An Evil Guest

Publication(s)

  • First published by Tor, 2008

Summary

An actress is magically given "star quality" and soon finds herself over her head in global conspiracies and supernatural horror.

Complete plot summary -- SPOILERS (in progress)

Partial Time-line -- SPOILERS (of the first four days)

Comments

Cross references to literature -- SPOILERS

  • This takes place in the same universe and time frame as Memorare. Vincent Palma and Tabbi Merce are credited as voice-over performers at the end of that story.
  • General comments on place in Wolfe's corpus
  • Etc.

Interpretations

Unresolved Questions

Blurbs

  • From the inside dust jacket:
    "Gene Wolfe is as good a writer as there is today. ... I feel a little bit like a musical contemporary attempting to tell people what's good about Mozart."

--Chicago Sun-Times

"Wolfe is quite simply a superb writer."

--The Washington Post Book World

"Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."

--Michael Swanwick,
author of Dragons of Babel

  • From the back cover:
    "It's a pulp thriller -- and that's a compliment, because Wolfe knows from pulp thrillers (he wrote a wonderful pastiche of one in "The Island of Dr Death and Other Stories") and because here he's creating a strange sort of genre meltdown, a 21st century pulp adventure thriller with SF and horror elements that nobody else could possibly have written."

--Neil Gaiman

"A future world with an atmosphere of nostalgia. A suspenseful mystery that is a supernatural horror story. A firmly rooted, globe-hopping, star-leaping adventure. An Evil Guest offers surprise after surprise, yet satisfies every expectation we have of fine work from Gene Wolfe. Take a deep breath before you begin. There won't be time for one afterward!"

--Fred Chappel, author of
Look Back All the Green Valley

“Vast, formless things astir behind a seductive dark romance of Broadway stardom . . . our feet leave Terra Firma unbeknownst, till mythos titans ring us round and we are star bound, lost . . . Wolfe is a grand master, the king of sly and incremental sorcery.”

--Michael Shea

"Gene Wolfe is an enviably masterful writer, whose books have simply gotten better and better over the years. An Evil Guest is one of his finest, not only because of the beautifully rendered atmospheric horror and the intelligent, sometimes disturbing glimpses at the nature of good and evil, but because it's a magnificently good read."

--James P. Blaylock

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