Posted on 04/15/2019 10:18:09 AM PDT by EveningStar
The science fiction and fantasy community has lost a beloved icon. We are extremely sad to report that author and SFWA Grand Master Gene Wolfe passed away on Sunday, April 14, 2019 after his long battle with heart disease. He was 87.
Gene Wolfe was born in New York on May 7, 1931. He studied at Texas A&M for a few years before dropping out and fighting in the Korean War. After his return to the US he finished his degree at the University of Houston. He was an engineer, and worked as the editor of the professional journal Plant Engineering. He was also instrumental in inventing the machine that cooks Pringles potato chips. He pursued his own writing during his editorial tenure at Plant Engineering, but it took a few years before one of his books gained wider notice in the sci-fi community: the novella that eventually became The Fifth Head of Cerberus.
(Excerpt) Read more at tor.com ...
ping
Gene Wolf, the last of the masters of the english languages passes. RIP. You are missed.
Solar Cycle consists of the following. Even if you ae not a Sci-fi fan the his use of English is masterful almost up to Lawrence Durrell’s level. If you eschew sci-fi because it does not interest you, you will miss some of the best writing ever.
The Book of the New Sun:
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980);
The Claw of the Conciliator (1981) - winner Nebula Award for Best Novel;
The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)
The Urth of the New Sun (1987)
The Book of the New Sun:
Nightside the Long Sun (1993);
Lake of the Long Sun (1994);
Caldé of the Long Sun (1994);
Exodus From the Long Sun (1996).
The Book of the Short Sun:
On Blue’s Waters (1999);
In Green’s Jungles (2000);
Return to the Whorl (2001)
Book of the New Sun was one of the best sci fi series ever. RIP.
Did he hold a candle to Jack Vance? If so, I may have to have a look.
Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, Edgar Pangborn, and Alfred Bester are all considered great writers who happened to write in the SF/F field.
Never heard of him, a defect that I will correct.
R.I.P.
RIP.
His ‘Soldier in the Mist’ and ‘Soldier of Arete’ are also excellent.
I consider Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven’s writing (The Mote in God’s Eye) to be superior.
I also consider Julian May (The Golden Torc series) and Janet Morris (The Dream Dancer series) well above the norm.
Switching to fantasy: I rate Patricia McKillip (The Riddle-Master series) and Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant multiple series) to be exceptional. (McKillip was, interestingly, Donaldson’s protege.)
McKillip’s prose is almost like poetry. Donaldson can be excessively dense at times, but he uses extant words and their antecedents and derivations in ways seldom seen.
I consider Donaldson closer to being the American Tolkien than George R. R. Martin, whose writing seems to me generally adequate to the purpose but pedestrian in style.
Thanks for the suggestions.
You can add Theodore Sturgeon to that list.
Just heard of this. What a great author. One of the very few writers whose complete work I had to own. I think I’m still missing some of the short story collections. Eventually I’ll get to them. It’s nice to still have stuff out there from him I get to read for the first time.
Freegards
Wolfe and Vance are my two favorites. The one I like more is always the author of the last book of theirs I’ve read. No one writes like Jack Vance. No one writes like Gene Wolfe. Vance is much more of a stylist, at least with the actual prose. Gene Wolfe generally uses the unreliable narrator combined with mysteries and unexplained passages that the reader has to parse and then piece together as well as they can. I don’t get it all the first time. It’s harder to read Wolfe, Vance flows. Wolfe’s characters are more realistic in some ways. Wolfe was a huge fan of Vance. Vance probably didn’t know who Wolfe was.
Freegards
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