Gene Wolfe

(Gene Rodman Wolfe)
(1931 - )

Gene Wolfe's enigmatically stylish first novel The Fifth Head of Cerberus, with its meditations on identity, shape-shifting aliens and variously abused clones, made him instantly a figure to watch, as did short stories like the ones contained in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories. His most important book is The Book of the New Sun, a quartet consisting of The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch. Severian, an apprentice torturer, wanders towards his destiny in a far future world that is always more complex than it appears; a cyborg fellow prisoner turns out to be a robot patched with flesh. A narrative involving escapes, betrayals, sword-fights, miracles and battles is also a complex text involved in games of allusion that range from Dickens to Borges; the four volumes contain almost a book's worth of interspersed stories and fables. Other major Wolfe works include various slightly less elaborate sequels to The Book of the New Sun--The Urth of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun--and the inventive urban fantasy Free Live Free .