a web resource for the study of Gene Wolfe

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Rosemary Wolfe (1931-2013)

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Gene Wolfe’s wife Rosemary this past weekend. 

Photo of Rosemary WolfeRosemary, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, died on Saturday 14 December in Peoria, Illinois, after a long period of illness and progressively worsening health. She and Gene had been married for over 50 years and had had four children. She was Gene’s muse, and it was to her that he dedicated his lone volume of poetry, For Rosemary.

A funeral mass will be held for Rosemary on Thursday 19 December at 11:00 am at St Bernard’s Church in Peoria.

Our sincere and heartfelt condolences go out to Gene and all the family.

The Editors,

Ultan’s Library

Here are links to:

Gene Wolfe’s time at Plant Engineering

After his time as a process engineer for Procter and Gamble and before becoming a full-time science-fiction writer, Gene Wolfe worked (1972 – 1984) as an editor for the technical magazine Plant Engineering. He is usually described in biographical sources as “the editor” but, as he explained to Lawrence Person in an interview published as long ago as 1998, he was actually “an editor” rather than the sole or chief editor of the magazine:

LP: For quite a while you were the editor of Plant Engineering magazine. Do you think that doing so gave you any special insights into how the pace of technological change is reshaping society?

GW: Yes, I was an editor, actually, on the staff of Plant Engineering magazine. I was lucky enough to be the robot editor, so I got to work with modern, real world robotics. I actually have two diplomas from robotics schools I attended. So that was very nice. I guess I’m branching off into other things, but I also got to be the Letters to the Editor editor, which was good and fun and taught me a lot of stuff, and I was the cartoon editor. (laughs) Basically I had a real good job.

This interview, entitled “Suns New, Long, and Short: An Interview with Gene Wolfe”, was originally published in the Fall/Winter 1998 edition of Nova Express. It is currently available on the web here. It is also reprinted in Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on writing/Writers on Wolfe, edited by Peter Wright (Liverpool University Press, 2007), where the above quotation may be found on pages 173-174.

Intrigued to know more about this “real good job”, Ultan’s Library co-editor Nigel Price recently asked Wolfe about his time at Plant Engineering and the persisting description of him as the magazine’s editor. Wolfe replied as follows:

There is no revising print. When it’s out there, it’s out there for all time. I have never been able to catch and correct the assertion that I was editor of Plant Engineering. I was actually a senior editor on the staff. Senior editors had to supply cover articles, “supply” meaning write the articles and take the pictures, including a cover picture that could make it past the art director. Two or three of those a year, depending.

We had other responsibilities as well. I was the editor for power transmission (hydraulics, gears, pneumatics, belts, et cetera) and fastening and joining (welding, glue, screws, et cetera), and also the editor for cartoons and letters-to-the-editor. There was an electrical editor, a construction editor, a materials-handling editor, a maintenance editor, a safety editor, and so forth. It was hard at times, and easy at others.

Oh yes… How in the world did I forget this? I was also robot editor. I went to robot school twice, once for hydraulic ‘bots and once for all-electric. And I wrote or developed the robotics articles.

The revelation that Wolfe was once robotics editor for Plant Engineering provides an interesting insight into the background of the creator of Ossipago, the chems and taluses of the Whorl, and all the other various robots, androids and automata which we encounter in the Solar Cycle and elsewhere in his writing. Those wishing to read Wolfe’s non-fiction articles, however, will have a hard time finding them, unless they have access to back issues of Plant Engineering, as the author confirms that…

To the best of my knowledge none of my magazine articles have been reprinted anywhere. Sorry to disappoint you, but very happy to find that you will be disappointed.

Two new stories: “Dormanna” and “Innocent”

Two new and very different short stories by Gene Wolfe are currently available for free on the web.

A gentle story of alien encounter, “Dormanna” is available on the Tor website as part of a series of five stories, each by a different author and all inspired by an illustration by John Jude Palencar.

In contrast, “Innocent” is as disturbing a tale as Wolfe has ever written, a criminal’s extraordinary account of why he could not have committed the dreadful crime of which he is accused. An audio recording of the story is included in issue 8 of Tales to Terrify.

(Actually, there’s a third Wolfe story newly on the web, though it’s not a new story per se. Thanks to Simon Fletcher for pointing out that “The Legend of Xi Cygnus” has been reprinted in Lightspeed magazine here.)

New ghost story from Wolfe

A new story by Gene Wolfe entitled “Why I was hanged” is included in the anthology Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Ultan’s Library contributor Nick Gevers.

Described as a collection of “stories of steampunk and supernatural suspense”, Ghosts by Gaslight is published by Harper Voyager. There are 16 other stories in addition to “Why I was hanged”, including contributions from Peter S. Beagle, Lucius Shepard and Robert Silverberg.

Happy 80th birthday, Gene Wolfe!

Gene WolfeThe editors of Ultan’s Library should like to send Gene Wolfe many congratulations and warm best wishes on his 80th birthday, today 7 May 2011.

We wish him continuing health and vigour and avidly look forward to reading all the books, stories and essays which he has still to write.

Jonathan Laidlow & Nigel Price

“The Lupine Scholar” – an interview with Michael Andre-Driussi

“The Lupine Scholar”

By Scott Wowra

Michael Andre-Driussi is a courageous sort. After all, only a handful of brave scholars gleefully plummet into the literary mazes of science fiction’s Daedalus, American author Gene Wolfe. In this endeavor, Mr. Andre-Driussi has few peers. Michael’s painstaking research produced LEXICON URTHUS, the Rosetta Stone of Mr. Wolfe’s award-winning tetralogy THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and coda THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN.

For the uninitiated reader, THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is full of bizarre and seemingly counterfeit words like omophagist (an eater of raw flesh) and cherkaji (Persian light cavalry). In the early 1980s, frustrated readers accused Mr. Wolfe of deliberately fabricating unusual words to confuse them. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of the strange words that appear in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN are real. And they remind us just how odd language can sound without science fiction authors inventing new words that lack inherent meaning.

In response to his critics, Mr. Wolfe produced the essay “Words Weird and Wonderful” in THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER (1982) to demonstrate that, in fact, all the words he used in THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER were genuine. The brief essay was an incomplete dictionary covering the first book in his tetralogy. Mr. Wolfe wisely left the rest of the work up to the reader.

And that leads us to Michael Andre-Driussi, the lexicographer of THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and a science fiction writer in his own right. What sort of person tirelessly tracks down the definition of obscure words, creating hundreds of 3×5 index cards in the process? Undoubtedly, the same sort of person crafty enough to pen them in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. In a series of email interviews, I set out to learn more about Michael Andre-Driussi, a leading Lupine scholar.

Wolfe at WindyCon

Two more Wolfe novels on the way

There’s a brief interview with Gene Wolfe over at Sci Fi Wire in an article highlighting his new novel, An Evil Guest. In the interview, Wolfe confirms that he’s currently working on two new novels. The first, entitled The Sorcerer’s House, is “almost ready to go to the agency”, while the second, Home Fires, is still in first draft.

“Tell me about the Lexicon Urthus”: an interview with Michael Andre-Driussi

Delighted by the recent publication of a new edition of the Lexicon Urthus, Master Ultan tracks down Wolfe scholar Michael Andre-Driussi to find out how he came to write this invaluable reference work.

Film version of “The Death of Doctor Island”

A 35mm film version of Gene Wolfe’s story “The Death of Doctor Island” is currently in production. The live-action footage has been shot and work is now proceeding on the computer graphics and effects. The producers are still trying to raise money to finish the project, however, and are making various sponsorship packages available, including the sale of individual still frames. Full details may be found here: www.doctorisland.com/.

The Death of Doctor Island Movie

The Death of Doctor Island Movie

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