A journey through the attempts artists, scientists, and tinkerers have made to imagine and communicate with the otherworldly using various technologies, from cameras to radiowaves.Strange Frequencies takes readers on an extraordinary narrative and historical journey to discover how people have used technology in an effort to search for our own immortality. Bebergal builds his own ghostly gadgets to reach the other side, too, and follows the path of famous inventors, engineers, seekers, and seers who attempted to answer life's ultimate mysteries. He finds that not only are technological innovations potent metaphors keeping our spiritual explorations alive, but literal tools through which to experiment the boundaries of the physical world and our own psyches.Peter takes the reader alongside as he explores:the legend of the golem and the strange history of automata; a photographer who is trying to capture the physical manifestation of spirits; a homemaker who has recorded voicemails from the dead; a stage magician who combines magic and technology to alter his audience's consciousness; and more.

The Best of Gene Wolfe is the definitive collection of the best of Gene Wolfe’s short fiction.One of the greatest writers in genre (and literary fiction) of the 20th century, Gene Wolfe was a national treasure who produced the finest and most significant body of short fiction in the SF and fantasy field over the last fifty years. The Best of Gene Wolfe is an amazing retrospective collection of his short fiction, selected by Wolfe himself.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 revolutionized the genre.And whose stories will stand the test of time.“Wolfe is our Melville.”―Ursula K. Le Guin

An interesting triad of stories that explore what remains in the wake of man's presence in new places. Not for the faint of heart.

In a thoroughly decadent world of the future, Severian the torturer is cast out from the torturer's guild when he falls in love with one of his victims and allows her to die

Lovecraft mets Blade Runner. This is a stand-alone supernatural horror novel with a 30s noir atmosphere. Gene Wolfe can write in whatever genre he wants--and always with superb style and profound depth. Now following his World Fantasy Award winner, Soldier of Sidon, and his stunning Pirate Freedom, Wolfe turns to the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft and the weird science tale of supernatural horror.Set a hundred years in the future, An Evil Guest is a story of an actress who becomes the lover of both a mysterious sorcerer and private detective, and an even more mysterious and powerful rich man, who has been to the human colony on an alien planet and learned strange things there. Her loyalties are divided--perhaps she loves them both. The detective helps her to release her inner beauty and become a star overnight. And the rich man is the benefactor of a play she stars in. But something is very wrong. Money can be an evil guest, but there are other evils. As Lovecraft said, "That is not dead which can eternal lie."

(300 Signed Jacketed Hardcover Novel) Gene Wolfe takes us to a future North America at once familiar and utterly strange. A young man and woman, Skip and Chelle, fall in love in college and marry, but she is enlisted in the military, there is a war on, and she must serve her tour of duty before they can settle down. But the military is fighting a war with aliens in distant solar systems, and her months in the service will be years in relative time on Earth. Chelle returns to recuperate from severe injuries, after months of service, still a young woman but not necessarily the same personwhile Skip is in his forties and a wealthy businessman, but eager for her return. Still in love (somewhat to his surprise and delight), they go on a Caribbean cruise to resume their marriage. Their vacation rapidly becomes a complex series of challenges, not the least of which are spies, aliens, and battles with pirates who capture the ship for ransom. There is no writer in SF like Gene Wolfe and no SF novel like Home Fires.

Arthurian legend collides with Main Street, USA, in Gene Wolfe's classic fantasy adventure. Castleview, Illinois, got its name from occasional sightings of a phantom castle on stormy nights--a place where the barrier between past and present is weak and strange things happen.

signed by the author 1st edition Arrow 1986 edition original cover paperback, vg++, In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Back in print after two decades, this fantasy tells of a young man who lives in a village deep in the forest in medieval times. Mark finds himself torn between his hero worship for charming highwayman Wat and his growing suspicion of Wat's cold savagery. And Mother Cloot, who may have sorcerous powers, works in equally suspicious ways--perhaps for evil, perhaps for good.

Mr. Blue, the detective, matches wits with young Holly Hollander, whose family is torn apart by love and money, in a story of murder and fantasy set in a Chicago suburb

There Are Doors is the story of a man who falls in love with a goddess from an alternate universe. She flees him, but he pursues her through doorways-interdimensional gateways-to the other place, determined to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for her love. For in her world, to be her mate . . . is to die.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An all-star tribute to Gene Wolfe, featuring the work of Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and othersPerhaps no living author of imaginative fiction has earned the awards, accolades, respect, and literary reputation of Gene Wolfe. His prose has been called subtle and brilliant, inspiring not just lovers of fantasy and science fiction, but readers of every stripe, transcending genre and defying preconceptions.In this volume, a select group of Wolfe's fellow authors pay tribute to the award-winning creator of The Book of the New Sun, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Soldier of the Mist, The Wizard Knight and many others, with entirely stories written specifically to honor the writer hailed by The Washington Post as "one of America's finest."Shadows of the New Sun features contributions by Neil Gaiman, David Brin, David Drake, Nancy Kress, and many others, plus two short stories by Gene Wolfe himself.

An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and 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 super-natural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways 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? In The Land Across, Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and after.

Wolfe, whose tetralogy The Book of the New Sun was the most acclaimed science fiction work of the 1980s, offered his second collection of short fiction in 1990 to universal acclaim. This is a hefty volume of over 30 unforgettable stories in a variety of genres-- SF, fantasy, horror, mainstream-many of them offering variations on themes and situations found in folklore and fairy tales, and including two stories, "The Cat" and "The Map," which are set in the universe of his New Sun novels. Wolfe's deconstructions/reconstructions are provocative, multilayered, and resonant. This embarrassment of literary riches is a must for all Gene Wolfe fans, and anyone who loves a good tale beautifully told.At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work.The first half of the journey, The Knight -- which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning -- took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be.Coming into Jotunland, home of the Frost Giants, Able -- now Sir Able of the High Heart --claims the great sword Eterne from the dragon who has it. In reward, he is ushered into the castle of the Valfather, king of all the Gods of Skai.Thus begins the second part of his quest. The Wizard begins with Able's return to Mythgathr on his steed Cloud, a great mare the color of her name. Able is filled with new knowledge of the ways of the seven-fold world and possessed of great magical secrets. His knighthood now beyond question, Able works to fulfill his vows to his king, his lover, his friends, his gods, and even his enemies. Able must set his world right, restoring the proper order among the denizens of all the seven worlds.The Wizard is a charming, riveting, emotionally charged tale of wonders, written with all the beauty one would expect from a writer whom Damon Knight called "a national treasure." If you've never sampled the works of the man Michael Swanwick described as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today," the two volumes of The Wizard Knight are the perfect place to start.

Vintage hardcover

As a young parish priest, Father Christopher has heard many confessions, but his own tale is more astounding than any revelation he has ever encountered in the confessional . . . for Chris was once a pirate captain, hundreds of years before his birth.Fresh from the monastery, the former novice finds himself inexplicably transported back to the Golden Age of Piracy, where an unexpected new life awaits him. At first, he resists joining the notorious Brethren of the Coast, but he soon embraces the life of a buccaneer, even as he succumbs to the seductive charms of a beautiful and enigmatic senorita. As the captain of his own swift ship, which may or may not be cursed, he plunders the West Indies in search of Spanish gold. From Tortuga to Port Royal, from the stormy waters of the Caribbean to steamy tropical jungles, Captain Chris finds danger, passion, adventure, and treachery as he hoists the black flag and sets sail for the Spanish mainland.Where he will finally come to port only God knows . . . .Pirate Freedom is a captivating new masterpiece by the award-winning author of The Wizard Knight and Soldier of Sidon.

In a contemporary town in the American midwest where he has no connections, Bax, 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, to whom he progressively reveals the intriguing pieces of a strange and fantastic narrative. When he meets a real estate agent who tells him he is, to his utter surprise, the heir to a huge old house in town, long empty, he moves in. He is immediately confronted by an array of supernatural creatures and events, by love and danger.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, piecing together more of the story as we go. We learn things about magic, and another world, and about the sorcerer Mr. Black, who originally inhabited the house. And then knowing what we now know only in the end, perhaps we read it again.

THE WIZARD KNIGHT springs from the myths, legends and literature of times past. A teenager passes from Earth to a magical realm of seven worlds, where he is given a hero's adult body and named Able. Though forced to act as a man, inside he is still a boy, even as he sets off to find his destined sword and become a knight. In his quest he battles giants, meets gods, heroes and a sorceress (who repeatedly tries to seduce him), and serves the mercurial dragon king Arnthor in a was that could end everything.

Gene Wolfe is producing the most significant body of short fiction of any living writer in the SF genre. It has been ten years since the last major Wolfe collection, so Strange Travelers contains a whole decade of achievement. Some of these stories were award nominees, some were controversial, but each is unique and beautifully written.

In the third volume in the Book of the Long Run series, young Silk, inspired by the gods, fights for survival against the shadowy rulers of the city of Viron, who command the technological wonders of the future.

Gene Wolfe follows his acclaimed all-fantasy short story collection, Innocents Aboard, with a volume devoted primarily to his science fiction. The twenty-five stories here amply demonstrate his range, excellence, and mastery of the form that has traditionally been the heart of the field. Their diversity makes them otherwise impossible to characterize as a group, so a few tantalizing samples will have to suffice:"Viewpoint" takes on the unreality of so-called "reality" TV and imagines such a show done truly for real, with real guns, and a real government clawing at the money. Wolfe has loved dinosaurs since he was kid, and in "Petting Zoo" he imagines the reunion of a man and an aged dinosaur who look back together on a day when they were much much younger, and much freer. "Empires of Foliage and Flower" is a special treat, an addition to the classic Book of the New Sun series first published only as a limited edition chapbook. The volume closes with its newest story "Golden City Far." It's about dreams, high school, and finding love, which Wolfe says "is about as good a recipe for a story as I've ever found." You're sure to agree.

In this companion guide, Michael Andre-Driussi illuminates Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun science fiction series through dictionary-style entries on the characters, gods, locations, themes, and timelines of the novels.Gate of Horn, Book of Silk, is organized in two parts, with the first half covering the Long Sun series (Nightside the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun, Caldé of the Long Sun, and Exodus from the Long Sun) and the second half covering the Short Sun series (On Blue's Waters, In Green's Jungles, and Return to the Whorl). "Languages of the Whorl," a section between the two parts, covers all the dialect, slang, and foreign terms used in the books—thieves' cant, flier language, Tick's talk, and more. Ten maps and diagrams are included.This is Michael Andre-Driussi's third guidebook to the rich tapestries of Gene Wolfe's worlds. As fans of of Lexicon Urthus and The Wizard Knight Companion have noted, each book is not only a convenient tool to look up a term while re-reading the novels but also an enjoyable read in its own right, from A to Z.

Latro, a mercenary soldier from the north, has suffered a head wound in battle but has developed the ability to see and converse with all of the invisible gods, goddesses, ghosts, demons, and werewolves that inhabit the land

Short story collection by American science fiction author Gene Wolfe. Each story is paired with a holiday within the calendar year that is thematically linked to the content of the story.

Gene Wolfe may be the single best writer in fantasy and SF today. His quotes and reviews certainly support that contention, and so does his impressive short fiction oeuvre. Innocents Aboard gathers fantasy and horror stories from the last decade that have never before been in a Wolfe collection. Highlights from the twenty-two stories include "The Tree is my Hat," adventure and horror in the South Seas, "The Night Chough," a Long Sun story, "The Walking Sticks," a darkly humorous tale of a supernatural inheritance, and "Houston, 1943," lurid adventures in a dream that has no end. This is fantastic fiction at its best.

In the final volume in the series, the Whorl, the huge generation starship sent out from Urth, is discovered to have already reached its destination, and now Patera Silk and the other inhabitants are confronted by an alien race.

Severian, the Autarch of Urth, leaves the planet and journeys among the aliens in time and space to meet his greatest test

Collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe

Continues the tale of an Earth one million years in the future, following the cross-continent journey of Severian, owner of the Claw of the Conciliator, a miracle-producing gem

The Washington Post has called Gene Wolfe "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced." This volume joins together two of his rarest and most sought after works--Gene Wolfe's Book of Days and The Castle of the Otter--and add thirty-nine short essays collected here for the first time, to fashion a rich and engrossing architecture of wonder.

Gollancz, 1973. hardcover with dustjacket. First British edition. Follows the U. S. first edition. Technically a collection of three novellas, thematically a complete novel.Wolfe's second novel is a masterpiece. A brothel keeper's sons discuss genocide and plot murder; a young alien wanderer is pursued by his shadow double; and a political prisoner tries to prove his identity, not least to himself. Gene Wolfe's first novel consists of three linked sections, all of them elegant broodings on identity, sameness, and strangeness, and all of them set on the vividly evoked colony worlds of Ste. Croix and Ste. Anne, twin planets delicately poised in mutual orbit. Marsch, the victim in the third story, is the apparent author of the second and a casual visitor whose naïve questions precipitate tragedy in the first. The sections dance around one another like the planets of their settings.Wolfe (1931-2019) remains one of the central figures of twentieth-century sf.

A collection of the previously uncollected stories of Gene Wolfe, published three years ago in Britain, features fantastical tales by the author of The Book of the New Sun.

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 two previous novels, combined in Latro in the Mist (Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete) are generally considered classics of contemporary fantasy.Latro now finds himself in Egypt, a land of singing girls, of spiteful and conniving deities. Without his memory, his is unsure of everything, except for his desire to be free of the curse that causes him to forget. The visions Gene Wolfe conjures, of the wonders of Egypt, and of the adventures of Latro as he and his companions journey up the great Nile south into unknown or legendary territory, are unique and compelling. Soldier of Sidon is a thrilling and magical fantasy novel, and yet another masterpiece from Gene Wolfe.

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, €œOf 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: €œPetting Zoo,€ €œThe Tree Is My Hat,€ €œThe Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories,€ €œThe Hero as Werewolf,€ €œSeven American Nights,€ €œThe Fifth Head of Cerberus,€ €œThe Detective of Dreams,€ and €œA 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

First Trade Edition Hardcover 1983 Zeizing Brothers SIGNED by Gene Wolfe Illustrated by Rick DeMarco A collection of three The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories. The Death of Doctor Island. The Doctor of Death Island. One store is a Nebula Award winner. Foreword by Gene Wolfe with an additional previously unpublished Island Death of the Island Doctor. VG/VG. Book is tight and boxed, with light foxing to page edges. Aside from signature, not inner markings. DJ is rubbed, with light edge creasing and foxing to the backside. 1 short closed tear to rear dj panel. See images for better overview. DJ is covered with a brodart, book is preserved in an acid-free archival bag.

On Blue's Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk. The story continues in In Green's Jungles and Return to the Whorl.

Mesmerizing sci-fi from the author the Denver Post calls "one of the literary giants of science fiction." The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living in a small midwestern town, reveals a miraculous dimension. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself.

A superb collection of science fiction and fantasy stories, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories is a book that transcends all genre definitions. The stories within are mined with depth charges, explosions of meaning and illumination that will keep you thinking and feeling long after you have finished reading.

Book is used and has been withdrawn from service from a Library. Book has a Library Binding and the usual Library Stamps, Stickers, Card Holder, Library Markings. May or May Not have a Dust Jacket.

To save his parish buildings, Patera Silk, a young priest, embarks on a quest that takes him on an odyssey into the hidden secrets of his world and into a huge spaceship illuminated by an artificial long sun

The second volume of Gene Wolfe's powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who, while fighting in Greece, received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Gene Wolfe's In Green's Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue's Waters, of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun. It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance. In Green's Jungles is Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, building toward a strange and seductive climax.

Gene Wolfe's Return to the Whorl is the third volume, after On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles, of his ambitious SF trilogy The Book of the Short Sun . . . It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Horn has traveled from his home on the planet Blue, reached the mysterious planet Green, and visited the great starship, the Whorl and even, somehow, the distant planet Urth. But Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Perhaps Horn and Silk are now one being. Return to the Whorl brings Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, to a strange and seductive climax.