Strange Travelers (2000)
Contents
- Bluesberry Jam (Space Opera, 1996)
- One-Two-Three for Me (World Fantasy Convention 1996 Convention Program Book, 1996)
- Counting Cats in Zanzibar (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1996)
- The Death of Koshchei the Deathless (Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears, 1995)
- No Planets Strike (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1997)
- Bed and Breakfast (Dante's Disciples, 1995)
- To the Seventh (World Fantasy Convention 1996 Convention book, 1996)
- Queen of the Night (Love in Vein, 1994)
- And When They Appear (Christmas Forever, 1993)
- Flash Company (The Horns of Elfland, 1997)
- The Haunted Boardinghouse (Walls of Fear, 1990)
- Useful Phrases (''tomorrow', 1992)
- The Man in the Pepper Mill (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1996)
- The Ziggurat (Full Spectrum 5, 1995)
- Ain't You 'Most Done? (The Sandman: Book of Dreams, 1996)
Editions
- Tor hardcover 2000, jacket painting by Giorgio de Chirico
- Orb trade paperback January 2001, same cover
Comments
Blurb
- From the Tor hardcover edition:
- Front jacket flap blurb
"One of the literary giants of science fiction." --The Denver Post
"Gene Wolfe is among the best writers working in this country." -- Fort Worth Star Telegram
"Of all SF writers currently active none is held in higher esteem than Gene Wolfe." -- The Washington Post Book World
Gene Wolfe is producing the most significant body of short fiction of any living writer in the SF genre. Some of his stories are science fiction, some fantasy, some horrific; all are powerfully affecting. It has been ten years since the last major Wolfe collection, and so Strange Travelers contains a whole decade of achievement.
INCLUDING:
BED AND BREAKFAST: Which begins with the line, "I know an old couple who live near Hell."
AND WHEN THEY APPEAR: A Christmas story that will break your heart.
THE ZIGGURAT: A novella about an invasion.
Some of these stories were award nominees, some were controversial, all are unique and beautifully written. This is one of the finest short fiction collections by any American writer of the 1990s.- Back jacket flap bio:
Gene Wolfe is the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, as well as the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Prix Apollo. He and his wife, Rosemary, live in Barrington, Illinois.- Back cover text:
PRAISE FOR GENE WOLFE
"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
"Gene Wolfe is a national treasure." -- Damon Knight
"Sentence by sentence, Mr. Wolfe writes as well as anyone in science fiction today." --The New York Times
"Wolfe is our Melville." -- Ursula K. Le Guin
"Wolfe is quite simply a superb writer." --Washington Post Book World - From the Orb paperback back cover:
Gene Wolfe is producing the most significant body of short fiction of any writer currently working in the SF genre. It has been ten years since the last major Wolfe collection, so Strange Travelers contains a whole new decade of achievement. Some of these stories were award nominees, some were controversial, but each is unique and beautifully written.
"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 noboy who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning." -- Michael Swanwick
"If all you care about in speculative fiction is delightfully inventive ideas, then Gene Wolfe should be one of your favourite writers. If all you care about is deft, witty, dead-on writing, then you must already be reading Gene Wolfe. If all you care about is profound moral dilemmas, or characters on the cusp of passion and grief, or worlds filled with wonder, then why are you still reading the cover of this book instead of plunging into the tales inside? Aladdin got three wishes from his genie. From Gene, you get fifteen, and they all come true." -- Orson Scott Card