Sci-Fi lovers, have you read any Gene Wolfe?

[OrmRenewed]

I hadn't heard of him but had one of his books for christmas and ordered another from Amazon. I am really enjoying it.

Apparently he's a big cheese but totally new to me. Anyone else read him?

I'm a big fan of sf, as is dh. We've not read any; I've not heard of him, but I'll ask dh.

Give me a title?

What sort of sf is it? Fantasy based, science based? Charles Stross type, Iain Banks, Asimov, Clarke?

I want to know more [wail]

I've just looked him up on Amazon. I think I have read the first book quite a long time ago. My brother loves this sort of fantasy and gives us loads of his books. It wasn't entirely to my taste, if I remember correctly, at the time, but reading those reviews and knowing that since then I have read many more sf books of that type, I have been inspired to find it and re-read. Sounds like it is much better than a lot of the stuff dh flings my way at the moment!

jux - I was very averse to fantasy type Sci-Fi for ages (apart from LOTR of course ) but I have been branching out a bit more and quite enjoy it. I think there is sci-fi/fantasy and then there is sword and sorcery crap. This is the former.

I think you're right. I hated fantasy masquerading as sf and got quite cross when I found bookshops 'pretending' they were the same thing and lumping them together on their shelves! I think the Wolfe was one of the first sf fantasy books I read - passed to me by my brother - so I almost objected to it on principle!

Since then, I've read loads more. I even quite like some of the sword and sorcery crap! For ages I thought Terry Pratchett was just infantile rubbish, too, which it is really, but I enjoy it now, where a few years ago I looked down my nose at it, and couldn't understand why someone as clever as my bro wasted his time with it. Now I think of it as 'ordered silliness' and it does lighten my day.

I haven't found the Wolfe yet, but we have thousands of books and very few shelves, so it is in a pile somewhere and I will find it eventually. Meanwhile, I'll ask my bro if he's got any more. I think dh will enjoy it as he's really into sf, but also Joe Abercrombie, which is more sword and scorcery but quite good. I actually read three of his, though I was glad when it was over!

ROFL at "though I was glad when it was over!"

I think it was Pratchett that got me into different sorts of sci-fi too. Don't care how childish it is I love it! Before the it was more heavy-duty stuff like Asimov where the 'science' was perhaps more important than the 'fiction'.

And to answer your question I started with the Wizard Knight but am now reading the first of the New Sun series whose name is really long and odd and I can't remember it ' The claw of the something and the sword of something else'

Oh yes, I saw that on Amazon, and thought if I'd read it I must remember it! How could you forget a title like that, or at least, having read something with a title like that! Though, to my shame, I think that's the one I read.

I have had a think about this author and I think he style is best described as Alice in Wonderland meets LOTR meet Salvador Dali

(still haven't found it!)