Gene Wolfe

He was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Wolfe is best known for his Book of the New Sun series (four volumes, 1980–1983), 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. Le Guin called Wolfe "our Melville".

Gene Wolfe studied at Texas A&M University, University of Houston and Lamar High School. The recorded working language is American English and English. The field of work recorded is science fiction and science fiction literature. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are science fiction and fantasy. Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Lovecraft and G. Chesterton are recorded as an influence. Residence is recorded at Brooklyn and Houston. Works named in the authority record are The Book of the New Sun. Distinctions recorded are Nebula Award for Best Novella, Locus Award for Best Novella, Nebula Award for Best Novel and World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

Wolfe was born in New York City, the son of Mary Olivia (née Ayers) and Emerson Leroy Wolfe. He had polio as a small child. He and his family moved to Houston when he was 6, and he went to high school and college in Texas, attending Lamar High School. While attending Texas A&M University, he published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Early in his writing career, Wolfe exchanged correspondence with J. R. R. Tolkien. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year and subsequently was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States, he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He was a senior editor on the staff of the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato chips. Wolfe lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with his wife Rosemary where they raised four children. Wolfe also has three granddaughters. The Wolfes moved to Peoria, Illinois in 2013. Wolfe underwent double bypass surgery on April 24, 2010. Wolfe also underwent cataract surgery on his right eye in early 2013. Wolfe's wife, Rosemary, died on December 14, 2013, after a series of illnesses including Alzheimer's disease. Wolfe said, "There was a time when she did not remember my name or that we were married, but she still remembered that she loved me." Wolfe died at his Peoria home from cardiovascular disease on April 14, 2019, at the age of 87.

Wolfe's first published book was the paperback original novel Operation Ares (Berkley Medallion, 1970). He first received critical attention for The Fifth Head of Cerberus (Scribner's, 1972) that examined a "colonial mentality within an orthodox science fiction framework". It was published in German and French-language editions within the decade. “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” was mistakenly named the winner of Best Novella at the Nebula Awards. Isaac Asimov jokingly told Wolfe to write a story called The Death of Doctor Island in the hopes that it would win. Wolfe did, and it did. Along with “The Doctor of Death Island”, they were published in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. Along with the previously unpublished “Death of the Island Doctor”, they were collected in The Wolfe Archipelago. His best-known and most highly regarded work is the multi-volume novel The Book of the New Sun. Set in a bleak, distant future influenced by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, the story details the life of Severian, a journeyman torturer, exiled from his guild for showing compassion to one of the condemned. The novel is composed of the volumes The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator (1981; winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel), The Sword of the Lictor (1982), and The Citadel of the Autarch (1983). A coda, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), ties up some loose ends but is generally considered a separate work. Several of Wolfe's essays about writing the Book of the New Sun series were published in The Castle of the Otter (1982; the title refers to a misprint of the fourth book's title in Locus magazine). In 1984, Wolfe retired from his engineering position and was then able to devote more time to his writing. In the 1990s, Wolfe published two more works in the same universe as The Book of the New Sun. The first, The Book of the Long Sun, consists of the novels Nightside the Long Sun (1993), Lake of the Long Sun (1994), Caldé of the Long Sun (1994), and Exodus From the Long Sun (1996). These books follow the priest of a small parish as he becomes wrapped up in political intrigue and revolution in his city-state. Wolfe then wrote a sequel, The Book of the Short Sun, composed of On Blue's Waters (1999), In Green's Jungles (2000), and Return to the Whorl (2001), dealing with colonists who have arrived on the sister planets Blue and Green. The four Sun works (The Book of the New Sun, The Urth of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun) are often referred to collectively as the "Solar Cycle". Wolfe also wrote many stand-alone books. His first novel, Operation Ares, was published by Berkley Books in 1970 and was unsuccessful. He subsequently wrote two novels held in particularly high esteem, Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus. The first is the seemingly-rambling narrative of Alden Dennis Weer, a man of many secrets who reviews his life under mysterious circumstances. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is either a collection of three novellas or a novel in three parts, dealing with colonialism, memory, and the nature of personal identity. The first story, which gives the book its name, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella.

Wolfe's writing frequently relies on the first-person perspectives of unreliable narrators. He said: "Real people really are unreliable narrators all the time, even if they try to be reliable narrators." The causes for the unreliability of his characters vary. Some are naive, as in Pandora by Holly Hollander or The Knight; others are not particularly intelligent (There Are Doors); Severian, from The Book of the New Sun, tells his story from the perspective of his younger, ignorant self; and Latro of the Soldier series suffers from amnesia. Wolfe wrote in a letter, "My definition of a great story has nothing to do with 'a varied and interesting background.' It is: One that can be read with pleasure by a cultivated reader and reread with increasing pleasure." In that spirit, Wolfe also left subtle hints and lacunae that may never be explicitly referred to in the text. For example, a backyard full of morning glories is an intentional foreshadowing of events in Free Live Free, but it is apparent only to a reader with a horticultural background, and a story-within-the-story provides a clue to understanding Peace. Wolfe's language can also be a subject of confusion for the new reader. In the appendix to The Shadow of the Torturer, he says: In rendering this book—originally composed in a tongue that has not achieved existence—into English, I might easily have saved myself a great deal of labor by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so. Thus in many instances I have been forced to replace yet undiscovered concepts by their closest twentieth-century equivalents. Such words as peltast, androgyn, and exultant are substitutions of this kind, and are intended to be suggestive rather than definitive. This character of the fictional "translator" of his novel provides a certain insight into Wolfe's writing: all of his terms—fuligin, carnifex, thaumaturge, and so on—are real words.

This is a partial list of works by Wolfe, focusing on those which won awards.

The Book of the New Sun The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) BSFA Award & World Fantasy Award winner, 1981; Nebula Award and John W. Campbell Award nominee, 1981 The Claw of the Conciliator (1981) Nebula and Locus Fantasy winner, 1982; Hugo and World Fantasy Awards nominated, 1982 The Sword of the Lictor (1982) Locus Fantasy and BFS Winner, 1983; Nebula and BSFA Awards nominee, 1982 Hugo and World Fantasy Awards nominee, 1983 The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) John W. Campbell award winner, Nebula and BSFA nominee, 1984; Locus Fantasy nominee, 1983 Free Live Free (1984) BSFA nominee, 1985; Nebula nominee, 1986 The Urth of the New Sun (1987) Hugo, Nebula, and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1988 The Soldier series Soldier of the Mist (1986) Locus Fantasy winner, WFA nominee, 1987; Nebula nominee 1988 Soldier of Arete (1989) Locus Fantasy and WFA nominee, 1990 Soldier of Sidon (2006) World Fantasy Award winner, Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 2007 There Are Doors (1988) Locus Fantasy nominee, 1989 The Book of the Long Sun Nightside the Long Sun (1993) Nebula nominee, 1994 Lake of the Long Sun (1994) Caldé of the Long Sun (1994) Nebula nominee, 1996 Exodus From the Long Sun (1996) The Book of the Short Sun On Blue's Waters (1999) In Green's Jungles (2000) Locus SF nominee, 2001 Return to the Whorl (2001) Locus SF nominee, 2002 The Wizard Knight The Knight (2004) Nebula nominee, 2005 The Wizard (2004) Locus Fantasy and World Fantasy Award nominated, 2005 Pirate Freedom (2007) Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 2008 An Evil Guest (2008) The Sorcerer's House (2010) Locus Fantasy nominee, 2011 Home Fires (2011) The Land Across (2013) A Borrowed Man (2015) Interlibrary Loan (2020)