In each Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta I read three short stories by a classic science fiction author I’ve never read before in order to get a feel for their style. When it turns out I’ve already experienced a writer, I call upon friends to lend a hand. This month writer and podcaster PJ Montgomery shares his first experiences with the legendary Alfred Bester.

Alfred Bester is a name I’m more than familiar with. As a comic fan, I know Bester as the man who created the character of Solomon Grundy, and the most well known version of the Green Lantern oath (you know, “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight,” etc…). I know he was married to the woman that originated the role of Lois Lane in the original Superman radio serials, Rolly Bester. I know that in TV, Walter Koenig’s character on Babylon 5 was named after Bester, and that Babylon 5’s treatment of telepaths took a lot of inspiration from Bester’s most celebrated work, The Demolished Man. Bester’s other famous novel, The Stars My Destination, itself takes inspiration from the classic Alexandre Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.

I’ve read The Count of Monte Cristo, but I’ve never read The Stars My Destination. In fact, while I’m very aware of his work and how he’s influenced a lot of the science fiction I enjoy, I’ve never actually read anything by Alfred Bester. Until now…

Fondly Fahrenheit
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1954
Read in Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (1976)

I didn’t really know what to expect from this story. The title initially put me in mind of another science-fiction classic, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I think that slightly lowered my defenses, so when the story opened with the discovery of a young girl’s body, the victim of a brutal murder, I was taken aback. “Okay, this is a murder mystery.” I told myself, and settled in, only for the very next scene to tell me who did it.

Fondly Fahrenheit, it turns out, is a lot more complex than that. It’s a musing on madness, projection, free will, slavery and artificial intelligence. Even if, by the end, it’s a musing with a fairly hefty body count. James Vandaleur and his multiple aptitude android skip from planet to planet, running from the murders the android is supposedly committing. I say supposedly, because while Bester flat out tells you that the android is responsible early on, later events and the very way the story is told somewhat muddy the waters. The story is largely narrated by a third person, omniscient narrator, but will often slip into first person narration from either Vandaleur, or the android. Sometimes this happens within the space of a single paragraph, so you get all three points of view in quick succession. It leads you to question where the divide is between the characters, and wonder how reliable the narration truly is. It deals with big themes in a relatively slender page count, and made me feel incredibly tense as I read it. I loved it. As my first encounter with Bester, it definitely led me wanting to read more. Good thing I’ve got two more stories to cover.

Star Light, Star Bright
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1953
Read in Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (1976)

In an introduction to the edition of the story I read, Bester describes it as a search story, told with the pace of a chase story. You can really feel that as you read it, with Bester using all the tools at his disposal to make the story rattle along at breakneck pace, even during the quieter moments. Very occasionally, this is to the story’s detriment, as one or two smaller beats become a little confusing, but overall, it’s an effective way of telling a story.

The story itself concerns a hunt for genius children, each one gifted with a different type of genius, or superpower. Naturally, the protagonist, who goes by several aliases during the course of the story, is in it for the money, and his young quarry don’t even know they’re being hunted. In a touch I particularly enjoyed, Bester starts referring to his main character as “the doomed man” fairly early on in the story. It adds to the tension and pace, as you know something is going to happen to him, but not the when or how of it. When his ultimate fate does come, it’s in two paragraphs that Bester’s introduction tells you he hates. He was made to put these in by his editor at the time, who wanted a more clear-cut ending. Bester would have preferred to leave things a bit more ambiguous, and asks the reader to read these two paragraphs with their eyes closed.

I understand Bester’s point of view. I think a more ambiguous ending would have fitted the story better. But, that said, I also found the extra paragraphs incredibly evocative and atmospheric, and feel that Bester was slightly overreacting to their quality in his introduction. But then, aren’t all writers their own worst critics?

They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1963
Read in Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (1976)

What if the last man and woman on Earth were assholes? That’s the basic premise of this story, and Bester mines it for all it’s worth. I hated both the characters, but I’ll give them a little leeway, as who knows how any of us would react to being the only people left on the planet? I also admit that the story grabbed me, and I wanted to find out what happened to them, even as I was hoping they’d get some kind of comeuppance. Luckily, the story’s just the right length so that they don’t outstay their welcome. There’s some dark comedy in there, and while the ending may initially seem to come out of nowhere, Bester is careful to seed it through the story, so it’s not a total surprise when it does arrive. That said, the ending is somewhat abrupt, and there’s definitely some sixties sexism sprinkled throughout the story.

Bester’s writing is superb, with his descriptions of an apocalyptic New York creating some amazing imagery in my mind, and the characters felt real to me. It’s also the longest of the three stories I read, but the fast pacing meant it really didn’t feel like it. But I think, for me, it was the weakest of the trifecta of stories I read. I was enjoying it while I read it, but once it was done, I found myself struggling to really care about it. I think a big part of that is just the characters, and my dislike for them, but even then, this story had a lot to recommend. I probably won’t revisit it (I could re-read Fondly Fahrenheit over and over), but it’s definitely worth reading once.

This little experiment has been a fun experience. Overall, I enjoyed my time with Bester, and I loved the first two stories. Even the one I didn’t love so much has elements I liked. I’ve been very much left with a desire to read more Bester. Anyone got a copy of The Stars My Destination I can borrow?

I had no idea that Bester wrote comic books and created the Green Lantern oath! Now I may have to go track down some of Bester’s “Green Lantern” books because I loved both of the novels PJ mentioned. Don’t forget to check out PJ Montgomery’s Twitter and Instagram to find his various podcast and writing projects, which are all excellent.

In each Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta I read three short stories by a classic science fiction author I’ve never read before in order to get a feel for their style.

Tanith Lee is the kind of writer I’ve come across from time to time without ever having read anything by her. In retrospect, I think that’s probably because she mostly wrote fantasy, which is not often my cup of tea. Her career is outstanding though: she was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, nominated for two Nebulas, received 11 nominations – and two wins – for the World Fantasy Award, and was awarded the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror, to name just a few! The daughter of two professional dancers, Tanith moved around a lot as a child, but shared a large library with her parents; a library which contained much “weird fiction”, as it was still known in the 1950s. Sharing a love of stories with her parents, Tanith reportedly began writing fiction at the age of nine. After a single year of college she dropped out to hold a number of random jobs before trying her hand as a professional writer. She is credited with nearly 100 novels and over 300 short stories that span genres from fantasy to science fiction to horror. With such a wide span, it was an absolute crapshoot what I was going to get.

Crying in the Rain
Originally published in Other Edens (1987)
Read in The Big Book of Science Fiction

If an author is in The Big Book of Science Fiction (edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) then I find I can’t go wrong picking the featured tale. (I honestly can’t recommend this collection enough.) Crying in the Rain is a quiet and sad tale that could have been set in the peasant lands of mythical times, but instead takes place in the radiated wasteland of a far future city and its surrounding ghettos. The tale centers on a mother selling her oldest and most attractive daughter to a young man in the city, and is told from the perspective of the daughter relating the story to a friend. There is no overt moral judgment here, which is the most upsetting aspect of the story. The world is harsh, life is short (a mere 30 years if you’re lucky and don’t get “canced” by the radiation), and selling your daughter to a good man is the best way to care for your remaining children. That prospect is no idle promise, as the man in question does care not only for the narrator’s siblings but for her dying mother as well. Her life is happy and she in contented as a result of being sold to this man, who showers her with gifts and affection for the first time in her life. This is a truly haunting story that will be with me for some time.

The Sombrus Tower
Originally published in Weird Tales #2 (1980)
Read in Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies (1988)

This reads as a King Arthur style fantasy that I could easily imagine coming across in a contemporary issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A number of noble knights are given ominous forecasts by a witch, and all go out to either confront, or avoid, their destiny. Our protagonist is one of the few who decide to confront his fate, seeking out the “Sombrus Tower” where he is to meet his doom. Excellent macabre creatures and tortured souls meet him along his journey to the tower, and these encounters carry the story from one scene to the next. In the end, the poetic nature of the tale is realized as our protagonist finds himself torn between his original “brave” quest to meet his destiny, and the sense that going in search of death maybe isn’t such a smart idea. The ending is worthy of any psychological horror story, and I won’t spoil it. This was a fun short piece of dark fantasy that I’d recommend to fans of the genre.

The Pandora Heart
Originally published in Don’t Open This Book! (1998)
Read in same

I was skeptical of this story as soon as I started reading it, as it was introduced with a comment that it was commissioned especially for the obscure anthology I was reading it in. That isn’t to say that I haven’t read lots of great stories in original anthologies, it’s just that I’ve not come across many outstanding stories commissioned for themed anthologies. I find that the best stories come from a writer pursuing their idea, rather than handing a writer an idea to pound a story around. This tale is a retelling of the Pandora myth with a few clever twists and turns, but largely it felt like an “unwanted princess in a castle” cookie cutter story meant to fit a theme. Combined with my ambivalence toward fantasy (especially fairy tale fantasy), this one was hard for me to get through.
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If an author has published two or three dozen short stories, then you can grab a few and get an idea what they’re doing. When an author has written 300 short stories across multiple genres it is hard to get a handle on almost anything of their style by only reading three stories. I’ve probably read more Isaac Asimov than I have any other author, including stories he wrote across genres, and I can only imagine that for the one Tanith Lee story that I didn’t like there must be a dozen that I’d adore. For that reason I’ll hunt down more of her stories, and likely a few of her books, though I’ll probably focus on science fiction as a rule. That being said, I would recommend Tanith Lee’s works to fans of the fantasy and fairy tale genres.

In each Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta I read three short stories by a classic science fiction author I’ve never read before in order to get a feel for their style.

Jerome Bixby will be familiar to fans of Star Trek The Original Series as the scriptwriter (or co-writer) of the episodes "Mirror, Mirror", "Day of the Dove", "Requiem for Methuselah", and "By Any Other Name", all of which are quite good by the standards of the series. Fans of the original Twilight Zone will recognize our first story which was made into the supremely scary “It’s a Good Life” in 1961, and served as one of the segments in the 1983 anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie. Bixby was a prolific editor of science fiction magazines in the early 1950s, having edited Planet Stories, Jungle Stories, and Action Stories almost simultaneously. He co-created the concept of the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage, a childhood favorite of mine. He also wrote the screenplay for the excellent 2007 low-budget science fiction film The Man from Earth, which was produced long after his death. Ironically, The Man from Earth stars Star Trek: Enterprise actor John Billingsley, bringing the Star Trek connection right back around. But enough of his resume, let’s see how he writes.

​It’s a Good Life
Originally published in Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2 (1953)
Read in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One 1929-1964

I’m a huge fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone and I’ve followed its many reboots closely. What I think few people realize is that Serling’s “secret sauce” consisted of two simple facts about him. First, he respected science fiction and fantasy as a legitimate literary art form. Second, and more elusively for modern filmmakers, he respected a story that worked on the page before it worked on the stage. Many of the best and most iconic Twilight Zone episodes started life up to a decade prior in the science fiction magazines, including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, “Time Enough at Last”, “Shadow Play”, and too many more to list here. Serling had respect for bringing what was written on the page to the screen with as little compromise as possible. There’s a story that Charles Beaumont told of when he was adapting his short story Perchance to Dream into the episode of the same name. Beaumont had written of a twisted and deformed carnival, and asked Serling if he should change the setting for production. Serling directed him to “write it as you imagined it.” Beaumont was blown away when he arrived on set for filming and saw the nightmarish buildings that set that episode apart from so many others.

This story is appropriate for our discussion of It’s a Good Life because if you’ve seen that episode then there are no surprises in the prose. Serling adapted Bixby’s story almost verbatim, with just a few extra lines and nuances that help translate it to the screen without in any way compromising what Bixby had laid out on the page. As such I found reading the story just a little boring because I’ve seen the episode so many times, but that reflects more favorably on Bixby than anything else; all the brilliance and creepiness of that iconic television episode is due to Bixby’s original story.

​​Trace
Originally published in Space by the Tale (1964)
Read in 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories

If possible, I love to read a flash fiction piece for the Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta, because I think “short short stories” are an underappreciated art form. To convey a complete story in roughly one thousand words is very hard to do, and I find it’s a great judge of a writer’s ability. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to review a 1,000 word short story without giving it away, so apologies because I’m about to spoil this one.

Trace uses the simple setup of a man who gets lost when trying to take a shortcut. He finds himself on the wooded roads on a hill where every path he takes seems to only go further up the hill, even when he turns around to retrace his movements. Eventually his car blows a tire and while on foot he finds the most idyllic clearing with a perfect little house. Approaching, he meets the home’s smiling occupant. Everything is beautifully perfect; the food, the weather, the scenery, the host. The conversation turns philosophical, and the host pontificates that nobody is fully good or even fully evil, that even evil people must occasionally commit acts of decency and kindness. And without it ever being said, we are clearly led to believe that this man, this gracious host, is the Devil himself, taking a brief vacation from the burden of his works. The man has a truly pleasant conversation with the Devil, and when the tow truck arrives to repair his car we are confident that he will be on his way without trouble. There is nothing sinister here, no veiled threat, simply the idea that even evil people must have some bits of good in them, and vice versa. It’s a great little story, and I was awed by the writing skill that seeded the impression in my mind that the host was the Devil without it ever really being said. This is a story to study to determine how that impression was created.

The Holes Around Mars
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1954
Read in Where Do We Go From Here?

This is a classic 1950s “men arrive on another planet in a rocket ship” science fiction story. There is a cute setup revolving around puns, and the final line is definitely a pun, but there is a good deal more to the story than that. The first men on Mars discover a curious series of holes (actually tunnels) about four inches in diameter carved through the martian landscape. These perfectly aligned tunnels are cut through mountains, dunes, and even plants. The bulk of the story revolves around the mystery of how and why these tunnels exist. It’s a fun story, and I won’t give it away, especially since you can read it for yourself on the Internet Archive’s copy of the January 1954 Galaxy, but I will say that the explanation stretches the concept of science fiction so far as to be pure fantasy. Still, I enjoyed this one, though you have to place it firmly in the vintage category. I was about to say that this story couldn’t appear today, but I have read entries in the “men (and women) arrive on another planet in a rocket ship” in recent issues of Analog, so it goes to show you that the classic ideas are still around and people still get mileage from them.

Jerome Bixby was definitely a skilled author and screenwriter, though it’s not hard to see why he’s not more famous today. Unlike his more well known contemporaries, his stories seem to lack staying power. If it weren’t for the Twilight Zone adaptation of It’s a Good Life I’m not sure the story would really stand out in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a classic, but I’m not sure that by itself it would stay in the collective consciousness seventy years later. That being said, I’m interested to read more prose by Bixby, and see what other clever ideas his mind created.

In each Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta I read three short stories by a classic science fiction author I’ve never read before in order to get a feel for their style.

I imagine that the process behind how I pick a particular author any particular month can be very nebulous for you. I generally assume that you don’t actually care how I come to these decisions. This month’s pick came from very clear inspiration that you might relate to, so I’ll share it. Netflix finally released the second season of Love, Death & Robots after what felt like an eternity, and I dare say that this season is even better than the first. I was particularly taken by the episode titled “The Drowned Giant”, so much so that I looked up the writer. It turns out that a few of the episodes of season two are based on vintage science fiction stories, and this one is by J. G. Ballard. Turns out I had a copy of The Drowned Giant amongst all my anthologies. I also had at least two other Ballard stories. So here we are.

James Graham Ballard was a prolific writer and yet another of the “New Wave” science fiction authors. Ballard’s numerous apocalyptic or satirical novels and short stories are finding new audiences today, but interestingly he seems to have had his biggest recognition outside of science fiction circles, despite having written lots of science fiction. Ballard appears to have been that rare form of science fiction author that appealed to a mainstream audience more than to genre fans. As “The Drowned Giant” implies, his writing is very poetic, bordering on pretentious. Bordering, but not crossing over. Who couldn’t use a bit more poetic sci-fi in their life?

The Drowned Giant
Originally published in The Terminal Beach (1964)
Read in Nebula Award Stories 1965

What really struck me about the Love, Death & Robots episode was the poetic nature of the narrative, which one would imagine comes directly from the short story. Indeed it does, and the prose possesses a macabre beauty reminiscent of Poe. If you’ve not familiar, The Drowned Giant tells the story of the body of a hundred foot tall dead man washing ashore in England. There is wonder and beauty in that realized fantasy, which quickly degrades because there can be no real wonder and mystery in our world. Quickly everything becomes mundane by the very nature of its solid existence.

The crowds that gather to watch the giant begin to climb on him, desecrating the wonder with the mundane. Our narrator doesn’t join them, instead choosing to watch from a distance until finally, when the giant has begun to decompose, he is able to climb up.

I include a direct quote because the poetic narrative is a big part of the appeal. It’d be like reviewing Lovecraft without quoting his narrative style; you can do it but it misses a big part of the point. The Drowned Giant really is an incredible story, with many interpretations for the reader to find, but to me it really felt like a knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I want to believe in wonder, and this story strips wonder away one layer at a time.

Chronopolis
Originally published in New World’s Science Fiction #95 (June 1960)
Read in The Vintage Anthology of Science Fantasy

This story follows a man living in a world where clocks are outlawed. There is an obvious element of absurdity for sure, but unraveling the mystery of why clocks are banned provides a good motivation for the reader. This is an odd one, but like our first story it landed well with me quite a few times. A particularly good exchange comes between our protagonist and his teacher.

That last line hit me like a ton of bricks. I think the core message has relevance for most of us, but this story lands true in a time when Amazon clocks its factory workers like robots. If Ballard was warning us of a future world – as a lot of science fiction authors try to do – then we may be closer to that world than ever before.

The Voices of Time
Originally published in New World’s Science Fiction #99 (October 1960)
Read in The Big Book of Science Fiction

I’ve been doing these Vintage Sci-Fi Trifectas long enough to know what to expect from a New Wave science fiction writer, namely a lot of confusion. “Experimental” often means you’re not sure even the author knew what the hell was going on. In the two stories above I didn’t feel like that represented Ballard, who leaned heavily on the literary bend of New Wave writers. The Voices of Time though… I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be about. It’s definitely an apocalyptic tale, which Ballard is known for, but I can’t say I left this one any wiser. I can’t say I left it any more entertained either. It’s a moderately long story, but even at that I found it look me far more sittings than necessary to get through it, with a lot of mind wandering along the way. The story of what appears to be the end of all life on Earth, The Voices of Time was a little too confusing for me to actually feel sad or to care about the characters. Though the idea of sleeping more and more each day until you just never wake up is certainly terrifying, the story didn’t come across to me as horror. Overall there were a lot of ideas here with little payoff. There were also some very odd narrative techniques, like having a section of dialog written as a transcript, and randomly lapsing into diary mode, which did nothing but annoy me by clearly leaning into the “experimental” part of the New Wave. Still, one disappointing story out of three is a good run.

Overall I’m not sure I’d seek out J. G. Ballard’s work, but I’m likely to give it a read if I come across it. In researching him I discovered that another item in my Netflix queue (“High Rise”) is an adaptation of one of his novels, which I admit I’m now even more curious to watch.

In each Vintage Sci-Fi Trifecta I read three short stories by a classic science fiction author I’ve never experienced before in order to get a feel for their style.

This month’s selection was voted on by subscribers to my monthly email newsletter from a short list I provided. Wolfe was first published in 1965, and quickly established himself as a regular in Damon Knight’s Orbit anthologies. (A quick word on Knight. Although I was not terribly impressed by his fiction, the man had impeccable taste when putting together original anthologies. If you ever come across an issue of Orbit do yourself a favor and give it a read.) Orbit stories tended to be avant-garde, which made them somewhat controversial among science fiction fans. (It didn’t take the advent of Star Trek, Star Wars, or the internet to make science fiction fans argumentative.) Through the 1970s, Wolfe’s style got more sophisticated and weird. His most famous work, The Book of the New Sun series, is a four book extended science fantasy novel, and is considered a stand-out of the genre.

But I’ve never read any of that.

For my first Gene Wolfe readings I picked two stories with neat sounding titles, concluded by one of Wolfe’s award winning novellas.

The Changeling
Originally published in Orbit 3 (1968)
Read in same

In Damon Knight’s introduction to this story in Orbit 3 he writes, “In my book of critical essays… I made a distinction between stories that make sense and those that mean something. I am unable to “make sense” out of this one – to make it add up neatly and come out even – but I strongly feel that it means something, just as Kafka’s The Trial or Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery does.” I got a kick out of that because I’ve often been confused by stories in Orbit, which was at the forefront of New Wave science fiction characterized by more “literary” stories that experimented with form and style, often focused on “soft” as opposed to “hard” science fiction elements, and overall guided by a rejection of the pulp establishment. You might think that as a scientist I prefer hard science fiction, but honestly I love them both. My favorite kind of science fiction is heavy on metaphor and social commentary (which tends to occur more in “soft” science fiction), but I also love Asimov, who was one of the “hard” science fiction adherents (and often a dick about it).

The Changeling is absolutely great. We get a nice setup of a disgraced soldier returning to his home town for lack of any better options. His parents have long since passed away, but he runs across the family of a childhood friend who insist on housing him for a while, and that’s where things get weird. I don’t want to give anything else away, because the complete unpredictability of the story was part of what I really liked, but suffice it to say that – like Damon Knight – at the end I don’t think I really understand what happened, but whatever it was I dig it.

How the Whip Came Back
Originally published in Orbit 6 (1970)
Read in same

I picked this one because I was intrigued as to what the title could mean, and was surprised at how dark it turned. Like in the first story, Wolfe drops you into a world with little introduction, and you spend a good percentage of the story just finding your footing. Even in this, his most straightforward science fiction tale of the three I read, his writing has an unsettling quality where you are always left questioning the very nature of the world. Sadly, the world he described in 1970 is shockingly similar to the one in which we all now live. The story centers around only two characters, both “observers” with ceremonial rolls at the United Nations. The main character is a woman that represents the largest international charity organization in existence. The supporting character is the Pope of the Catholic church, which is essentially the last of the dying religions. The short narrative describes a single scene with our two characters discussing a proposed global law that will turn all prisoners into slaves, available for lease until their prison sentences are up. All nations are in agreement and support of the idea, but they would like the ceremonial support of these two individuals that, quite frankly, form the moral wing of the organization. To put it bluntly, “how the whip came back” refers to how the slave trade, long since abolished, returns with enthusiasm.

It is worth noting that the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery in the nation, reads in part, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” That legal loophole has been exploited to great success to this day as prisoners are routinely forced to perform work for the profit of the state and private business, receiving a paltry wage of pennies an hour for their efforts. Despite what you might have been told, slavery is still big business in the United States, and its existence is adamantly justified by those that believe that punishment is the sole purpose of incarceration.

In all fairness, it didn’t take a great prescient mind to look at forced prison labor and extrapolate it to its logical end. What it did take was someone who gave a shit about it in 1970, and for that simple fact I’m really starting to like Gene Wolfe.

The Death of Doctor Island
Originally published in Universe 3 (1973)
Read in Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction

Chronologically, this is where I suspect Wolfe had fully come into his weird (some would say “literary”) style. This story won both the Nebula and Lotus awards for Best Novella in 1974, so you’d be right to suspect that it is good. Though it does feel a bit 1970s sci-fi, I’d go so far as to say it holds up to modern standards. (As a counterpoint, How the Whip Came Back felt outdated to modern standards in that it lacked any metaphor in its oral argument, and The Changeling would read as cliché if it was published today.) Once again Wolfe throws us into a confusing world, this time one where up is literally down, and leaves us to find our own way for a good chunk of the story. Since this is a novella, that chunk is a lot of pages, and it is only through Wolfe’s skill to intrigue me that I was interested in continuing to read until more was revealed. This is a story of what lengths a society will go to in order to fix those with potential, at the ultimate expense of those with none. In that respect it is similar to How the Whip Came Back in that there is an element of society working to exploit those on the bottom to benefit those at the top, something that I suspect Wolfe touched on throughout his stories given its presence in these two (and to a small extent in the first one as well, contained in the reason for the soldier’s disgrace). The Death of Doctor Island is an outstanding novella, and definitely one of the best I’ve ever read, classic or modern.

Gene Wolfe flew under my radar for a long time, despite being well known even until his death in 2019 at the age of 87. Wolfe’s last book, published posthumously in 2020, was submitted to his publisher shortly before his death and is a sequel to his 2015 novel The Borrowed Man, and both seem to have been well received. It’s always nice to hear of a “vintage” author still finding a modern audience through new work that they are able to keep fresh.