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 that has traditionally been the heart of the field. Their diversity makes them otherwise impossible to characterize as a group, so a few tantalizing samples will have to suffice:

"Viewpoint" takes on the unreality of so-called "reality" TV and imagines such a show done truly for real, with real guns, and a real government clawing at the money. Wolfe has loved dinosaurs since he was kid, and in "Petting Zoo" he imagines the reunion of a man and an aged dinosaur who look back together on a day when they were much much younger, and much freer. "Empires of Foliage and Flower" is a special treat, an addition to the classic Book of the New Sun series first published only as a limited edition chapbook. The volume closes with its newest story "Golden City Far." It's 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.

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Praise for this book

“Wolfe, who has been publishing excellent stories since the 1960s, is the Old Master . . . still very much in his prime.” —Locus on Innocents Aboard

“If any writer from within genre fiction ever merited the designation Great Author, it is surely Wolfe . . . [who] reads like Dickens, Proust, Kipling, Chesterton, Borges, and Nabokov rolled into one, and then spiced with all manner of fantastic influences from H. G. Wells to Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft to Damon Knight. . . . Gene Wolfe has taken science fiction to its highest artistic pitch, transcending genre, creating a literary monument unlike any other . . . Modernist or postmodernist, formal allegorist or anatomist of the deepest complexities of the human soul, he is a wonder, yes, a genius, with a crooked lupine smile.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning.” —Michael Swanwick




About the Author

Gene Wolfe (1931-2019) was the Nebula Award-winning author of The Book of the New Sun tetralogy in the Solar Cycle, as well as the World Fantasy Award winners The Shadow of the Torturer and Soldier of Sidon. He was also a prolific writer of distinguished short fiction, which has been collected in such award-winning volumes as Storeys from the Old Hotel and The Best of Gene Wolfe.

A recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and six Locus Awards, among many other honors, Wolfe was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007, and named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2012.


Title: Starwater Strains : New Science Fiction Stories
Author(s): Gene Wolfe
ISBN: 9781429915557
Copyright 2006
Release Date: May 02, 2006
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: ePub,mobi | Learn More about our supported formats
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