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This is a great loss. When I was quite young I made the mistake of joining the Science Fiction Bookclub, unaware that it's intent and purpose was to mislead kid
by javajosh 8y ago
This is a great loss. When I was quite young I made the mistake of joining the Science Fiction Bookclub, unaware that it's intent and purpose was to mislead kids into over-buying books they didn't want. At the time, one of the books they sent me was Gene Wolfe's "Urth of the New Sun", and it bewildered me and fascinated me so much that I reread it in college, and realized it was part of a much longer tale. I went on to read virtually everything he ever wrote. Unlike so much science fiction (and fantasy, on occasion), Wolfe's uses tremendous texture and nuance; reading his work feels incredibly dream-like to me, even though there's nothing overtly trippy. As I get older, and recognize so much of what I once enjoyed as the same juvenile power fantasy told over with slightly different mechanics, Wolfe is (was) one of those rare genre authors who was doing something very different.
For anyone who wants to try a Wolfe book, the most accessible one is "The Wizard Knight", IMHO. It's still quite good, and has that gauzy, dreamy style and unreliable narrator Wolfe is known for, but is rather more straight-forward than, say, the Torturer series (which is actually part of the series in which Urth of the New Sun played a role). Ironically (to me) this is also the closest he got to "juvenile power fantasy" but ends up deconstructing the bildungsroman in a really beautiful, even loving way. Highly, highly recommended.
Also, I remember reading somewhere that he was a working engineer while he wrote some of his first novels; I presume he was writing full-time later. I think that's cool, too.
- RoyTyrell 8y ago> Also, I remember reading somewhere that he was a working engineer while he wrote some of his first novels; You are correct - he was an industrial engineer. I'm not sure if he was working on a team, or just by himself, but he helped to design the machinery that creates Pringles (potato chip). He was also the editor for a trade magazine on industrial engineering.
- colinb 8y agoDo you happen to have any references for that? I in no way doubt you, but I hope to use this fact to dazzle a child when I get home; and maybe persuade her to read some top class sci-fi.
- philk10 8y agoSee #1 - http://mentalfloss.com/article/67583/12-crispy-facts-about-pringles http://mentalfloss.com/article/67583/12-crispy-facts-about-p...
- javajosh 8y agoAnd a link in that uses the phrase surreal bildungsroman, which makes me feel like I've been validated by the New Yorker. :) https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficul...
- pteraspidomorph 8y agoIt's in this article! You can dig through philk10's link to find the interview, which is in the google books link. There is also an internet archive link on his wikipedia page which contains the same interview. He made the part of the machine that cooks the chips.
- gwern 8y agoHe also discusses it in an interview I scanned the other week: https://www.gwern.net/docs/fiction/2002-wolfe-locusinterview.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/fiction/2002-wolfe-locusinterview...