Free Live Free

by Gene Wolfe

Jim Stubb, an out-of-work detective, Madame Serpentina, an occultist, Ozzie Barnes, a salesman, and Candy Garth, a prostitute band together to search for Benjamin Free, a time traveler, and his missing treasure

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Time Travel, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

403 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

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]

Free Live Free kicks off like a noir mystery…

It was not yet night, though the streets were already dark. A few stores and restaurants had switched on their lights. A neon sign thrusting like an erection from a bar on the corner winked redly at thirsty patrons who were not present. There was rain in the wind, and the feeling that the rain would soon turn to snow.

Indeed amongst four tenants living free in the dilapidated building destined for demolition there is a private eye…

“You’re a detective, I think you said?”
“I’m an operative, sir. To be a private detective, I’d have to be licensed. As it is, licensed private investigators hire me to do the work they’ll bill their clients for. If you think of a doctor and the clerk who sells you the aspirin he tells you to take, you’ll about have the right idea.”

There is a salesman…

But I like this weather – not many customers coming in, which is always good for a salesman, and then, too, some merchants feel a little sorry for me. That makes them readier to listen. The whole secret of selling, let me tell you, is just getting your customer to listen to what you’re saying. Nine times out of ten, a man will stand there and stare at you like he’s hearing every word, but what he’s really listening to is something he told himself a long time ago, or maybe just his wife telling him not to lay in any more stock.

There is a fat girl…

“You’re saying you’re a prostitute.”
“Huh uh, a sexual therapist. You’re a doctor, right? So guess my weight. If you want, you can even feel me up, like they do at the carnivals.”

There is a professional witch…

“I am Serpentina.”
“I bet you are. You a snake charmer?”
“I am a witch.”
“It’s against the law to tell fortunes in this city,” the policeman said.
“I do not tell fortunes.”

And of course there is a mysterious owner Mr. Free full of secrets…
When a crew of such strange wretches gathers in such a strange place a lot of strange things can happen…
Some occurrences are stranger than miracles.

[Panagiotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Γουλφ γράφει πολλά πράματα. Παίζει με το ύφος, με τη δομή - είναι ένας ευφυής συγγραφέας. Μα όπως όλοι οι άνθρωποι με όραμα, έχει τις εμμονές του. Και μία από αυτές είναι το γριφώδες, κρυπτικό γράψιμο. Αυτό που απαιτεί την ολοκληρωτική συμμετοχή του αναγνώστη.

Αυτό κάνει και σε τούτο εδώ το βιβλίο του, όπου οι ανατροπές έρχονται απανωτά. Τίποτα δεν είναι αυτό που φαίνεται. Και τίποτα δεν εξελίσσεται όπως το περιμένει ο αναγνώστης. Κι όμως, καταφέρνει να γράφει με αυτή τη σπάνια, λόγια οικονομία του, και η ανάγνωση να είναι τόσο απολαυστική που ποτέ δεν θες να βγεις από τους κόσμους που χτίζει ο Γουλφ.

Εδώ διαβάζουμε: ένα κατεδαφιστέο κτίριο φιλοξενεί τέσσερις ανθρώπους που βρίσκονται, ο καθένας με τον τρόπου στον πάτο της οικονομικής κλίμακα;, σε μια Αμερική ευημερούσα, το '80. Κοντολογίς άνθρωποι του περιθωρίου. Το κτίριο κατεδαφίζεται, ο οικοδεσπότης τους, γηραλέος, υπαινικτικός, κάτοχος κάποιων παράξενων πραγμάτων, εξαφανίζεται. Και από 'κει ξεκινά μια αναζήτηση, κατά τη διάρκεια της οποίας προσωπικά μα και κρατικά συμφέροντα συγκρούονται. Σέχτες, το απόκρυφο, η μαύρη μαγεία, το πάνθεον των σκοτεινών δυνάμεων, η παραφιλολογία των θεωριών συνωμοσίας - όλα μπλέκονται γοητευτικά σε μια αχλή νουάρ. Και φυσικά, τα πάντα συνεχώς παίρνω αδιόρατα μια στροφή. Κοιτώντας τον κόρφο του ο αναγνώστης συνειδητοποιεί πως ο Γουλφ τον πάει όπου ο ευφυής νους του θέλει.

Καταπληκτικός και ξεχωριστός, στριφνός για πολλούς, ο καλύτερος εν ζωή και τόδο αδικημένος για άλλους -μεταξύ αυτών κι εγώ- συγγραφέας. Είναι ο Γουλφ και για άλλη μια φορά παραδίδει αυτό που ξέρει τόσο καλά: ξεχωριστή, καλογραμμένη, ευφάναστη λογοτεχνία με τα όλα της.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This limited hardcover edition is copy 248 of 750 produced and is signed by Gene Wolfe and artist Carl Lundgren .

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A commonality that I've noticed in lesser Wolfe books is serious pacing problems, where little seems to happen for many pages, where inconsequential dialogue extends far beyond its needed length, and where a rush of things is jammed into the final few pages of a section or of the book. For its first fifty pages or so Free Live Free dodges this problem, introducing us to our main characters and their situation as down-on-their-luck Chicagoans, and then things actually happen. It's great! If you've read any Wolfe before, you know the man can write- in the beginning pages of Free Live Free he shows that he can write about poverty and the struggle for daily survival to rival Steinbeck or Hemingway. Stubbs scrounging food, Barnes attempting to keep his dignity despite his lack of money, Candy and her career as an overweight prostitute, I could read a whole book that was just about their struggle to make it through a Chicago winter together in an old boarding house (though Madame Serpentina wouldn't exactly fit in a book like that). But this is Wolfe, so of course the story doesn't stay so simple.

After the characters put up a valiant effort but fail to save Ben Free's boarding house (which I would consider the end of the the story's introductory section) the book falls smack into the pacing problem I mentioned above. For long swaths we have dialogue in hotel rooms about food, pulp magazine article interviews, and various other minor intrigues. There's seventy-five pages on the protagonists visiting/getting trapped in/escaping a mental hospital, then another thirty on them navigating a Chicago blackout, with new but ultimately inconsequential characters introduced every few pages. We get to know the main quadrumvirate of characters very well, but the rest are bare sketches. Much of the "action," what little there is, seems inconsequential. There are extended segments of Stubbs delivering middling Sherlock Holmes detective exposition and explanation, a feature that also dragged down early volumes of The Book of the Long Sun (making that work inferior to the works in the series that sandwich it). The resolution is pretty out of left field, not very satisfying, and delivered in jumbled dialogue crammed into the final twenty pages of the book.

Wolfe is one of my favorite writers. Unlike a lot of the top-tier science fiction writers, he's doesn't rely on his ideas to mask an inability to write, as he can craft stunning prose. He's not just a one-hit-wonder, either: though not many reach it, The Book of the Short Sun is phenomenal, a rival to The Book of the New Sun. Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus are also great, and The Wizard Knight is a fun take on fantasy. Even what I would consider some of his lesser works are interesting, like Pandora By Holly Hollander and how it tells you a mystery without giving you the real solution. Wolfe is also a frustrating writer. Many of his books never rise above mediocrity- the only thing I can remember about Castleview is that it featured a cat named G. Gordon Kitty. He writes books that are filled with riddles, even when the book might be better without them. He's been on a streak lately of unimpressive books. I'll keep reading him as long as he keeps writing, but I expect I've already read (and he's already written) his best. Free Live Free is a lesser work of Gene Wolfe, if you're an adherent of his like I am then you'll probably read it regardless of what I say here. If you aren't, you should skip it and read the books I highlighted earlier in this paragraph.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I think Gene Wolfe was challenged as a young author to see if he could write just about anything, and then set about for the rest of his career attempting to prove that's possible, or he often takes bets with people who believe he can't make a functioning plot out of whatever bizarre fragment they decide to throw his way. As a SF author his books tend to veer toward allusive fantasy, where it seems like magic and mysticism are happening just in the periphery but there's also a more concrete underpinning, or simply more than one method of perceiving things.

That tendency works wonders when he's actually writing straight out SF, because that combination of evasive tone and elusive explanations is quite the heady brew for those so inclined, while others may be frustrated that he's forcing you to read the book as if looking through slanted funhouse mirrors (or, even more likely, the mirrors are telling you true and its what they're showing that's skewed) . . . however, when he's not dabbling in exhilaratingly confusing science-fiction, his attempts at playing it straight often have more mixed results, either because the mix is a bit more uneasy the closer it gets to our reality, or that he simply operates better in settings that aren't quite here.

This novel starts out with four very different people living for free in a rundown apartment building run by an old man, Benjamin Free. Each of them has different reasons for being down on their luck and even with the building being slated for demolition very soon, it's still the best option any of them has had for a while. But when they finally get kicked out of the building, the old guy disappears in the midst of the chaos and, lacking anything better to do, the four of them, separately and together, attempt to figure out where he went and what secrets it was that he was alluding to.

With characters like a salesman with one eye, a private detective without a license, a gypsy woman who insists on being called Madame Serpentina (if she lets you call her anything at all), and an overweight prostitute named Candy (and in case you think I'm being unfair, that's pretty much exactly how the book describes her repeatedly) all roaming around fairly quirky neighborhoods of Chicago engaged in various quests that don't seem to go anywhere at all, it's fair to think that Wolfe is writing some kind of parody of post-modern novels, with a lot of the played-straight nuttiness that hints at but never quite lapses into camp suggesting a second cousin of some of the wackier moments of a Thomas Pynchon novel. with an undercurrent of dark humor that oddly makes it feel more realistic as they separate and come back together again, believing they are pursuing their own agenda when they always wind up back on the same streamlined track. In the meantime it becomes clear that there is a larger plot going on around them so that most of their bizarre travails are indeed possessed of some purpose, even if that purpose is abundantly not clear.

Along the way the novel careens through several setpieces that feel grounded in some place just sideways of reality, a seedy hotel, a very strange asylum, often times giving it the impression that Wolfe is just using the book as a clearinghouse for all the scenes that he couldn't find a place for in his other novels (or make an entire novel out of), and you may find yourself asking more than once, "just where the heck is he going with this." Where it succeeds, and what helped the book maintain my interest, was his gift with setting a mood and having the characters feel fully formed even in their strangest moments . . . he has a knack here for crafting dialogue that feels very real even in the midst of very strange surroundings, so that even the weirdest scenes come across as real people existing in a slightly blurred reality, so that instead of coming across as cartoons, the four main characters hint at lives before they encountered each other, and plan they have for the future, so that even scenes where one character decides right in the middle of the plot to make plans for a date with someone he's met through an ad feel natural and not just the author vamping.

Unfortunately, and this is hard to write, he muffs it with the ending, attempting something that is too concrete to be believed, with an explanation coming entirely out of left field (it's possible that a careful rereading will make the ending seem less surprising, but there don't seem to be that many hints . . . for the record, I thought Ben Free was an alien and I was wrong) that seems more concocted to give readers the least likely outcome than anything that resembles a logical extension of where we've come before. It's not an "everything you know is wrong" as much as "oh by the way for the entire story nobody was wearing pants" and that winds up being the key fact that ties everything together. Not only is the explanation a "wha?" moment but the resolution that follows muddles exactly what was at stake and what makes these people so special and what it is they have to gain or lose. In a different setting it might have worked and come across as more poetic or metaphorical but here it just feels like he's trying too hard to be surprising, and instead of opening the world up so that we're forced to consider it anew, it feels almost like a cheat, a painted backdrop draped over a fairly normal scene in an effort to convince us that real magic is occurring, even when we can still smell the paint.

[Uvrón]

Stopped reading around p100. Wasn’t into any of the characters & really annoyed at the stereotyping of a fat woman who eats too much and gets referred to as “the fat woman” about as often as her name.

Mildly curious about why Tiptree liked it & how much fantasy stuff gets introduced (since Wolfe rarely wrote in real world settings like this) but I gave it enough of a chance.

[iSamwise · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic Wolfe novel. From what I can tell it’s also one of the easier ones to understand on a first read. I don’t know if there’s the same depth here as there is in New Sun, but this was thoroughly enjoyable without a dull moment and has a bonkers ending. (Of course)

[furious]

Um. I don't​ know. I really don't know.


Ok, some background: I've read the Book of the New Sun - all 4 books, plus Urth of the New Sun, and a couple short stories set in the Severianverse. That's the extent of my Wolfe knowledge. This one came across my "desk," as it were, and for whatever reason, I chose it as my next Wolfe. This despite already having half a dozen OTHER Wolfe books in my possession, including the first books of both Short and Long Sun. And a few others whose premises seem far more interesting than Free Live Free. So there's no saying why this was the one. But here we are.


This book makes no sense and is insane. Which is not to say that I didn't like it! I did! I enjoyed reading it the whole time, and all of the charterers were compelling, even if they were odd & ill-formed. What I can't figure out is WHY I was so invested. Maybe because of the weird construction. One of my favorite parts of New Sun is its inscrutability; just when you think you have it figured out, it reveals itself to be something else. Free is *kid of* like this, but more aggressive. If New Sun is a puzzlebox, designed to challenge & amaze, Free is a series of traps, designed to lure & ensnare & confound. It seems to spit in the face of any attempt to discern its intentions or its purpose, or even its true nature. When it finally resolves itself in a 30 page orgy of exposition at the very end, it is with the braggadocious air of a Poirot revealing his genius. We mortals are left with nothing but to stare in slack-jawed wonderment, having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what we had just witnessed. An impressive feat that I cannot comprehend, but enjoyed nevertheless. 3.5 stars? 🤷‍♀️

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read online that the ending of this book was really bizarre, but I says to myself, I says, "Andy, you know how Wolfe rolls, you're down with him, you won't think it's that weird."

I was wrong.

The book is interesting in part because it's written about things I don't usually associate with Wolfe. The protagonists are fairly ordinary, desperate people starving their way through a Chicago winter. They live in the America of the eighties, but it feels a little bit more like the fifties, a place where novelty salesmen, washed-up private eyes, and whores smoke cigarettes and drink coffee like a million decrepit Bogarts. Plus there's magic. Maybe. And some really arresting images.

Of course it's well-written, but overall I would say it's a minor Wolfe work. Still, I don't regret it.

I'm not going to provide a sample quote, but I will paraphrase one of the books better puns:
"How is that door like Samson?"
"It's unlocked!"
Oh, Gene Wolfe.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Gene Wolfe. I usually devour his books and if I dislike one of them I feel extremely disappointed with myself. I tried to read "Peace". I did read the first 50 pages and I was not enjoying it all. It really put me down. I decided to pick up any of Gene Wolfe's books I had not read it yet. I chose Free Live Free. I loved the characters. I loved the plot. I loved the settings. I loved Chicago as depicted in the book. I loved the ending. I loved Free Live Free. I looked over Abebooks for a hardcover ( I read the ebook ). I found one whose shipping price was not 75 dollars ( it is a true fact most dealers charge 75 dollars to ship to Brazil). I ordered it. I recommend this book a lot. I think you got it.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story meandered a bit more than it should have in the middle and I would have preferred a less abrupt ending, but it all paid off very nicely. As far as Wolfe's novels go, this is one of his least well understood, I think, which is saying something. A lot of readers latch on to the references to The Wizard of Oz and think that Oz is a rubric for understanding what Wolfe is striving for in the novel, but I think that's mostly just window dressing. The novel is really about America and how it constantly reinvents itself and the journey of redemption that the four main characters go on. I appreciate the book more and more as I think about it.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Instrument [of God], hell. I never even met Him!” Dr. Makee chuckled and nudged Barnes with an elbow. “Don’t be too sure.”

This line, about halfway through Wolfe's 1984 novel "Free Live Free," is a classic example of one of Wolfe's red herrings. It's a nothing line that has the potential to fundamentally alter how the reader views what he has read and what he is about to read. It worked on me and kept me going even if the ultimate 'payoff' to the plot was lackluster, the resolutions for the characters more than made up for it.

Ostensibly it tells the story of four down-on-their-luck losers who answer an ad for free room and board in the home of elderly Ben Free, whose home is about to be condemned and demolished.

There's (1) Jim Stubb, a diminutive and insecure unlicensed private detective;
(2) Candy, an immensely fat prostitute;
(3) Ozzie Barnes, a struggling salesman who writes letters to both his estranged wife and son and to lonleyhearts personal ads; and
(4) Madame Serpentina, a gypsy "witch" who claims to be able to communicate with the spirit world.

Unlike other Wolfe novels that exist in a near future or fantasy realm, the story of Free Live Free takes place in a somewhat timeless 1980s (discernible only from a couple of references) but much of the dialogue and character interactions has a 1950s detective novel-vibe to it. Unlike those near-future/dystopian novels, there's not a lot of "world-building" here--at least insofar as there are not references to technologies that the reader can spend a lot of time teasing out the implications thereof.

The result is that the novel becomes far more character driven, with Wolfe delving far deeper into his characters wants and (unmet) desires than in some of his other works. Shortly after the four main characters move in, the house is condemned and Ben Free goes missing. There's a suggestion that Free left something (a "key") of immense value in the house somewhere and the four set out to try to locate Free and his treasure. Here, the novel takes on a feel akin to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and the Ecstasy of Gold where characters who would not otherwise bond together do so in pursuit of what they think is something better--even if they still don't entirely trust one another.

Because it's Wolfe, it gets weird. But it's a far slower buildup to the weirdness than in some of his shorter works and very much character driven. We've got Egyptian rites, strip clubs, stand-up comedy, slapstick, insane conversations in an insane asylum, and....time-travel.

All of it builds to a conclusion that is both a let-down and a triumph. The payoff of the plot (Stubb even calls it a McGuffin at one point) is lacking but the ending for our characters, after having watched them trip, stumble, fall, and flail for so long, is immensely satisfying.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t do it anymore. I was hoping for some hidden gem but it’s not. All the characters are (intentionally) unsympathetic and I just don’t care.

[Paul H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would be great if someone could explain to me how someone capable of writing The Book of the New Sun, one of the greatest works of fiction ever produced (and the answer to the question: "what if Proust wrote science fiction?"), was also capable of writing mind-bogglingly terrible garbage like Free Live Free, or basically everything else in his later career.

Let's take a look at some passages selected at random from the first couple chapters of The Book of the New Sun:

The space about it had been a garden in summer, but not such a one as our necropolis, with half-wild trees and rolling, meadowed lawns. Roses had blossomed here in kraters set upon a tessellated pavement. Statues of beasts stood with their backs to the four walls of the court, eyes turned to watch the canted dial: hulking barylambdas; arctothers, the monarchs of bears; glyptodons; smilodons with fangs like glaives. All were dusted now with snow.

The vanishing sun, whose disc was now a quarter concealed behind the impenetrable blackness of the Wall, had dyed the sky with gamboge and cerise, vermilion and lurid violet. These colors, falling upon the throng of monomachists and loungers much as we see the aureate beams of divine favor fall on hierarchs in art, lent them an appearance insubstantial and thaumaturgic, as though they had all been produced a moment before by the flourish of a cloth and would vanish into the air again at a whistle.

Or some dialogue:

"Oh, there's no question of that--not the least. Nine persons died, after all, and the man was apprehended on the spot. He's of no consequence, so there's no possibility of pardon or appeal. The tribunal will reconvene at midmorning, but you won't be required until noon."

And now a couple passages selected at random from the first couple chapters of Free Live Free:

Neither of the others answered, and he went into the kitchen. There he washed a teapot and put a pan of water on the stove. There was a tablespoon of black tea loose, in a cannister, and, to his surprise, a little sugar in the sugar bowl. In the refrigerator he discovered a small cube of cheddar, which he ate. . . .

The towel lay in a crumpled heap to one side. He stood up, wrapping the towel around him. Candy looked like a bear lying there in her brown blanket, her back to him. Barnes went into the bathroom and switched on the lights. He laughed softly to himself. He made sure his empty wallet was still in the pocket, put on his trousers, switched off the light, and left.

Or some dialogue:

"How'd you do?" she asked. She loomed over him, a head taller than he.
"How'd you do?" Stubb said.
"I haven't yet. I just went out for gum and stuff."
"You shouldn't smoke," he told her. "Screws up your lungs."
"Yeah," the fat girl said. "That's right." She opened her purse and took out a pack of Viceroys. Two were gone. She pulled out two more. Stubb reached up to light hers, and she smiled. . . .

Or take a passage from another, equally terrible later Wolfe novel, Pirate Freedom:

There is a lot more I could say, how we threw the dead Spanish overboard and buried our own at sea, and who they were, and so forth. But time is getting tight. There is another thing I should say. Okay, maybe a couple. One is that he had taken no prizes. The other is that I turned loose the doctor and the others as soon as we dropped anchor, exactly like I had promised. . . . They wanted me to take them there, which of course I would not do. A day or so after that, they decided to go to Jamaica with us. It meant we had the carpenter, which turned out to be a lucky break. It is not a long trip, but we ran into a calm that made it a bit longer than it should have been.

What is actually going on? Why did Wolfe suddenly start writing terrible genre fiction at a fourth-grade reading level?

[James Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book. Having picked up the paperback on the strength alone of the author's name, I was unsure what to make of the first hundred pages. I come to Wolfe from his dense and very serious New Sun books and could not tell if this was meant to be the same tone or something completely different. The latter, very much. The comedy achieves Rabelaisian fervor. Once the stage is set, a funny and poignant novel unfolds.

From among the rough and tumble character set, one emerged for whom I developed an abiding fondness: Mrs Baker. Her mangling of commonplace phrases is becomes a kind of performance-in-miniature of the book's general skewer of social norms. When asked who broke into her house, Mrs Baker replies, "...They weren't uniform. Besides, they drank my tea. It was my obsession, when those two nice policemen broke my door, that policemen bought and large won't drink tea, only cooco. Tea and symphony is what they say, and policemen bought and large don't care for music." Her madness is poetic.

Another Bakerism, if you will: "Goodness, how time fleas, just jumps away whenever you try to catch at it... Pretty soon I'll be dead and then I won't feel sad anymore, so I figure I'd better get it done now. People always complain if a child laughs or an old person cries, but pretty soon they're quiet, and that's for a long time."

[Malquiviades · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here I have found an unexpected and nice surprise.

This story is an unconventional quest taken up by the oddest characters you can think of. And here it lies its strength and charm. Because that pack of losers just made a hole in your heart and meant to stay there. You do not know why, but...

Besides, Wolfe shows a cunning style that easily takes you from the hilarious scene (not that I laugh so easily, but Wolfe just made it happen: my prise for that) through strange settings and spiced with Sherlock Holmes' ways.

It is true that you try to guess how it will end or the explanation to all that from every possibility perspective you may imagine. Wolfe knows, masters that and plays delightfully with you all over the novel. So well he does it that I did not care so much about explanations at the end. Although they came. As unexpected as the rest of the book. That part I enjoyed less, but it was so (again) unconventional that it fits well in the novel.

I may gladly put a five star finally, but let it be a four for the time being.

[Bill Hsu]

I'm still intrigued by the central ideas. But I can't take more than 200+ pages of details of uninteresting garment choices, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and other beverages, mundane meals, sleeping on floors, getting in and out of vehicles, checking in and retrieving items from lockers etc, sorry.

Now somebody will probably point out to me that on page 359, one of those cups of coffee contained that fabled ticket to the High Country.

[Eddie Novak · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

[Joheiv ☺deldos☺awol · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is really amazing.

[Ocrema · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really amazing.

[Hobart Mariner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe completism project is starting to become rough going. Didn't like this one at all. At the end Gene really starts banging you on the head with the Wizard of Oz stuff. Lots of unkind and weirdly offensive stuff regarding women and ethnic minorities. If you really like There Are Doors, this serves as kind of a study-work for that. But the book is punishing, particularly his weird attempts to derive humor at the expense of black people, Romani, and fat people. Classic slingshot ending, so if you're looking for that, you can check it off the list.

Helped me isolate something about the bad Gene Wolfe books: his preference for getting information out in dialogue among four or more characters. So much directly reported dialogue! For an author who has not a great amount of control over voice, so he has to make the different characters into pure caricatures to keep them distinct (the tough gumshoe, the sozzled prostitute, the Gypsy fortune-teller, the randy salesman, weird Finnegan-ish clown characters, etc.). I tried to isolate this tendency or device of his, the "chaotic confab" where a bunch of people in a hotel or house try to solve a mystery in a really inefficient way, again, everything related in dialogue, often the direct witnesses to the action are children, foreigners, the elderly, and the more "able" detectives occasionally take huge digressions to spell out their alert reasoning. This might be leftovers from Golden Age detective novels (Agatha Christie is explicitly name-dropped here). Wolfe hated noir, and you can see why: Chandler's dictum that the book should function perfectly if you slice off the last twenty pages is incompatible with the slingshot ending. But he loved the fussy, crowded, inefficient model of mystery novels that predated noir. This is that with a bunch of fantasy and sf tropes stirred in.

A few good things: lots of scams and capers, it's basically readable in sections.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elderly man calling himself Ben Free advertises for roommates to live free in his condemned building. The four people who answer the ad are a disparate group united only in their reduced circumstances: Ozzie Barnes - seller of cheap trinkets; Madame Serpentina - beautiful, exotic, and probably a Gypsy witch; Jim Stubbs - diminutive part-time private investigator; an Candy Garth - alcoholic plus-sized freelance prostitute. When the building is finally demolished after heroic efforts by the four residents, Free vanishes. From this point on a number of parties seem very intent on finding Free and harass the four unmercifully in his pursuit, for Free had let slip that he had something of value hidden in the building. Through some clever literary sleight-of-hand Gene Wolfe disguises just how bizarre the plot is with the seemingly unrelated descriptions of his bizarre characters and their adventures. But a mythical World War II weapons project and periodic sightings of a B-17 bomber hint at a much more spectacular backstory. A surreal reading experience which I enjoyed a lot.

[Evan Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

After years of reading Wolfe, you'd think I would see the pattern before it "happens" to me. Whatever is left of my rationality is left after intuition has had its way, works tirelessly to piece a Wolfian mystery together with no small globs of glue and scissor scraps. That is, until Free Live Free entered the scene--or so my vaunted pride believed. The narrative presents itself straight as a stitch all the way until the end whereupon everything goes wobbly and my puffed ego collapses into itself. Yes, this book also has the charming Wolfey feature of transmuting the meaning of everything that came before, reminding the masochist reader they haven't read the book yet despite getting to the end.

Recommended for those who drive worse than they think.

[Ronronia Adramelek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madre mía, no sé ni lo que he leído. Empieza con una mezcla entre costumbrismo americano de la pobreza, tipo Steinbeck, y cuento de feria de esas en las que hay mujer barbuda. Después, manda a los personajes cada uno por su lado y te pinta escenas aparentemente disconexas, pero a la vez parece la típica quest de personajes de rol. Aparecen personajes secundarios que no acaban yendo a ninguna parte, hay un interludio extraño y larguísimo en una institución mental. He estado a punto de dejarla al menos tres veces, pero ahí he seguido. Después de tanto tatonear, te monta en veinte páginas un final rarísimo que nada tiene que ver con el resto de la novela.

[Christopher Schmehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Free Live Free is very nearly a perfectly written book. It's one of the most compelling stories I've ever read. Four very different people--all down on their luck in one way or another--move into a house scheduled for demolition with its eccentric owner Mr. Free. The house is one of many slated to make way for a new freeway through the city.
The mystery they discover and the truth behind the old man who invites them to board in his house for free will hook you and keep you guessing.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a wild ride! This book felt like Wolfe wanted to write a detective novel, then pulled a bunch of words out of a hat that he had to use for the story. Bizarre with small occasions of brilliance. A huge caveat that the fatphobia I've noticed running through Wolfe's works so far in my read-through - this book is by far the worse. One of the character is fat and it is constantly remarked upon as her grotesque defining feature. Absolutely exhausting.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright but not brilliant effort from Wolfe, who indulges in more obvious axe-grinding than typical for him. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/200...

[Dominic · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshingly novel pacing and great characters.

[Fredrik Österberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

A classic "fuck you" book, where the ending and the start seems almost entirely unrelated ti what happens in the other 80% of the story. I do not recommend

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this ages ago and thought, "Huh?" Read this more recently and thought, "OH!"