The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction
The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction has also been published by PS Publishing as a limited edition, The Very Best of Gene Wolfe. The limited edition contains one additional story, "Christmas Inn".
World Fantasy Award 2010, Locus Award for Best Collection 2010.
The best stories of a long and influential career by “quite simply a superb writer” (The Washington Post Book World)
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 among the thirty-one stories, which include: “Petting Zoo,” “The Tree Is My Hat,” “The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories,” “The Hero as Werwolf,” “Seven American Nights,” “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” “The Detective of Dreams,” and “A Cabin on the Coast.” 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.
Contents:
- The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories
- The Toy Theater
- The Fifth Head of Cerberus
- Beech Hill
- The Recording
- Hour of Trust
- The Death of Dr. Island
- La Befana
- Forlesen
- Westwind
- The Hero as Werwolf
- The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton
- Straw
- The Eyeflash Miracles
- Seven American Nights
- The Detective of Dreams
- Kevin Malone
- The God and His Man
- On the Train
- From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton
- Death of the Island Doctor
- Redbeard
- The Boy Who Hooked the Sun
- Parkroads — a Review
- Game in the Pope's Head
- And When They Appear
- Bed and Breakfast
- Petting Zoo
- The Tree Is My Hat
- Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
- A Cabin on the Coast
Gene Wolfe
Gene Rodman Wolfe (1931-2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short-story writer and novelist and won many science fiction and fantasy literary awards.
Wolfe is best known for his Book of the New Sun series (four volumes, 1980–83), the first part of his "Solar Cycle". In 1998, Locus magazine ranked it the third-best fantasy novel published before 1990 based on a poll of subscribers that considered it and several other series as single entries.