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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is one of the best short story collections ever., July 15, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (Paperback)
I'm usually hesitant about rating books as 9s or 10s on Amazon's scale. There are only perhaps a few dozen books of all time that I'd rate as 10s, and they tend to be written by the likes of Tolstoy and Cervantes. Even within a narrow category, where 10 means "best of this category," I'm hesitant about giving 10s. But, whether the caterory is "modern science fiction" or "20th century short story collections," Gene Wolfe's The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories gets at least a 9 or 9.5 (and we can round that off to 10 since 9.5 isn't one of the choices).
Wolfe's collection is superb. It features all three of his Island -- Doctor -- Death stories ("The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories," "The Death of Dr. Island," and the "Doctor of Death Island"), all three of which are superb. The collection also features such wonderful short works as "Seven American Nights," "Alien Stones," The Hero as Werewolf," and "The Eyeflash Miracles."
As you can probably guess from the title, the three Island -- Doctor -- Death stories form the heart of the collection. They are amazing not only in that all are great stories but that, despite the title similarities, each is different from the other. "The Island of Dr. Death," deals with a young boy who flees life by entering the fantasy world of the book he is reading -- a book that sounds as if it were The Island of Dr. Moreau as written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. "The Death of Dr. Island," possibly the best story in the book and one of the best SF stories ever written, deals with a three young sociopaths receiving therapy in a space station. Dr. Island is the "island" in the space station providing the therapy. The story examines human interaction, as well as what we do and don't value in life, on multiple levels. "The Doctor of Death Island" involves a prisoner who awakes from a cryogenic sleep only to find that humans are now virtually immortal and that a life sentence is still a life sentence. The ending is literally Dickensian.
There is not a bad story in this book. The collection as a whole ranks with the best Wolfe has produced, which means that it compares favorably not only to any SF you care to mention but to any modern fiction you care to mention
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book that might became part of you, October 7, 2000
This review is from: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (Paperback)
I've been keeping an eye out for this book since I lost my only copy in 1988 or so At the time I read them (age about 20) they were the most moving and mysterious stories I had ever read. In my teens I read mainly science fiction, and it all seemed to lead to Gene Wolfe, who is the only science fiction author I have any time for these days. (I've read The Fifth Head of Cerberus about 5 times now, and keep noticing new things.) There's no denying that Gene Wolfe is a very variable author. And wordy, and kind of baroque and labyrinthine (I'm a bit wordy myself), and he has kind of a special way of viewing women and sex. (It's not too difficult to see something a little unsubtly phallic in all these stories of guys charging around with enormous swords, for example.) But if you can swallow the lumps, or leave them on the side of your plate, there are elements in his stories that get to a very deep part of you, and stay with you for a long time. If you can handle stories that read like adventures, but affect you like dreams; if you can handle an author who in his greatest work comes again and again to the themes of cannibalism, aberrations of memory, and confusion of identity; if you can handle sudden ambiguity in the very things you were most sure of; if you appreciate Kafka's sense of humour, or Mark Twain's, or Borges's, or Daffy Duck's; if you can handle an author who can write three stories called The Island of Doctor Death [and Other Stories], The Doctor of Death Isand, and The Death of Doctor Island, where each story is totally unrelated, beautiful, and perfectly well-titled; if you can handle reading an anthology that has to be called The Island Of Doctor Death And Other Stories And Other Stories, because the title story is already called The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories--or which contains a story called The Hero as Werwolf, which has a missing 'e' in the title because it could just as well have been called 'The Wolf Gene'... If you can handle it, then you'll handle it, I guess. As you can see, I could go on for ever. You might grow a little impatient with Gene Wolfe sometimes, if you try to read everything he's ever written (I'm sure he feels the same about us, too), but not in this anthology.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A collection to treasure., July 26, 1998
This review is from: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (Paperback)
"The Island of Doctor Death ..." has finally been reprinted by Orb Books after being out of print for many years. It is, quite simply, one of the most remarkable collections of short stories in contemporary American literature. "Seven American Nights" recounts the travels of a foreign tourist in a future Washington, D.C. "Tracking Song" is a haunting tale of a man in search of his identity as he struggles to survive in an alien environment. "The Eyeflash Miracles" tells of a remarkable and innocent young boy who falls prey to a couple of con artists. These are some of my favorites, but each of these fourteen tales has its own magic to work upon the thoughtful reader. What makes Gene Wolfe special is not only his wonderful imagination and evocative use of language, but his humanity, which is evident in the colorful and surprising characters you will encounter on page after page. I first read this book several years ago an! d made the mistake of lending it to a friend who was clever enough not to return it. I have been searching for another copy ever since. I bought a copy of the reprint the day it arrived in stores and have come back to the stories again and again. No doubt my new copy will soon be in the same tattered state as my old one--but I won't make the mistake of lending this one out. Do yourself a favor--buy this book, read it and reread it, and never, ever lend it to a friend. I guarantee it will never be returned.
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