Free Live Free [Paperback]

Gene Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1999

"Free Live Free," said the newspaper ad, and the out-of-work detective Jim Stubb, the occultist Madame Serpentina, the salesman Ozzie Barnes, and the overweight prostitute Candy Garth are brought together to live for a time in Free's old house, a house scheduled for demolition to make way for a highway.

Free drops mysterious hints of his exile from his homeland, and of the lost key to his return. And so when demolition occurs and Free disappears, the four make a pact to continue the search, which ultimately takes them far beyond their wildest dreams.

This is character-driven science fiction at its best by a writer whom, at the time of its first publication, the Chicago Sun-Times called "science fiction's best genuine novelist."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wolfe established himself as one of the new masters of SF in 1972 with his Fifth Head of Cerberus; he has since received high acclaim for his four-volume Book of the New Sun series. This new novel is a disconcerting departure that resembles the work of Thomas Pynchon and William Gaddis rather than traditional SF. Like Gaddis, Wolfe spins a web of conspiracy, con-games, coverups and detection, endless dollar chasing and genuine talent put to the service of fakes and forgeries. But at the end of the quest for Wolfe's four protagonists (an unlicensed detective, an overweight prostitute, a novelties salesman and a witch who works gypsy scams) is a Pynchonesque vision of America's secret masters living perpetually aloft in an immense wooden plane. Always intriguing but sometimes equally baffling, this novel reaches comic heights of cross purposes in the malapropisms of old Mrs. Baker and the sequence set in a mental hospital during a blackout. Although it requires patience, the narrative is darkly humorous, affecting, continually surprising and surprisingly affirmative in its presentation of unconventional, deadbeat characters. November 19
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st Orb Ed edition (March 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312868367
• ISBN-13: 978-0312868369
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gene Wolfe is winner of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and many other awards. In 2007, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He lives in Barrington, Illinois.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book!, March 1, 2000

By 

Bill Carmichael - See all my reviews

This review is from: Free Live Free (Paperback)

Wolfe's fans probably admire most the books in which he demonstrates his ability to create believable (and yet unbelievably complex) fictional settings. In this novel, Wolfe has placed the strange events of his plotline right in the middle of a run-down and rather seedy neighborhood in Chicago, with forays into a nearby luxury hotel and an insane asylum. It's remarkable how well this works. Wolfe demonstrates that he's just as good at listening to how people actually talk to each other in the real world as he is at imagining how they would talk in particularly baroque and distant futures. The conversations between the many characters who make up this book are its biggest pleasure. It's pointless, however, to attempt to explain why the conversations leave such a lasting impression in the mind, because the dialogue derives its effectiveness from the way that it reveals the psyches of some extremely well-drawn characters. If you don't know the characters, you can't understand the appeal. A part of it is that the main characters are all, in one way or another, the type of people that our culture regards as losers. Wolfe manages to make you root for them, but not by idealizing them. Instead, he shows you all of their many flaws...and pretty serious flaws they are, from an ethical viewpoint. Then he shows you their small virtues and talents. And then you begin to realize how hard they have to struggle, because of their poverty, just to get through life. This is a remarkable science-fiction novel for a lot of reasons, but mainly for being populated with protagonists who are neither fearless heroes nor nihilistic violent cretins.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Free Live Free, November 29, 2010

By 

Eric Wisdahl (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Free Live Free (Paperback)

In the novel, a group of four down on their luck strangers answer an add and soon move in with the eccentric elderly owner, Ben Free, of a house that is to be knocked down in just a few days. His only requirement of them is that they help him to try to delay the destruction of the house. From there, the story unfolds...

I'm not quite sure how to set about reviewing this book. On the one hand, the portrayal of the actions and motivations of the main characters involved was very good. Quite a few scenes were downright hilarious. The ending was somewhat of a surprise (a rarity) - but then, I had been warned of that before reading the book. Yet, somehow, the book as a whole seemed like something was somewhat lacking. I think that the reason for this feeling is my extremely high expectations from anything that Wolfe writes.

I would still recommend this book, as it is a good read. But if you have yet to read anything else of Wolfe's I would suggest Peace, the "New Sun" series, or The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite simply the best book I have ever read. READ IT!, July 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Free Live Free (Paperback)

You will see elsewhere on this page a few words which mention the characters and plot of this remarkable book. They are but shadows casting shadows... how can a spattering of words capture the magic of the work as a whole? You simply have to read the book itself to discover the intricate art of it, the unexpected and delightful revalations that make you laugh and weep.

My first exposure to Gene Wolfe was through his Book of the New Sun (consisting of four books, with a few related titles - it was a pleasure to read them all.) The Book of the New Sun impressed me enough to count Gene Wolfe as one of my favourite authors. Free Live Free has pushed the man into a seemingly unassailable first place position. If another author ever manages to displace him, I fear I may perish from sheer joy of reading.