Amazon.com Review
Strange Travelers is a rich and exciting tapestry of eclectic tales sure to please, whether this is your first foray into the worlds of Gene Wolfe or a return journey. The story lines run the gamut from traditional science fiction with a twist to a delightful retelling of a Russian folk tale.
"To the Seventh" is a classic science fiction story about a chess game between God and the Devil. The pieces on the cosmic chessboard are represented by beings scattered across the universe. The hero of the story, Mack Chance, is asked by God, in the guise of a tactical war computer, to undertake a suicidal mission. His ship has the capability and fuel to jump 300,000 parsecs in two jumps of 150,000 parsecs each, but God asks him to accept an assignment 900,000 parsecs away, in the heart of enemy territory on the belief that miracles can happen:
"You answered without reflection. This time I want you to reflect, Captain Chance. Do you believe in miracles?" Mack reflected, tussling with successive layers deceptively labeled "soul," "core," and "innermost being"--tearing each to bits and throwing each aside, only to find that it kept creeping back. At length he said, "Where you're concerned, yes sir. I do, sir. I mean--"
Those six jumps equate to the six moves a chess pawn would have to move forward to arrive at the last row of a chessboard and be subsequently "Queened." If you're familiar with chess and know the difficulty of queening a pawn you can almost guess the outcome of the story. But the path Chance takes, which meanders through the universe with a stop near Portland, Oregon, is one that will delight and titillate.
"And When They Appear" is a tale of a young boy who is being cared for by his parents' computerized house in a post-apocalypse world. Sherby, too young really to understand the evil in the world, is kept entertained by computer-generated holograms while a roving band of looters steadily approaches the house. With the power to override the house program, Sherby innocently creates a situation in which the house is destroyed and Sherby himself is "rescued" by a rather seedy and degenerate character. Thankfully, Wolfe spares the reader most of the details of Sherby's future.
The other strange tales in Wolfe's collection include a thought-provoking campfire horror story set in the far future; the story of the "mother" of intelligent robots being pursued by one of the beings she unwittingly helped create; and the adventures of three female time travelers, castaways on the shores of Earth. There's another horror yarn about a human boy who runs with ghouls and a tale about a boy who gets trapped in his sister's dollhouse each time he sleeps.
Strange Travelers is a broad and deep book by a master wordsmith. Like Wolfe's Castle of Days, Strange Travelers contains a few unclassifiable stories. This only enhances the rich landscape of this collection. Strange Travelers reaffirms Wolfe's adroitness and mastery in the short story genre. It's well worth losing a little sleep over. --Robert Gately
From Publishers Weekly
Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, this collection of Wolfe's stories published in the 1990s contains death by overdose, suicide, Armageddon, cruelty to animals, abuse of children, children willing to falsely accuse fathers of sexual abuse and a plethora of vampiric female figures eager to suck the life out of men. Opening with "Bluesberry Jam," Wolfe (The Book of the Long Sun series, etc.) creates an intriguing speculative future in which an entire culture arises from people who have been stuck in a traffic jam for decades. This conceit is ultimately negated, however, by the most tired of clich?s in the closing story, "Ain't You 'Most Done," which is set in the same world. Also included are two Christmas stories: "No Planets Strike," a relatively sweet tale in which genetically modified animals aid the next Christ child, and "And When They Appear," which is less sweet, involving wonderful, mythic figures who visit, but cannot save, a small boy from a world gone mad. While Wolfe's prose is exceptional and there are a few gems here, such as "Useful Phrases," which delights in how words lead us to and reveal mysteries, there are also several tasteless and misogynistic entries. Chief among them is "The Ziggurat," in which a mother coaches her daughters in the art of false accusation and the father--whose wife leaves him broke-eventually regains all by finding a woman he can dominate and a technology he can steal. All too frequently in this volume, even when women show men "the pleasures of Hell," biting them till they bleed, men emerge loutish and triumphant. (Jan.) FYI: Wolfe is a recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
