Most Popular Books by Gene Wolfe

From a literary perspective, this will certainly be the best collection of the year in science fiction and fantasy. Gene Wolfe, of whom The Washington Post said, "Of all SF writers currently active none is held in higher esteem," has selected the short fiction he considers his finest into one volume. There are many award winners and many that have been selected for various Year''s Best anthologies. Gene Wolfe has produced possibly the finest and most significant body of short fiction in the SF and fantasy field in the last fifty years, and is certainly among the greatest living writers to emerge from the genres. This is the first retrospective collection of his entire career. It is for the ages. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

When Severian disobeys the rules he has been raised to follow as a member of the torturers'' guild, he is sent on a dangerous journey into exile.

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.

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.

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

Severian, a young torturer banished for the sin of mercy is now imbued with the powers of an ancient relic as he continues his mythic journey to the city of his exile in a world a million years in the future.

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.

Mesmerizing sci-fi from the author the Denver Post calls "one of the literary giants of science fiction." The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living in a small midwestern town, reveals a miraculous dimension. For Weer''s imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself.

On Blue''s Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe''s four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk. The story continues in In Green''s Jungles and Return to the Whorl. "By any standard, Wolfe''s beautifully composed, meditative, thrilling, and tricky-beyond-belief ''science fantasy'' is a work of the highest art."--The Washington Post Book World At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"Free Live Free," said the newspaper ad, and the out-of-work detective Jim Stubb, the occultist Madame Serpentina, the salesman Ozzie Barnes, and the overweight prostitute Candy Garth are brought together to live for a time in Free''s old house, a house scheduled for demolition to make way for a highway. Free drops mysterious hints of his exile from his homeland, and of the lost key to his return. And so when demolition occurs and Free disappears, the four make a pact to continue the search, which ultimately takes them far beyond their wildest dreams. This is character-driven science fiction at its best by a writer whom, at the time of its first publication, the Chicago Sun-Times called "science fiction''s best genuine novelist." At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Presents three of Gene Wolfe''s science fiction novels, set in an alien society with a unique social order.

Science fiction. Horn''s physique is slowly changing, causing his friends and family to wonder who he really is, so to prove his identity, he reminisces about his many space adventures

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.

In The Land Across, Gene Wolfe''s engrossing fantasy novel, readers are kept guessing until the very end, and long after. 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? A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013 At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The first volume of Gene Wolfe''s powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Lovecraft mets Blade Runner. This is a stand-alone supernatural horror novel with a 30s noir atmosphere. Gene Wolfe can write in whatever genre he wants--and always with superb style and profound depth. Now following his World Fantasy Award winner, Soldier of Sidon, and his stunning Pirate Freedom, Wolfe turns to the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft and the weird science tale of supernatural horror. Set a hundred years in the future, An Evil Guest is a story of an actress who becomes the lover of both a mysterious sorcerer and private detective, and an even more mysterious and powerful rich man, who has been to the human colony on an alien planet and learned strange things there. Her loyalties are divided--perhaps she loves them both. The detective helps her to release her inner beauty and become a star overnight. And the rich man is the benefactor of a play she stars in. But something is very wrong. Money can be an evil guest, but there are other evils. As Lovecraft said, "That is not dead which can eternal lie." At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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.

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.

Hailed as "one of the literary giants of science fiction" by The Denver Post, Gene Wolfe is universally acknowledged as one of the most brilliant writers the field has ever produced. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best fiction collection, Storeys from the Old Hotel contains thirty-one remarkable gems of Wolfe''s short fiction from the past two decades, most unavailable in any other form. Storeys from the Old Hotel includes many of Gene Wolfe''s most appealing and engaging works, from short-shorts that can be read in single setting to whimsical fantasy and even Sherlock Holmes pastiches. It is a literary feast for anyone interested in the best science fiction has to offer. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Gene Wolfe is producing the most significant body of short fiction of any living writer in the SF genre. It has been ten years since the last major Wolfe collection, so Strange Travelers contains a whole decade of achievement. Some of these stories were award nominees, some were controversial, but each is unique and beautifully written. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In the town of Castleview, Illinois, Tom Howard is murdered at the factory he manages—on the same day that Will E. Shields and his family, newly come to Castleview, arrive with a realtor in tow to see Howard''s house. From an attic window, Shields glimpses the phantom castle that has given the town its name. They are discussing the house with Sally Howard when the police arrive bearing the dreadful news. Then, driving back to the motel, Shields nearly hits a gigantic horseman in the rain...beginning a series of collisions with the mythological that only Gene Wolfe could tell. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, in the time of a dying sun, when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, a torturer''s apprentice, is exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his prisoners. Ordered to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner''s sword, Terminus Est, Severian must make his way across the perilous, ruined landscape of this far-future Urth. But is his finding of the mystical gem, the Claw of the Conciliator, merely an accident, or does Fate have a grander plans for Severian the torturer . . . ? This edition contains the first two volumes of this four volume novel, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator.

Collects twenty-five short stories primarily from the science fiction genre, including such tales as "Viewpoint," "Petting Zoo," and "Empires of Foliage and Flower."

The long-awaited conclusion to "The Book of the Long Sun". "Wolfe may already have established himself as the definitive voice in science fantasy. If he has not, "Long Sun" is likely to do the job".--"Chicago Sun-Times". A "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year.

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.

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

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.

This omnibus of two acclaimed novels is the story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who was fighting in Greece when he received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory but gave him in return the ability to see and converse with the supernatural creatures, the gods and goddesses, who invisibly inhabit the classical landscape. 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.

A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work. The first half of the journey, The Knight -- which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning -- took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be. Coming into Jotunland, home of the Frost Giants, Able -- now Sir Able of the High Heart --claims the great sword Eterne from the dragon who has it. In reward, he is ushered into the castle of the Valfather, king of all the Gods of Skai. Thus begins the second part of his quest. The Wizard begins with Able''s return to Mythgathr on his steed Cloud, a great mare the color of her name. Able is filled with new knowledge of the ways of the seven-fold world and possessed of great magical secrets. His knighthood now beyond question, Able works to fulfill his vows to his king, his lover, his friends, his gods, and even his enemies. Able must set his world right, restoring the proper order among the denizens of all the seven worlds. The Wizard is a charming, riveting, emotionally charged tale of wonders, written with all the beauty one would expect from a writer whom Damon Knight called "a national treasure." If you''ve never sampled the works of the man Michael Swanwick described as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today," the two volumes of The Wizard Knight are the perfect place to start. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“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.