New Releases by Gene Wolfe

An all new collection from an American literary icon The circus comes to town... and a man gets to go to the stars. A young girl on a vacation at the sea meets the man of her dreams. Who just happens to be dead. And an immortal pirate. A swordfighter pens his memoirs... and finds his pen is in fact mightier than the sword. Welcome to Gene Wolfe’s playground, a place where genres blend and a genius’s imagination straps you in for the ride of your life. The Wolfe at the Door is a brand new collection from one of America’s premier literary giants, showcasing some material never been seen before. Short stories, yes, but also poems, essays, and ephemera that gives us a window into the mind of a literary powerhouse whose world view changed generations of readers in their perception of the universe. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Although best known for his world-building Book of the New Sun science-fantasy saga, Gene Wolfe wrote brilliant fiction that resisted encapsulation within rigid genre categories. This volume collects twenty-eight tales spanning nearly a half century--six of them never before collected--and gathered from venues as varied as men''s magazines, periodicals devoted to short works of fantasy and science fiction, and tribute anthologies to the works of authors as wildly opposed in their literary visions as Dante and H. P. Lovecraft. Although selected for their overtones of "horror," they frequently defy the conventions that contemporary category label conjures. Take "Talk of Mandrakes," a tale of malignant exo-biology spun from an ancient occult legend steeped in sex magic. Or "The Other Dead Man," a story set aboard an interstellar spacecraft that would distinguish any anthology of zombie fiction it appeared in. "Innocent" is cast in the form of a dramatic monologue whose creepy first-person narrator details increasingly aberrant behavior that defies the formal psychological diagnosis it cries out for. And "In the House of Gingerbread" recasts a classic children''s fairy tale as a dark noir whodunit. To be sure, Wolfe willingly embraced horror''s classic tropes, but he reworked them into remarkably original signatures through his personal creative ingenuity: There is much lycanthropy, but nary a hairy transformation in his futuristic "The Hero as Werwolf." "The Vampire Kiss" reinterprets its titular monster as a scourge of the poor in Dickensian London. And in "Why I Was Hanged," the disadvantages of accepting advice from the ghosts of the living are made abundantly manifest. Their macabre inflections notwithstanding Wolfe''s horror stories abound with affecting character studies that cleave the distance between the horrible and the human: the changeling child adapting to an unfamiliar life as a mortal in "Queen of the Night"; the investigator in "The Detective of Dreams" dedicated by occupation to freeing his clients from their nightmares; the woman in "Uncaged," whose feral persona may be an expression of her true self. Wolfe''s tales of horror, like all of his fiction, are stories in which readers--however uneasily--recognize, and relate to, much of themselves.

“Gene Wolfe is the smartest, subtlest, most dangerous writer alive today, in genre or out of it. This book [is] important and wonderful.” —Neil Gaiman on The Knight A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of works of fantasy like The Once and Future King, or The Wizard of Earthsea, that drink directly from the wellspring of myth. Now it appears in a single-volume edition for the first time. A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm consisting of seven levels of reality. Transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Sir Able of the High Heart and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, the blade that will help him fulfill his ambition to become a true hero—a true knight. Inside, however, Sir Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive what lies ahead... “[Wolfe] should enjoy the same rapt attention we afford to Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy.” —The Washington Post on The Knight “Wolfe’s version of Faerie is both allusive and elusive, beautiful and fatally glamorous.” —Tad Williams on The Knight With a new introduction by Yves Meynard, acclaimed author of The Book of Knights. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Interlibrary Loan is the brilliant follow-up to A Borrowed Man: the final work of fiction from multi-award winner and national literary treasure Gene Wolfe. A 2021 Locus Award Finalist! Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots. And there are clones. E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Which he is. Along with two fellow reclones, a cookbook and romance writer, they are shipped to Polly’s Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not. And another E.A. Smithe... who definitely is. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This discounted Gene Wolfe ebundle includes: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch, The Urth of the New Sun “Magic stuff...a masterpiece...the best science fiction I''ve read in years!” —Ursula K. Le Guin The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe’s most remarkable work, hailed as “a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis” by Publishers Weekly, and “one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century” by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The Shadow of the Torturer introduces young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, who has been exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession—showing mercy toward his victim. The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny. The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe''s remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home. The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth. The Urth of the New Sun is the long awaited sequel to Gene Wolfe''s four-volume classic, The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test yet. More Tor books by Gene Wolfe The Book of the Long Sun Nightside the Long Sun Lake of the Long Sun Caldé of the Long Sun At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Unlucky thieves invade a house where Home Alone seems like a playground romp. An antique bookseller and a mob enforcer join forces to retrieve the Atlas of Hell. Postapocalyptic survivors cannot decide which is worse: demon women haunting the skies or maddened extremists patrolling the earth. In this chilling twenty-first-century companion to the cult classic Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Ellen Datlow again proves herself the most masterful editor of the genre. She has mined the breadth and depth of ten years of terror, collecting superlative works of established masters and scene-stealing newcomers alike.

Lake of the Long Sun is the second volume in the Book of the Long Sun series from science fiction and fantasy master Gene Wolfe It is the far future, and the giant spaceship, The Whorl, has travelled for forgotten generation towards its destination. Lit inside by the artificial Long Sun, The Whorl is so huge that you can see whole cities in the sky. And now the gods of The Whorl begin to intervene in human affairs. A god speaks to Patera Silk, a clergyman at work in the schoolyard of his church. Silk must go on a quest to save his church and his people. "Stylistic excellence and topnotch storytelling."--Library Journal At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways as threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in that country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an innocent citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? In The Land Across, Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and after. A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013

An all-star tribute to Gene Wolfe, featuring the work of Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and others

LIGHTSPEED is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF--and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.This month, we have original science fiction by D. Thomas Minton ("The Schrdinger War") and Will McIntosh ("Dry Bite"), along with SF reprints by Lisa Tuttle ("Ragged Claws") and Nina Allan ("Angelus"). Plus, we''re featuring a reprint of the novella "The Secret Sharer" by Robert Silverberg.Plus, we have original fantasy by Seanan McGuire ("Homecoming") and a new Gorlen story by Marc Laidlaw ("Bellweather") and fantasy reprints by Gene Wolfe ("Suzanne Delage") and the first Erm Kaslo tale by Matthew Hughes ("And Then Some").All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with io9''s Annalee Newitz and author of THE SHINING GIRLS, Lauren Beukes.

The best stories of the year: here is a collection of the year''s best fantasy stories, by some of the genre''s greatest authors, and selected by Rich Horton, a contributing reviewer to many of the field''s most respected magazines. In this volume you''ll find stories Peter Beagle, Paul Di Filippo, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link, Gene Wolfe and many more! Complete contents: PIP AND THE FAIRIES, by Theodora Goss COMBER, by Gene Wolfe THREE URBAN FOLK TALES, by Eric Schaller WAX, by Elizabeth Bear THE EMPEROR OF GONDWANALAND, by Paul Di Filippo COMMCOMM, by George Saunders FIVE WAYS JANE AUSTEN NEVER DIED, by Samantha Henderson FANCY BREAD, by Gregory Feeley SUNBIRD, by Neil Gaiman THE SECRET OF BROKEN TICKERS, by Joe Murphy ON THE BLINDSIDE, by Sonya Taaffe JANE, by Marc Laidlaw IS THERE LIFE AFTER REHAB? by Pat Cadigan TWO HEARTS, Peter S. Beagle SUPER-VILLAINS, Michael Canfield EMPTY PLACES, by Richard Parks INVISIBLE, by Steve Rasnic Tem BY THE LIGHT OF TOMORROW’S SUN, by Holly Phillips THE GIST HUNTER, by Matthew Hughes

A collection of some of the best original short fiction published on Tor.com in 2012. Includes stories by Elizabeth Bear, Adam Troy Castro, Paul Cornell, Kathryn Cramer, Brit Mandelo, Pat Murphy, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Rachel Swirsky, and Gene Wolfe. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Wildside book of Fantasy presents 20 great fantasy tales by modern masters. Included are stories by Tanith Lee, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Gene Wolfe, Fritz Leiber, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Robert E. Howard, and many more. A choice selection of tales! THE DEAD MAN, by Gene Wolfe BRIGHT STREETS OF AIR, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman THE DOLPHIN AND THE DEEP, by Thomas Burnett Swann THE SWORDSMEN OF VARNIS, by Clive Jackson THE EMPEROR OF GONDWANALAND, by Paul Di Filippo SPACE-TIME FOR SPRINGERS, by Fritz Leiber RED NAILS, by Robert E. Howard ARMS AND THE WOMAN, by Lawrence Watt-Evans THE BRIDE OF THE MAN-HORSE, by Lord Dunsany THE WOMAN, by Tanith Lee DREAMTIME IN ADJAPHON, by John Gregory Betancourt THE BLACK ABBOT OF PUTHUUM, by Clark Ashton Smith BLACK HAWK OF VALKARTH, by Lin Carter THE DEVIL’S CRYPT, by E. Hoffmann Price VANDIBAR NASHA IN THE COLLEGE OF SHADOWS, by Darrell Schwetizer THE POWER OF PRAYER, by Brian Stableford THE SECRET OF KRALITZ, by Henry Kuttner LIGHT, by Achmed Abdullah THE LOST RACE, by Robert E. Howard RINGARD AND DENDRA, by Brian McNaughton

In this companion guide, Michael Andre-Driussi illuminates Gene Wolfe''s Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun science fiction series through dictionary-style entries on the characters, gods, locations, themes, and timelines of the novels. Gate of Horn, Book of Silk, is organized in two parts, with the first half covering the Long Sun series (Nightside the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun, Calde of the Long Sun, and Exodus from the Long Sun) and the second half covering the Short Sun series (On Blue''s Waters, In Green''s Jungles, and Return to the Whorl). "Languages of the Whorl," a section between the two parts, covers all the dialect, slang, and foreign terms used in the books--thieves'' cant, flier language, Tick''s talk, and more. Ten maps and diagrams are included. This is Michael Andre-Driussi''s third guidebook to the rich tapestries of Gene Wolfe''s worlds. As fans of of Lexicon Urthus and The Wizard Knight Companion have noted, that each book is both a convenient tool for a question while re-reading the novels but also an enjoyable read in its own right, from A to Z.

Gene Wolfe presents Lovecraftian noir fiction!

A collection of dark fantasy and horror stories written in 2011, with selections by Paul Finch, Lisa Tuttle, Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe, and others.

Presents a collection of short fiction for the year 2010 featuring the work of such authors as Elizabeth Bear, Peter Watts, Rachel Swirsky, Steve Gould, and Jay Lake.

Gene Wolfe takes us to a future North America at once familiar and utterly strange. A young man and woman, Skip and Chelle, fall in love in college and marry, but she is enlisted in the military, there is a war on, and she must serve her tour of duty before they can settle down. But the military is fighting a war with aliens in distant solar systems, and her months in the service will be years in relative time on Earth. Chelle returns to recuperate from severe injuries, after months of service, still a young woman but not necessarily the same person—while Skip is in his forties and a wealthy businessman, but eager for her return. Still in love (somewhat to his surprise and delight), they go on a Caribbean cruise to resume their marriage. Their vacation rapidly becomes a complex series of challenges, not the least of which are spies, aliens, and battles with pirates who capture the ship for ransom. There is no writer in SF like Gene Wolfe and no SF novel like Home Fires. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In a contemporary town in the American midwest where he has no connections, Bax, an educated man recently released from prison, is staying in a motel. He writes letters to his brother and to others, including a friend still in jail, to whom he progressively reveals the intriguing pieces of a strange and fantastic narrative. When he meets a real estate agent who tells him he is, to his utter surprise, the heir to a huge old house in town, long empty, he moves in. He is immediately confronted by an array of supernatural creatures and events, by love and danger. His life is utterly transformed and we read on, because we must know more. We revise our opinions of him, and of others, with each letter, piecing together more of the story as we go. We learn things about magic, and another world, and about the sorcerer Mr. Black, who originally inhabited the house. And then knowing what we now know only in the end, perhaps we read it again. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The best stories of a long and influential career by “quite simply a superb writer” (The Washington Post Book World)

Latro, a barbarian serving in Xerxes'' army, suffers a head injury at the battle of Plataia and is afflicted with recurrent amnesia, leaving him unable to remember the past each morning. In return he is given the ability to see and talk with gods and spirits.

The third book in the Latro series from science fiction and fantasy master Gene Wolfe, Soldier of Sidon Latro forgets everything when he sleeps. Writing down his experiences every day and reading his journal anew each morning gives him a poignantly tenuous hold on himself, but his story''s hold on readers is powerful indeed. The two previous novels, combined in Latro in the Mist (Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete) are generally considered classics of contemporary fantasy. Latro now finds himself in Egypt, a land of singing girls, of spiteful and conniving deities. Without his memory, his is unsure of everything, except for his desire to be free of the curse that causes him to forget. The visions Gene Wolfe conjures, of the wonders of Egypt, and of the adventures of Latro as he and his companions journey up the great Nile south into unknown or legendary territory, are unique and compelling. Soldier of Sidon is a thrilling and magical fantasy novel, and yet another masterpiece from Gene Wolfe. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

As a young parish priest, Father Christopher has heard many confessions, but his own tale is more astounding than any revelation he has ever encountered in the confessional . . . for Chris was once a pirate captain, hundreds of years before his birth. Fresh from the monastery, the former novice finds himself inexplicably transported back to the Golden Age of Piracy, where an unexpected new life awaits him. At first, he resists joining the notorious Brethren of the Coast, but he soon embraces the life of a buccaneer, even as he succumbs to the seductive charms of a beautiful and enigmatic senorita. As the captain of his own swift ship, which may or may not be cursed, he plunders the West Indies in search of Spanish gold. From Tortuga to Port Royal, from the stormy waters of the Caribbean to steamy tropical jungles, Captain Chris finds danger, passion, adventure, and treachery as he hoists the black flag and sets sail for the Spanish mainland. Where he will finally come to port only God knows . . . . Pirate Freedom is a captivating new masterpiece by the award-winning author of The Wizard Knight and Soldier of Sidon. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Gene Wolfe''s Return to the Whorl is the third volume, after On Blue''s Waters and In Green''s Jungles, of his ambitious SF trilogy The Book of the Short Sun . . . It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Horn has traveled from his home on the planet Blue, reached the mysterious planet Green, and visited the great starship, the Whorl and even, somehow, the distant planet Urth. But Horn''s identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Perhaps Horn and Silk are now one being. Return to the Whorl brings Wolfe''s major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, to a strange and seductive climax. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Now in paperback--the first book in Wolfe''s critically acclaimed two-volume epic fantasy, written in the Tolkien tradition, about a boy who learns about fighting, magic, love, and loyalty in a thrilling, coming-of-age story.

Gene Wolfe may be the single best writer in fantasy and SF of his generation. From The Book of the Long Sun to The Book of the New Sun series, to his impressive short fiction oeuvre. Innocents Aboard gathers fantasy and horror stories from the last decade that have never before been in a Wolfe collection. Highlights from the twenty-two stories include "The Tree is my Hat," adventure and horror in the South Seas, "The Night Chough," a Long Sun story, "The Walking Sticks," a darkly humorous tale of a supernatural inheritance, and "Houston, 1943," lurid adventures in a dream that has no end. This is fantastic fiction at its best. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Originally published: New York: T. Doherty Associates, 1989; London: Orbit, 1990.