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13 - A Magus of Many Suns: An Interview with Gene Wolfe
- from I - The Trackless Meadows of Old Time
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- By Nick Gevers, South Africa
- Edited by Peter Wright
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- Book:
- Shadows of the New Sun
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 17 June 2017
- Print publication:
- 31 December 2007, pp 177-183
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Summary
In 2001, Wolfe completed The Book of the Short Sun. Three new anthologies, Strange Travelers(1999), Innocents Aboard: New Fantasy Stories(2004) and Starwater Strains(2005) collected the best – and the majority – of Wolfe's recent fiction. In 2004, he published The Knight, the first volume of a twonovel fantasy, The Wizard Knight.In the following interview, a somewhat inscrutable Wolfe discusses – to borrow Nick Gevers’ phase – the ‘Briah Cycle’.
When I interviewed Gene Wolfe by e-mail in January 2002, I came to the conversation aware that Wolfe the person is not unlike his books: genial (of course), accommodating, plain-spoken at times to a surprising degree; and yet a magician, a poser of paradoxes that, however simple on the surface, are in fact like the Labyrinth at Knossos, the mazes so many of his characters tread, as enormously involved and logically convoluted as reality itself. One cannot expect direct answers, at least about his books: they will speak for themselves, or not at all, and any candour is deceiving. But on certain practical topics (publishing, possibly engineering problems), all is clarity. For allowing me to be the latest interviewer errant to tilt at the windmills of his mind, a tourney of much fascination, I am very grateful to Mr Wolfe.
NG: With The Book of the Short Suncomplete, and new, unrelated projects such as the fantasy epic The Wizard Knightunderway, have you finished with the Urth/Whorl fictional universe? Or do you contemplate further novels – or short stories – set there?
GW: In brief, no. At this point I have nothing planned beyond completing The Wizard Knight. Frankly, there is no point in planning that far in advance. I'll start planning when the end is a month or two away.
NG: You've previously commented at length on the creative genesis of The Book of the New Sun– its growth from novella into novel into trilogy into tetralogy. Did The Book of the Long Sunalso burgeon, from a singlevolume novel into a multi-decker one? And how, in its turn, did The Book of the Short Sunevolve?
GW: No, The Book of the Long Sunwas planned as a multivolume work – three or four.
14 - Some Moments with the Magus: An Interview with Gene Wolfe
- from I - The Trackless Meadows of Old Time
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- By Nick Gevers, South Africa, Michael Andre-Driussi, University of California, James Jordan, University of Georgia
- Edited by Peter Wright
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- Book:
- Shadows of the New Sun
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 17 June 2017
- Print publication:
- 31 December 2007, pp 184-190
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
In this final interview, which predates The Wizard(2004), Wolfe is, perhaps, at his most enigmatic. His occasionally terse responses should remind any critic or commentator that he or she is in the presence of a writer every bit as unreliable as his narrators.
The following interview was conducted with Gene Wolfe by e-mail between August and October of 2003. Henceforward, Wolfe is GW, Michael Andre-Driussi is MD, James B. Jordan is JJ, and Nick Gevers is NG.
MD: Read any good books lately?
GW: Yes. Adventures Among Books, by Andrew Lang; Being Gardner Dozois, by Michael Swanwick; and The New Wave Fabulists, edited by Peter Straub.
MD: What would you do with NASA?
GW: What would I do with NASA? Obviously that would depend on how much money I had to work with. But basically I'd put more effort into spaceboat development and less into flying missions of dubious worth. NASA has suffered two disastrous crashes, the Challengerand the sainted Columbia. Both were vehicle failures. It needs a better boat.
MD: What conventions are you planning to attend? Would you go to one overseas?
GW: The only convention on my schedule now is Windycon. That's quite near here, in November. I wouldn't attend an overseas con, or any distant con. Rosemary isn't up to travelling, and I'm not about to go away and leave her here alone.
MD: Tell us about your dogs.
GW: We only have one dog now. Calamity Jane had to be put down. She was very old, and her medicine no longer controlled her seizures. Dilly is five now, I think. He's a neutered American Pit Bull Terrier, very gentle, about the colour of buckskin.
MD: What are your thoughts on the US military actions going on around the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia)?
GW: The US military is already spread too thin. Sending American troops into Liberia was not only foolish but foolhardy.
MD: In the last few years world events have brought a new urgency to a few stories that you wrote in the 1970s: ‘The Blue Mouse’ [1971, collected in Gene Wolfe's Book of Days]; ‘Hour of Trust’ [1973, collected in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories]; and ‘Seven American Nights’ [1978, also collected in IODDAOSAOS].