Gene Wolfe

"A major work of twentieth-century American literature...Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within...once into it, there is no stopping." ---The New York Times on The Book of the New Sun This new Tor Essentials edition of Sword & Citadel contains a new introduction by historian and novelist Ada Palmer, author of the award-winning Too Like the Lightning. Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by the Washington Post. THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is unanimously acclaimed as 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 & Science Fiction. 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 alter forever the realm known as Urth. "Wonderfully vivid and inventive... the most extraordinary hero in the history of the heroic epic." --The Washington Post

"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.

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.

Too many award winners and Best Of stories to list here; just as a sample we have “The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories”, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”, “Petting Zoo”, “The Tree Is My Hat”, “Seven American Nights”, and “A Cabin on the Coast”. Incredible tales from a writer who challenged and amazed. Who revolutionised the genre. And whose stories will stand the test of time.

In the twenty-second century, our civilization has retained many familiar characteristics, but the population is smaller. Technology has made significant advances, and there are robots - and clones. One such is E. A. Smithe, a borrowed person, a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library. His personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. As library property, Smithe is not a legal human. The father of Colette Coldbrook, a wealthy library patron, has disappeared and been proclaimed dead. She decides to check Smithe out of the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was the sole item in her father's safe, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. Her brother, Conrad, turned up dead in the family home shortly after giving the book to her. Colette has reached the end of her options. She's afraid of the police, and there are others who might want the book's secret. Smithe is her last hope. Borrowing him might help her find the connection between the deaths and Murder on Mars. Together they find something far beyond their expectations - something almost anyone would kill for.

The first two volumes of Gene Wolfe's magnificent, award-winning The Book of the New Sun.

The concluding two volumes of Gene Wolfe's magnificent, award-winning The Book of the New Sun.

Grafton, an American writer of travel guides in need of a new location, chooses to travel to a small, obscure Eastern European country. The moment he crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards. 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 in some ways they are not 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? Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and afterword.

Originally published in 1975, "Peace "is a spellbinding, brilliant tour de force of the imagination. The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living out his last days in a small midwestern town, the novel reveals a miraculous dimension as the narrative unfolds. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself. Powerfully moving and uncompromisingly honest, "Peace "ranks alongside the finest literary works of our time. Hailed as "one of the literary giants of SF" by the "Denver Post," Gene Wolfe has repeatedly won the field's highest honors, including the Nebula, the Hugo, and the World Fantasy awards. "Peace "is Gene Wolfe's first full-length novel, a work that shows the genius that later flourished in such acclaimed works as "The Fifth Head of Cerberus "and "The Book of The New Sun."

An anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories, each with a bookstore at its core. Stories by Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, Harlan Ellison, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jack Williamson, Gene Wolfe, and more, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman.

In a contemporary town in the American Midwest where he has no connections, 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. When he meets a real estate agent who tells him he is the heir to a huge old house, long empty, he moves in, though he is too broke to even buy furniture, and is immediately confronted by supernatural and fantastic creatures and events. 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. We learn things about magic, and another world, and about the sorcerer Mr. Black, who originally inhabited the house. And then perhaps we read it again.

The Ultimate Egoist, the first volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, contains the late author's earliest work, written from 1937 to 1940. Although Sturgeon's reach was limited to the lengths of the short story and novelette, his influence was strongly felt by even the most original science fiction stylists, including Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gene Wolfe, all contributors of laudatory forewords. The more than forty stories here showcase Sturgeon's masterful knack with clever, O. Henry-ish plot twists, sparkling character development, and archetypal "why didn't I think of that?" story ideas. Early Sturgeon masterpieces include "It," about the violence done by a creature spontaneously born from garbage and mud, and "Helix the Cat," about an inventor's bizarre encounter with a disembodied soul and the cat that saves it. Sturgeon's unique genius is timelessly entertaining.

An SF masterpiece.

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.

The companion volume to Litany of the Long Sun presents the final two novels in the series CaldT of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun, in an omnibus edition. Original. 15,000 first printing.

"Litany of the Long Sun" contains the full texts of "Nightside the Long Sun" and "Lake of the Long Sun," that together make up the first half of The Book of the Long Sun. This great work is set on a huge generation starship in the same future as the classic Book of the New Sun (also available in two volumes from Orb).

It is the far future, and the giant spaceship, The Whorl, has traveled for forgotten generations toward its destination. Lit inside by the artificial Long Sun, The Whorl is so huge that whole cities can be seen in the sky. And the gods of The Whorl have begun to intervene in human affairs. An entirely unexpected future awaits as Patera Silk and the other inhabitants are confronted with the world of an alien race. Wolfe's great work is complete, with the mysterious fullness of life itself.