Most Popular Books by Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe''s In Green''s Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue''s Waters, of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun. It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now 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. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance. In Green''s Jungles is Wolfe''s major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, building toward a strange and seductive climax. "Wolfe''s narrative glows, rich and seductive as ever."--Kirkus Reviews 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.

Severian the Torturer continues his epic journey across the lands of Urth, a journey as fraught with peril as it is with wonder. Exiled from his guild he is an outcast, but his travels are woven with strange portents. The Claw of the Conciliator, relic of a prophet and promise of a new age, flames to life in his hands. He carries the great sword Terminus Est, the Line of Division. The dwellers in the deep waters offer him a kingdom under the seas. And he is hunted and driven by terrors from beyond Urth. Now all his travels move him inexorably toward a grander fate, a destiny that he dare not refuse. For a devouring blackness gnaws at the heart of the Old Sun, and the fate of Urth rests in the return of the Conciliator, the New Sun long foretold.

Arthurian legend collides with Main Street, USA, in Gene Wolfe''s classic fantasy adventure. Castleview, Illinois, got its name from occasional sightings of a phantom castle on stormy nights--a place where the barrier between past and present is weak and strange things happen.

Latro, a mercenary soldier, lost his memory after a head wound and must continually rediscover his identity. However, he is now able to converse with supernatural creatures which is both a triumph and a danger.

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

A Mythic Quest Through Seven Fantastical Worlds The Wizard Knight is a novel in two volumes that transcends the surface of fantasy, delving deep into the wellspring of myth. This masterful work breathes fresh life into the familiar features of the genre: magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, and nobility. In The Knight, a teenage boy from America journeys into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven wondrous worlds. As Able navigates this fantastical land, he gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and a fierce desire to prove his honor and become a true knight. In The Wizard, Able returns to Mythgathr as Sir Able of the High Heart, armed with new knowledge and magical secrets. He strives to fulfill his vows and restore balance among the denizens of all seven worlds. Gene Wolfe, hailed as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today" by Michael Swanwick, weaves a charming, riveting, and emotionally charged tale of wonders in this epic fantasy series. The Wizard Knight is the perfect introduction to the works of a writer Damon Knight called "a national treasure." At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Gene Wolfe, whose tetralogy The Book of the New Sun was the most acclaimed science fiction work of the 1980s, offered his second collection of short fiction in 1990 to universal acclaim. This is a hefty volume of over 30 unforgettable stories in a variety of genres-- SF, fantasy, horror, mainstream-many of them offering variations on themes and situations found in folklore and fairy tales, and including two stories, "The Cat" and "The Map," which are set in the universe of his New Sun novels. Wolfe''s deconstructions/reconstructions are provocative, multilayered, and resonant. This embarrassment of literary riches is a must for all Gene Wolfe fans, and anyone who loves a good tale beautifully told. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work, that will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books. But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

He lives deep in the forest in the time of King Wenceslas, in a village older than record. The young man''s hero-worship of the charming highwayman, Wat, is tempered by growing suspicion of Wat''s cold savagery, and his fear of the sorcerous powers of Mother Cloot is tempered by her kindness. He must decide which of these powers to stand by in the coming battle between Good and Evil that not even his isolated village will be able to avoid. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

After becoming the first Caldé in more than a century, Silk gets a glimpse into the nature of the Whorl and of his own purpose.

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.

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.

Gene Wolfe presents Lovecraftian noir fiction!

The Washington Post has called Gene Wolfe "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced." This volume, Castle of Days, joins together two of his rarest and most sought after works--Gene Wolfe''s Book of Days and The Castle of the Otter--and add thirty-nine short essays collected here for the first time, to fashion a rich and engrossing architecture of wonder. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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

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.

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.

"There Are Doors "is the story of a man who falls in love with a goddess from an alternate universe. She flees him, but he pursues her through doorways-interdimensional gateways-to the other place, determined to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for her love. For in her world, to be her mate . . . is to die.