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Old 10-30-2018, 02:32 PM   #12
curtw
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Houston, TX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mentat View Post
Is that the book I should start with, or are there other great Wolfe books I should read first? Any series?
Yes, I wold recommend starting with that, because it's "bite-size" enough to decide if Wolfe is a good fit for you. Not only is it a stand-alone work, but it consists of three interconnected novellas (like Asimov's "The Gods Themselves") that can each be read in a couple of short settings.

After that, the New Sun series is widely acknowledged as his masterwork, but it's four extremely dense volumes, so if you're still on the fence, I'd recommend one of the short story collections, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, or Endangered Species. The titular story of the first, "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories," is an homage to Golden Age Sci-Fi like Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Wolfe can be VERY mysterious, he expects the reader to put in some work. If you finish The Fifth Head of Cerberus without realizing the name of the narrator of the first story, then even if you were entertained, you haven't caught on to everything he made available to the attentive reader.
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