Status Updates From The Best of Gene Wolfe

Wow they really don't give you a lot of characters for these small chapter updates.

The Island of Doctor Death - I've heard praise here and there for this novella and its subsequent sequels, even still I did not expect this to grab me like it did. A haunting tale of coping with your environment through the magic of fiction which both hides and highlights the dark truths underneath once you know what to look for.

"A Cabin on the Coast" - when you deal with the Fair Folk, you never get what you bargained for. It's ok I guess, and the only story Wolfe didn't select (his editors did).

"Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?" - a carnie strongman meets a charismatic woman who seeks to ride the White Cow Moon. Wolfe effortlessly shows how to construct a world through the scattershot words and memorable voice of his mentally dim but utterly loyal narrator. My heart goes out to Sam.

"The Tree Is My Hat" - an old gods fantasy, taking place on an island in the south Pacific, with special guest Sharknado. Wolfe's characters are slippery, not completely understandable; his worldbuilding nonlinear and oh so expertly crafted.

"Petting Zoo" - it was inevitable that I loved this bittersweet story of a boy and his dinosaur, as Wolfe states in an afternote that he was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes. This one's a masterclass in seamlessly embedding flashbacks, *and* worldbuilding. Nary a word wasted.

"Bed and Breakfast" - What happened one night at the last B&B before the gates of Hell. A fair story, if kind of cringe. At least it kept my attention.

"And When They Appear": finally, a story I could not put down, to break the run of stinkers. This one's a Christmas story, yet our protag Sherby gains agency but not wisdom, so it's not a Christmas story.

"Game in the Pope's Head": a pointless acid trip about a serial killer? Again, why?

"Parkroads---a Review": another inexplicable inclusion in a best-of collection. There is no plot here. Move along.

"The Boy Who Hooked the Sun": A Kiplingesque origin story for the seasons. Mostly forgettable, but according to Wolfe, a good story model to emulate. Eh.

"Redbeard" - a conversation driving down a road about an abandoned house in a small town. Not much to remember but an unsettling feeling.

The last in his series of unrelated stories riffing on the same title words, "Death of the Island Doctor" is an odd little beast, ending somewhat abruptly, mysteriously. I initially thought this was another dud. But if you let the ending knock about a bit in your head a while, you might see why it was "a special favorite" of Wolfe's. And now mine. Brilliant.

"From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton": A mildly amusing epistolary between a new writer and his unscrupulous agent. Sounds about right.

"On the Train"- No plot, inexplicable characters. This got into the New Yorker?! Kinda getting pissed off here.

"The God and His Man" Another utterly forgettable story. That's four in a row, oof.

"Kevin Malone": eh.

"The Detective of Dreams" is another dud. Starts off as a detective story, ends up trying to make some vague and inscrutable point about Christianity. (Shrug)

"Seven American Nights" fell flat for me. Tedious, waaaay too long, odious characters, all. Worst yet in the collection.

"Seven American Nights": a mildly interesting first-person tale of an odious foreign academic visiting post-collapse America that reads like Poe, only set in Fallout 3's Capitol Wasteland. And it's *still* going... I'm like on night 4 or 5?

"The Eyelash Miracles": another whiff for me. This story about a blind orphan who is much more than he seems, and the pair of hobos who adopted him after losing their school jobs to automation, got exceedingly tedious. If this story does one thing well, it's to put the reader behind Little Tib's nonexistent retinas. Unfortunately, the psychedelic stuff gets in the way.

Finished the Fifth Head of Cerberus

"Straw": a tale of cannibal sellswords in the Dark Ages... who travel by hot air balloon. Neat idea, but eh.

... mountebank and his chess machine from a past era. The hook immediately drew me in, and the alternate timeline was curious, but this one dragged, and I just didn't care about the reveal at the end.

"The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton" a curious story about a

"The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton": good heavens, the worldbuilding compressed into the hook paragraph.

"The Hero As Werwolf" [sic] A stunningly immersive dystopia where humans are nearly extinct and prey on the Masters who ignore them. It gets gory.