Book Review | A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.

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Gene Wolfe continues to play with the nature of narrators in his mostly notional new novel, a middling murder mystery explicated from the perspective of a posthumous author pretending to be a detective.

The story starts with Colette Coldbrook: sweetheart teacher, well-spoken socialite and, in the early parts of the narrative, something of a survivor. A year or so ago, she suddenly lost her mother; a little later, her father suffered a suspicious heart attack; and in the aftermath of that latter's passing, her beloved brother was straight-up strangled. She has no-one to turn to, now, and so many questions—not least about the unassuming book Conrad Coldbrook Junior found in Conrad Coldbrook Senior's safe.

Colette believes—with good reason, even—that Murder on Mars may be the key to understanding what happened to her family, and perhaps why, but beyond that, she doesn't have a clue what to do. The thought of reading this fictional fossil doesn't cross her ultra-modern mind for a minute. Instead, she does the other obvious thing: she rents out a so-called "reclone" of the author of the novel, E. A. Smithe, from her local library, and asks him to do the dirty work.

Now it might be that Smithe comes complete with most of his long-dead predecessor's memories, but he doesn't remember much about Murder on Mars—and to make matters worse, he's a copy of a crime writer rather than anything resembling a detective himself:

I was not the man I thought I was, the one whose name I used—whose name I still use right now, for that matter. I was somebody else, a kid who had been grown from that guy's DNA and loaded up with his memories, phony memories of things that never happened to me and never could happen to me. (p.36)

Thus, the investigation into the curious case of the Coldbrooks proceeds in frustrating fits and stuttering starts, regularly interrupted by Smithe's soul-searching and set back substantially when Colette is (apparently) kidnapped. "The more I thought about it the surer I got that there was something funny going on, but I could not even guess what it was." (p.106)

Coming Attractions | New Sun Stories and More

I'm pressed for time again today—well what's new, Blue?—so rather than subjecting you to a last-minute ramble, I thought we could look to tomorrow, by way of a pair of exciting anthologies I heard about for the first time yesterday.

End of the Road appears to follow in the footsteps of Jonathan Oliver's earlier anthology, The End of the Line, which I adored upon its release a few years ago.

An incredible anthology of original short stories by an exciting list of writers from all around the world, including the best-selling author Philip Reeve and the World Fantasy Award-winning Lavie Tidhar. 

Each step will lead you closer to your destination, but who, or what, can you expect to meet at journey's end? Here are stories of misfits, spectral hitch-hikers, nightmare travel tales and the rogues, freaks and monsters to be found on the road. The critically acclaimed editor of Magic, The End of The Line and House of Fear has brought together the contemporary masters and mistresses of the weird from around the globe in an anthology of travel tales like no other. Strap on your seatbelt, shoulder your backpack, or wait for the next ride... into darkness.

End of the Road is due out in November from our pals at Solaris, and I'm pretty sure it'll be super.

If anything I'm more certain that I'll be enraptured by Shadows of the New Sun, an August anthology very much in the mode of Songs of the Dying Earth, but in honour of Gene Wolfe's work rather than Jack Vance's classic saga.

Perhaps 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 new stories written specifically to honor the writer hailed by The Washington Post as “one of America’s finest.”

Alongside the complete Table of Contents—which includes original fiction from luminaries like Neil Gaiman, Nancy Kress, Joe Haldeman, David Brin and Michael Swanwick—Tor.com just posted an exclusive first look at the foreword of Shadows of the New Sun.

More than enough, in other words, to engender my interest. I haven't often had call to talk about my feelings for this author, but I am a massive fan of the man. Which makes Shadows of the New Sun at least twice as exciting, because Wolfe's contributing a few new stories too.

Wootable news, no?

Guest Post by Mark Charan Newton: Six Influences on the Legends of the Red Sun Series

Six months isn't such a long time at all, really. It's the halfway point between birthdays; it's the time it takes for Winter to turn into Summer, for the snow to become sun; it's how often you go on holiday, if you're anything like me. But let me tell you. In internet years - they're like dog years, only more nebulous - The Speculative Scotsman is positively claiming its pension. Sometimes it feels like I've been at this for ever, and so it's a pleasure, from time to time, to hand over the reigns to someone else. I don't do it terribly often - I'm not at all good at letting go, even temporarily - but this one time, in aid of the ongoing celebrations here on the blog, I'm making an exception.

Without further ado, then, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the one and the only Mark Charan Newton to TSS. Mayhap you've heard of him?

But enough of my burbling. Over to you, Mark...

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One of the things I'm conscious of, as a writer, is to leave a trail of clues littered through my books so that people can see where I've been inspired by other writers. It's important to acknowledge these things. So, textual clues aside, here are six books which helped shape the construction of my own books, to varying degrees.

 

1) The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Now any such lists invite pretentious selections, but invoking this metaphysical classic of the 1950s isn't me trying to appear clever - I learned a very important lesson about what book sequences can do from reading Durrell's stylish masterpiece. Each book in the series undermines the previous novel, and minor characters suddenly become the focal point, giving the reader a completely different understanding on what went before. It was a revelation, and made me instantly consider such subtle tricks in my own books.

2) The Scar by China Miéville. I've harped on about this book in many places and interviews, but suffice to say I wouldn't be writing today if I my imagination had not been inspired by this book. Reading this was the first time I realised what fantasy fiction could achieve in scope and ambition. I remain somewhat disappointed by the lack of true weird wow-factor in the genre (though it does exist with writers such as Erikson or Gaiman, for example). It strikes me as if some writers are reluctant to put much radical fantasy in their fantasy fiction, which I admit is my own personal taste - I don't have any agenda here. Because of my perceived shortage of such weirdness at the time, I thought I'd have a go at writing my own book. So I did.

3) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. In City of Ruin readers will meet a new character called Voland. Bulgakov's mesmerising political satire contains a character called Woland, which was, in turn, linked to Goethe's Faust (the knight Voland - a demon), and so I wanted that satanic force to appear again, but in my new guise (though I've made a few connections apparent). I won't go into too much detail, since I'll leak spoilers everywhere. But if people want a unique spin on good and evil (and a thousand other themes) then you could do worse than take a trip through Bulgakov's Moscow.

4) The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's the definitive dying earth book, and outclasses Jack Vance's series for depth and imagery (though certainly not for madness). Whilst I can understand why readers would be frustrated with Wolfe's prose, I found this to be a beautiful book with so many layers, and it really captured the mood of how I viewed my own series. It informs much of how I view the dying earth sub-genre. I mean, you only have to look at the similar series title to see I'm conscious of this literary debt.

5) The Wallander crime series by Henning Mankell. My guilty pleasure is that I'm a huge fan of the detective Wallander, and Mankell's bleak Swedish crime series has been endlessly good fun for me when I wanted something a little less intensive to read. They're not mere entertainment though – they're very clever. In later books, Wallander constantly finds himself up against a certain political or social frustration, and I very much wanted to replicate such matters in my own books. Fantasy books don't have to just be entertainment (that should be a minimum) - if you want to talk about a theme or an issue, then where's the shame in that?

6) The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. Mythology informs much of my work - in fact, as the series unfolds, it will become apparent just how much the world depends on mythology. And there's no way to deny that I love a good monster – who doesn't? Borges's bestiary is a wonderful A to Z of, well, monsters, creatures from different cultures and mythologies – and specifically in my case, the garuda came from this resource. If you want one book where you can quickly look up a beastie to put in your own writing, then this is it.