My personal favorite was the final story in the collection "Golden City Far." Written in 2004, it's about a young high school boy who has a dream of a golden city far away and begins writing about it in his study hall journal every day. Soon the vision of the city grows to feature drawfs on horseback, magical swords, and fair maidens. And soon after that, those elements start manifesting themselves in his daily life. As his fantasy grows in maturity and strength, so does he.
"Golden City Far" was written in 2004 and is clearly the germ of the idea behind Wolfe's 2010 "Wizard/Knight" duology that finds a young boy transported to a high fantasy world in the body of an adult knight yet still a teenage boy on the inside. This is something of the inverse of that -- outwardly he remains a boy but everything else about him has "grown."
It's a wonderful story filled with beautiful moments and like the collection as a whole, Wolfe has a way of making you regret coming to the end.
Wolfe's 2005 collection "Starwater Strains" bills itself as a collection SF stories but that's not wholly true. Oh sure, there are stories of interdimensional hopping dogs ("Calamity Wraps"), dystopian reality shows ("Viewpoint"), far future tales of synthetics ("Graylord Man's Last Words"), and mock Martian swordfights among friends ("Shields of Mars"), but there are just as many horror featuring people of the deep ("Black Shoes"), murderous bodies of water ("Hunter Lake"), boardgames in Hell ("Game in the Pope's Head"), unsettling stories about children returning "home" ("Mute"), and ManBearPigs ("Try and Kill It"). We also have high fantasy wordplay ("Of Soil and Climate"), fables ("The Boy Who Hooked the Sun"), and magical realist fantasy "Pulp Cover."
Nearly all the stories in this collection have "meat" on their bones. Most run fairly brief which is a blessing and curse as Wolfe parcels out just enough to keep the reader engaged but not so much that everything is explained or the pacing falters. There are allusions and illusions, and nearly every story practically screams "READ ME AGAIN" because you know you missed something, damnit. My major critique were those stories that heavily featured written dialect (think when people write the heavy accents of characters), it's hard to write and harder to read -- a couple stories feature that heavily and those are generally the weaker efforts.
My personal favorite was the final story in the collection "Golden City Far." Written in 2004, it's about a young high school boy who has a dream of a golden city far away and begins writing about it in his study hall journal every day. Soon the vision of the city grows to feature drawfs on horseback, magical swords, and fair maidens. And soon after that, those elements start manifesting themselves in his daily life. As his fantasy grows in maturity and strength, so does he.
"Golden City Far" was written in 2004 and is clearly the germ of the idea behind Wolfe's 2010 "Wizard/Knight" duology that finds a young boy transported to a high fantasy world in the body of an adult knight yet still a teenage boy on the inside. This is something of the inverse of that -- outwardly he remains a boy but everything else about him has "grown."
It's a wonderful story filled with beautiful moments and like the collection as a whole, Wolfe has a way of making you regret coming to the end.
Read
May 14, 2019I confess to finding a lot of Wolfe's later novels not to my taste, but his short fiction remains a clear cut above his competitors. 'The Pope's Head' is as nightmarish a 5 pages as you'll ever read, and there's this one about a guy locked in jail/exploring a pulp fantasy world which I likewise loved, though I guess not so much that the name stuck in my head.
July 22, 2017
Well, I would give it two and a half stars if I could.
In my opinion (humble or not), Wolfe is a marvelous story teller and one of the four or five greatest writers of the age, in genre or out.
Starwater Strains is his last collection of short stories until now and the last I read, and, unfortunately, it is perhaps the least too.
First, it is read on the cover that it's a "New Science Fiction Stories" collection; here is a double misstatement : in fact, there are some SF stories, indeed, and some fantasy stories and at least one story which is neither SF nor fantasy story, as far as I can see. Besides, there are some old stories. But it's not the point.
Here is the point.
In Starwater Strains, there are, as usual, a lot of inscrutable stories (Wolfe's favorite saying seems to be why make it easy when you can make it hard): among these, some are good, like “Games In The Pope's Head”, some are less good like "The Fat Magician".
There are some exercise in style, some in the best English like “In Glory Like Their Star” but a little boring for my taste, some in sort of funny dialects like “The dog of The Drops” (this one seems to be a game where you have to replace wrong or missing letters).
There are some investigation stories where the investigator is a Doctor in religion and folklore (Does this really exist in US ?) like “Lord of The Land” or an (exo)archaeologist like “The Seraph from its sepulcher”.
There is one story it is said to be a SF post-apocalyptic story though it is actually a pretty good fantasy story (“Mute”) and one story it is never said to be a SF post-apocalyptic story but it is (“Petting Zoo”).
There is a couple of stories which could feature in a collection of his best short stories, like “Pulp cover” or “The Seraph...” and more stories which could feature in some Wolfe's Worst.
Now, I read all his collections of short stories, with some novellas in there, and I can give my verdict : Starwater Strains is the weakest of his collections, not really bad, but this is definitively not the book to start with if you are to discover Wolfe. I would rather advise a new and genuine reader who prefers short stories (and novellas) like I do to look for his first collection “The island of doctor Death and other stories and other stories” or this other one, by far my favorite, “Storeys from the old hotel”.
In my opinion (humble or not), Wolfe is a marvelous story teller and one of the four or five greatest writers of the age, in genre or out.
Starwater Strains is his last collection of short stories until now and the last I read, and, unfortunately, it is perhaps the least too.
First, it is read on the cover that it's a "New Science Fiction Stories" collection; here is a double misstatement : in fact, there are some SF stories, indeed, and some fantasy stories and at least one story which is neither SF nor fantasy story, as far as I can see. Besides, there are some old stories. But it's not the point.
Here is the point.
In Starwater Strains, there are, as usual, a lot of inscrutable stories (Wolfe's favorite saying seems to be why make it easy when you can make it hard): among these, some are good, like “Games In The Pope's Head”, some are less good like "The Fat Magician".
There are some exercise in style, some in the best English like “In Glory Like Their Star” but a little boring for my taste, some in sort of funny dialects like “The dog of The Drops” (this one seems to be a game where you have to replace wrong or missing letters).
There are some investigation stories where the investigator is a Doctor in religion and folklore (Does this really exist in US ?) like “Lord of The Land” or an (exo)archaeologist like “The Seraph from its sepulcher”.
There is one story it is said to be a SF post-apocalyptic story though it is actually a pretty good fantasy story (“Mute”) and one story it is never said to be a SF post-apocalyptic story but it is (“Petting Zoo”).
There is a couple of stories which could feature in a collection of his best short stories, like “Pulp cover” or “The Seraph...” and more stories which could feature in some Wolfe's Worst.
Now, I read all his collections of short stories, with some novellas in there, and I can give my verdict : Starwater Strains is the weakest of his collections, not really bad, but this is definitively not the book to start with if you are to discover Wolfe. I would rather advise a new and genuine reader who prefers short stories (and novellas) like I do to look for his first collection “The island of doctor Death and other stories and other stories” or this other one, by far my favorite, “Storeys from the old hotel”.
April 26, 2021
More like 3 1/2 stars. Wolfe lost his touch by the end of his career. Some of these are, by his own admission, "throw-away stories" (not his term of course) that he wrote for various special occasions and thus were not reviewed by an editor or publisher. His characters all talk in his voice, which is completely unrealistic for, say, a teenage girl (see the last story). Or else, in this collection, they talk in dialect, which is often painful to read. Nevertheless the stories are imaginative and the best have that Wolfe elusiveness that keeps you thinking.
August 6, 2019
I am sorry to report that this proved a very difficult read. Starwater Strains is a long collection full of short stories that either didn't gel for me or moved too fast in a style I couldn't quite follow.
Gene Wolfe is a well-respected American fantasy author, one that my favourite writer Neil Gaiman cites as a great influence. While I can see the uncannily casual approach to high fantasy intruding on everyday life in both of their works, I always know roughly where I am with Gaiman's stranger tales. Wolfe not so much.
That being said I did find some joy in a couple of stories in Starwater Strains though that might have come from simply having a clear understanding of the premise throughout.
Also it must be said that, for a purportedly science fiction collection, very few of these tales went far beyond 'rationalising' sword and sorcery fables in the real world. Most of the aliens featured were only lightly implied.
I really wanted to like Starwater Strains and Wolfe but it seems his shorter fiction just isn't for me. Aside from the occasional gem, these stories had little impact other than quiet frustration.
That being said, if I had to recommend this book to anyone, it would probably be sword-loving dog people who don't mind putting in extra work for speculative fiction.
Notable Stories
• Rattler - I much prefer this kind of living car to any of Stephen King's.
• Shields of Mars - Burroughs' Martian make for a good 'displaced native' allegory.
• Empires of Foliage and Flower - I like this Father Thyme and not just for his veggie wordplay.
Gene Wolfe is a well-respected American fantasy author, one that my favourite writer Neil Gaiman cites as a great influence. While I can see the uncannily casual approach to high fantasy intruding on everyday life in both of their works, I always know roughly where I am with Gaiman's stranger tales. Wolfe not so much.
That being said I did find some joy in a couple of stories in Starwater Strains though that might have come from simply having a clear understanding of the premise throughout.
Also it must be said that, for a purportedly science fiction collection, very few of these tales went far beyond 'rationalising' sword and sorcery fables in the real world. Most of the aliens featured were only lightly implied.
I really wanted to like Starwater Strains and Wolfe but it seems his shorter fiction just isn't for me. Aside from the occasional gem, these stories had little impact other than quiet frustration.
That being said, if I had to recommend this book to anyone, it would probably be sword-loving dog people who don't mind putting in extra work for speculative fiction.
Notable Stories
• Rattler - I much prefer this kind of living car to any of Stephen King's.
• Shields of Mars - Burroughs' Martian make for a good 'displaced native' allegory.
• Empires of Foliage and Flower - I like this Father Thyme and not just for his veggie wordplay.
May 29, 2018
Gene Wolfe writes in his introduction to this collection, "Sometimes you open the back door and find a story there, wagging its tail and hoping to be fed. I think it's a good idea to take these stories in, feed them, and buy them flea collars."
He's talking about writing, of course, but in this case I think it also applies to reading. It took me a long time to get through with this collection, put off as I was by the fact that it was advertised as one devoted primarily to science fiction. It's not.
It is, however, devoted primarily to dog stories. There are dogs all over this book, and sometimes the dogs are the stories. They're strange stories, a pack of mutts and mongrels, with many links between them. These are Wolfe stories, and they might leave you feeling comforted or haunted. They scratch at the door, wagging their tails and hoping to be fed, and sometimes the door won't stop them.
He's talking about writing, of course, but in this case I think it also applies to reading. It took me a long time to get through with this collection, put off as I was by the fact that it was advertised as one devoted primarily to science fiction. It's not.
It is, however, devoted primarily to dog stories. There are dogs all over this book, and sometimes the dogs are the stories. They're strange stories, a pack of mutts and mongrels, with many links between them. These are Wolfe stories, and they might leave you feeling comforted or haunted. They scratch at the door, wagging their tails and hoping to be fed, and sometimes the door won't stop them.
February 18, 2020
A mixed bag. Collects some of Wolfe's best stories like "Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?" alongside some of his not-so-great, like "Viewpoint," which may be the worst thing he ever wrote (that I've read, at least).
March 13, 2012
Actual rating: 2.5 stars.
I started reading Gene Wolfe in the 1970s, when he wrote science fiction: The Fifth Head of Cerberus, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. I fell away from Wolfe when he began writing sword & sorcery fantasy: The Book of the New Sun series and others. I picked up a later book, Pirate Freedom, and was appalled at how poorly it was written. And just lately, I picked up Starwater Strains, a collection of what the book jacket described as science fiction stories, thinking that at last Gene Wolfe had gone back to writing good sci-fi. And it is good sci-fi, at least the three or four longer stories contained in this collection. Gene Wolfe, far more than other sci-fi authors, not only expresses a sense of wonder, he evokes that sense of wonder -- the bottom-falling-away feeling that anything is possible -- in the reader, which is a rare gift. I hope he writes more in the sci-fi vein, and look forward to a collection of longer stories and possibly even a novel (without the sword & sorcery stuff).
I started reading Gene Wolfe in the 1970s, when he wrote science fiction: The Fifth Head of Cerberus, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. I fell away from Wolfe when he began writing sword & sorcery fantasy: The Book of the New Sun series and others. I picked up a later book, Pirate Freedom, and was appalled at how poorly it was written. And just lately, I picked up Starwater Strains, a collection of what the book jacket described as science fiction stories, thinking that at last Gene Wolfe had gone back to writing good sci-fi. And it is good sci-fi, at least the three or four longer stories contained in this collection. Gene Wolfe, far more than other sci-fi authors, not only expresses a sense of wonder, he evokes that sense of wonder -- the bottom-falling-away feeling that anything is possible -- in the reader, which is a rare gift. I hope he writes more in the sci-fi vein, and look forward to a collection of longer stories and possibly even a novel (without the sword & sorcery stuff).
July 16, 2023
“Starwater Strains” is an 2005 anthology by Gene Wolfe, and it contains a collection of his short fiction published in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While most of it could be considered science fiction, there are some stories one would have to classify as speculative fiction. His work often crosses the lines between these.
One of the more interesting tales is the final story “Golden City Far” which I would have to call fantasy. It has magic swords and everything! The first story “Viewpoint” was clearly science fiction, and explored the idea of reality TV being all too real. I didn’t like that one very much. In between these two tales are 23 others that are very different from each other, and from what you might get from other authors.
The late Mr. Wolfe was a respected literary craftsmen, who produced highly complex novels. Some of these stories are similar, but since they are shorter works, there is a smaller stage for the story to unfold. This collection covers a wide variety of narratives, and covers a period of his work that I was previously unfamiliar with.
One of the more interesting tales is the final story “Golden City Far” which I would have to call fantasy. It has magic swords and everything! The first story “Viewpoint” was clearly science fiction, and explored the idea of reality TV being all too real. I didn’t like that one very much. In between these two tales are 23 others that are very different from each other, and from what you might get from other authors.
The late Mr. Wolfe was a respected literary craftsmen, who produced highly complex novels. Some of these stories are similar, but since they are shorter works, there is a smaller stage for the story to unfold. This collection covers a wide variety of narratives, and covers a period of his work that I was previously unfamiliar with.
October 4, 2014
Considering that dogs were only involved in about a quarter of the stories I'd have to say this cover was a little misleading.
There were two standout stories: "Empires of Foliage and Flower" - a fable nominally set on Urth which allowed Wolfe to roll out his most surrealist and playful prose, and the closer "Golden City Far" - a coming of age story that, while probably a bit too macho, seems like a warmup for his Wizard Knight books.
The rest ran the normal gamut of spec fic and while mostly solid, rarely seemed impressive. There is also a streak of "the government exists to ruin everything and guns solve everything" in many of his stories that really toes the line of preachiness. Luckily it hasn't infected everything he writes.
There were two standout stories: "Empires of Foliage and Flower" - a fable nominally set on Urth which allowed Wolfe to roll out his most surrealist and playful prose, and the closer "Golden City Far" - a coming of age story that, while probably a bit too macho, seems like a warmup for his Wizard Knight books.
The rest ran the normal gamut of spec fic and while mostly solid, rarely seemed impressive. There is also a streak of "the government exists to ruin everything and guns solve everything" in many of his stories that really toes the line of preachiness. Luckily it hasn't infected everything he writes.
October 29, 2014
It's a collection of short stories I checked out because it is, as far as I know, my only alternative to Flights of Fantasy if I want to own Golden City Far. Thankfully, it was a lot better than I had hoped. Although the subtitle would have you believe these are all science fiction stories, there are more than a few I would call fantasy. There was only one story I really disliked, and that because the narrator's horrible accent made it nearly impossible to figure out what was going on. My favorite ones were, like Golden City Far, stories that blended fantasy and reality until it's impossible to tell which is which. On the whole, a very good collection that I will be picking up as soon as I get a little money. Recommended.
June 4, 2025
Most stories were better than a few others, but, overall, this is a collection of Wolfe's work as any might come to it expecting- brilliant, haunting, puzzling, rewarding re-reads and worth looking into.
2025 reread: this is one of his most accessible assemblies of shorter fiction, and they each read beautifully and wonderfully and all those other words that mean exceptional-like. I am thrilled that Wolfe reads better and better, the more I read and the older I get.
2025 reread: this is one of his most accessible assemblies of shorter fiction, and they each read beautifully and wonderfully and all those other words that mean exceptional-like. I am thrilled that Wolfe reads better and better, the more I read and the older I get.
December 30, 2007
This isn't the finest collection of his stories I can think of, but Gene Wolfe, on a bad day, is better than nearly any other American writing today. It has become cliche to note that he is probably the finest science fiction writer alive today, but it is true. LeGuin says he's "our Melville." Yup.
July 3, 2007
Some of his best sci-fi and fantasy short stories. His retelling of old folktales and his variations on the themes he used in The Wizard Knight are all great.
December 19, 2007
can't recall a thing about it, from this distance.
February 10, 2010
This was a decent collection of short stories. A few of the stories stood out, but having just revisited the New Sun books, I guess I was expecting something more.
August 24, 2012
I am a fan of GW and feel that he is at his best in the short story format. Reading his story collection is a good introduction to his exacting style and esoteric world view.
December 11, 2016
Just got it for the Book of the New Sun story... that was pretty good!
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