SFF

The Wolfe at the Door

by Gene Wolfe
Tor. Oct. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9781250846204. $29.99. SF
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While a smattering of the stories in this eclectic collection are from Wolfe’s (Interlibrary Loan) early years as a writer, most serve as a portrait of the lion at twilight, displaying his continued mastery of his signature mixture of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The most notable story in the collection is the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novella Memorare, the story of a down-on-his-luck video producer who bites off considerably more than he can chew—but can still video—as he takes his last career chance out in the space graveyards around Jupiter and nearly becomes part of one of the sites he investigates. Ultimately, it didn’t win an award, but it still serves as a last high-water mark for a career that was considered artful from its beginning.
VERDICT Wolfe (1931–2019) has always been considered one of the most literary of SFF writers; though he hewed closely to genre tropes, he also sent them in directions no one had imagined. This collection picks up where 2009’s The Best of Gene Wolfe left off and will be appreciated most by readers and scholars of the author’s work.
Reviewed by Marlene Harris , Sep 22, 2023
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