Customer Reviews

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

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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

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.

"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.

THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER STORIES AND OTHER STORIES (yes, it's supposed to be titled that way), first published in 1980, is Gene Wolfe's first collection of short stories. It brings together 14 works published in the 1970's, some of which originally appeared in Damon Knight's "Orbit" anthologies. Like with any collection of short stories it ranges widely, but the volume does contain some of Wolfe's finest pieces.

The first story in this book may make the reader wonder why exactly Wolfe receives so much praise, for "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" (1970) is a very immature work, an unconvincingly written tale of child whose love of pulp adventure magazines helps him escape a broken home. The next story, "Alien Stones", dates from two years later and shows a dramatic improvement in Wolfe's writing. On the surface it appears to be about a spaceship crew exploring an abandoned alien vessel, but under the surface hints at a darker story. Wolfe, like Larry Niven in his 60's hard science-fiction works, unfortunately underestimates the progress of technology---his spacecraft's computer uses CRT's and manual switches---and his far-future female character seems suspiciously like a stereotypical ditz of the early 1970's. Nonetheless, the strong storytelling and intricate plot more than make up for this.

"Three Fingers" is a short diversion, an exhibition of Wolfe's droll sense of humour. "Tracking Song" is another of the high points of the volume, the chronicle of a journey on a frozen world where humanity has evolved into myriad diverse forms. The narration is reminiscent of Wolfe's first great novel, THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS.

If this collection begins with Wolfe's weakest story, it ends with one of his best. "Seven American Nights" is the record of an Iranian visiting a bizarre post-apocalyptic America for less than honourable purposes, an ironic reversal of the phenomenon of 60's hippies visiting the Middle East for drug tourism. The novella contains the hallmarks of Wolfe's finest writing: unreliable narration, casual revelations, fantastic world-building, the perpetual feeling that the reader isn't getting the whole story, and an ending that shows that all the plot's secrets were really right there in the text all along. This is a powerful work, and it is worth buying the entire collection just for it.

While perhaps not ideal for the reader who hasn't read anything but Wolfe yet, this is an excellent work to turn to next if you enjoyed one of his accessible works like The Book of the New Sun, PEACE, or THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS.

This collection features some of the best Science Fiction short stories ever written, and is probably Wolfe's best collection. It exemplifies his amazing ability to construct a fantastic new world, with unforgettable imagination and scenery, using the Baroc-like prose with the archaic and ancient echoing in the background.

If you still haven't read anything by Wolfe, and prefers not to begin with his mega Suns series, this could be a great starting point.

Most recommended:
- The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories
- The Death of Dr. Island
- Tracking Song
- Seven American Nights

(I wish there was a 6 stars scale)
Read it!

If you've read some reviews of Gene Wolfe, you've probably noticed an interesting trend. People either love him, or they hate him. This isn't such a great thing when you're not sure into which category you'll fall! Well, here's a collection of his works, broad enough and good enough so that you'll know by the end of it whether you are a fan, or whether his work is unswimmably deep for you.
Let me say that Wolfe is not casual reading. A deep, thorough exploration of his works will leave you re-examining your points of view on subjects as diverse as Christianity (The Urth of the New Sun series), the future of mankind (most of his works), the role of personal enterprise in capitalism (Hour of Trust, reprinted here), psychiatric medicine and it's practice (The death of Doctor Island, also reprinted here), and the origin of numerology (Alien Stones, possibly one of his best works, included). That's a rather short list of the things that Wolfe has left me pondering, late into the night, forced to re-examine my views in the light of the understanding he applied to each.
If that sound a bit thick, allow me a quick quote:
"You know nothing. You are like a child who has wandered by accident into a theatre half a minute before the final curtain. You see people moving about, some masked; you hear music, observe actions you do not understand. But you do not know if the play is a tragedy or a comedy, or even know whether those you see are the actors or the audience."
If the quote appeals to you, catches your interest, give this book a try. It is a great series of Science Fiction stories, written by an absolute master. If it doesn't even vaguely interest you, you might want to look further.

Indra

Gene Wolfe has always been the kind of author that makes me feel guilty and maybe a little dumb. All his works - but especially his short fiction - require undivided attention, an almost maniacal eye for detail, and no doubt a passion for solving puzzles. The part that makes me feel dumb is knowing that the mystery is right in front of my eyes. Hiding in plain sight is always the trick with Wolfe, and one of the reasons his fiction is so exquisite. Alas, that knowledge rarely helps in unraveling the layers of innuendos, the significance of the character names, or the little details in the way words are arranged. Feeling guilty comes later, when I realize I've barely scraped the surface, but just couldn't force myself to start reading all over again. I am rarely able to reread before a long time has passed.

With all that said, I am nothing if not a sucker for punishment, so I keep reading Wolfe's works and keep loving them. The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories And Other Stories is one of the more ridiculous titles of short story collections out there, and the reason for the repetition is the titular story, The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories, which is a part of the so called "Wolfe Archipelago" - four stories that all have the words "Island", "Doctor" and "Death" in them. Here endeth the similarities though, as we can see from two of the other three parts of the Archipelago, also published in this collection. While The Island of Doctor Death... is a sort of magical realism and externalized metaphor for escapist literature (the characters from a pulp Science Fiction novel resembling The Island of Dr. Moreau all come to life, manifesting in the company of the young main character Tackie to help him with his real life problems), the second story, the Nebula award winning The Death of Dr. Island, is - in Wolfe's own words - "a thematic inversion" of it. The real island from the first story is replaced by the artificial satellite of "Dr. Island". The AI psychiatrist "Doctor" himself is now the villain of the story while the good boy Tackie is turned into the vicious and unstable Nicholas who has to be "cured" by the mind-screwing space station.

But Wolfe wouldn't be Wolfe if he made things that easy, and the third part of the Archipelago, The Doctor of Death Island, is nowhere near as comparable to the other two as they are to each other. It gives us a world in the near future, where humanity has achieved immortality at the price of losing love, ambition, literacy and other little things of the sort. Unfortunately for the main character - a convicted murderer - a life sentence in this world is still a life sentence. Although the author himself insists that themes of the other Archipelago stories persist here, I was not able to find them on the first reading. I also found the story a bit underwhelming, compared to the other two, and especially The Death...

Other highlights of this magnificent collection are:

The Hero As A Werwolf (the mistake is intentional) where humanity has turned itself into the "Masters" - a race of art-loving near-immortal creatures that never suffer from diseases, hunger or compassion. The remaining humans are hunted and purged, but they have learned to survive by feeding on the Masters. Thus the "Werwolf", from the Anglo-Saxon wer, which means "man"; the hero is a "man-wolf" - a noble creature turned into an animal, but still better in Wolfe's eyes to the soulless Masters.

Seven American Nights has to be my favorite story from this collection. In a future where America has barely survived a genetic apocalypse, leaving almost all of its citizens malformed and mutated in some way, a man from Iran arrives on its shores. The story is told through Nadan's journal. But it seems to cover only... six nights. Seven American Nights is by far the most intriguing mystery among the fourteen stories and a shining example of Wolfe's love for the "unreliable narrator". First of all, the number of nights does not match. Second, Nadan is vain, and trying to impress his potential readers - his mother and fiance. Also, at some point he gets paranoid about the intrigues in which he has inadvertently involved himself, and tears pages from his diary in fear that someone might read them. Also there are moments where he is obviously not in his right mind, be it under the influence of drugs or just raging fear. None of the characters - not even Nadan himself - are what they seem to be, and there are many theories as to what really happened, and how many nights he spent in the enigmatic third-world country of America.

Hour of Trust again sees America almost destroyed, this time by a vicious anarchist civil war. The only opposition are the big corporations which have taken the side of the failing American army, and are trying to raise funds from other firms in Europe by staging a party where their expected victory over the rebels in Detroit is to be aired live on TV. Here there seem to be no big secrets to unravel, but Wolfe gives indications for the ending from the very beginning. Names are important, and actions, and also little words. The strongest point of the story is in the atmosphere. You could feel the desperation, even if the main characters can't, the delusions of the Old Order that things could ever get back to what once was. Hour of Trust is a story about change, and about a world dying so that it can be reborn. It is also a little sad, because Wolfe never gives guaranties that what comes next will be better than what was lost.

All the stories offer more on second and third glance. I could write about the New Testament allusions in The Hero As A Werwolf, or about the multi-faceted relationship between Tackie and Doctor Death in The Island of Doctor Death...; or of the many layers of mystery and misleading clues in Seven American Nights. But I am neither qualified, nor willing to steal the incredible sense of wonder and fulfillment that comes with untangling Wolfe's stories by yourself. Suffice to say that after almost twenty years of reading SF and Fantasy, I am yet to find another author with such eye for intricate detail, and able to tell a self-sufficient straightforward story with another straightforward story hiding in plain sight inside it. And yet another one, thrown in for good measure. It is not a coincidence that Gene Wolfe has been labeled by many of his colleagues as the greatest living stylist in American literature. It is not an empty title, and I am yet to read a book or short story from him that disproves it.

As for The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories And Other Stories, I couldn't find a single story inside that I didn't love, and I just couldn't recommend it enough.

10/10

[...]

Two fantastic stories, "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" and "Seven American Nights" bookend another excellent collection from the masterful Wolfe. Several of the stories contained herein were award nominees...and rightfully so. With each story, the reader gains more appreciation for the skill employed by Wolfe. Truly he is a master storyteller.

The two stories mentioned above stand out as the masterworks of the collection. Each is a touching and delicate rumination on love and the tender connections that bind us to one another. In "The Island..." a young boy retreats into the fantasy setting of a Dr. Moreau-type novel when his chaotic family situation comes to a head. (This is only one way to read the story. A literal interpretation makes the story even more interesting and is hardly improbable in a Wolfe story) "Seven American Nights" tells thte tale of a young Middle Eastern man who comes to a ruined (post-apocalyptic?) America in search of a nebulous goal (Wolfe twice tantalizingly mentions something hidden beneath a mountain. Nuclear Weapons?) The young man is entranced by a young actress and his quest is subsumed by desire. A masterful piece.

Other standout stories inlcude "The Toy Theater" about a powerful puppeteer and "The Eyeflash Miracles" wherein a blind boy travels with a deranged ex-school superintendent.

Wolfe tells dense yet powerful stories. I don't claim to fully understand his works, but I do make the attempt. I've yet to read the Gene Wolfe story that wasn't worth my time. He is one of th most accomplished American writers today. This collection of his early short fiction is a marvelous collection and should be read. Highly recommended.

Wolfe is at his best when he has room to develop a theme, thus his most engaging stories are the longer ones in this collection: 'The Death of Dr. Island', 'Tracking Song', and 'Eyeflash Miracles', but Wolfe's wit is all that sustains cute sleight-of-hand parlor stories such as 'La Befana', 'Feather Tigers', and 'Cues'.

Bottom line: the three story variations on Dr./ Death/ Island make this volume a Must-Have.

Wolfe is rightly considered a master (if not THE master) of the science-fiction/fantasy novel, and yet I believe his greatest strength lies in writing short stories. This collection is his best. I've read collections by Borges, Tolstoy, Babel, Hemingway, Joyce, and on. This one tops them all, regardless of genre.

Wolfe's writing is a miracle to behold. His characterizations are always disarming, and his language is unparalleled. Other reviews have given some clue as to the stories in this collection, which are all speculative and challenging. Although the concept is now overused, this would be the one book I would take with me to the desert island to read for pure pleasure.