Customer Reviews

Strange Travelers: New Selected Stories

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Readers familiar with Wolfe's short fiction will be most impressed by this major new collection. Readers who only know his superb "New/Long/Short Sun" novels will be amazed by the breadth and variety of these dark tales.Everyone else will be dazzled. "STRANGE TRAVELERS reads like an artifact of magic--something hidden, stumbled upon, irresistible and dangerous. A book of nightmares too beautiful to be true, too real to be denied, too vivid to be forgotten. Why doesn't everyone know Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive?

The stories in Strange Travelers are a wonderful display of Wolfe's broad and varied style. Each story is told in an entirely different voice, making it impossible to get tired of reading them. There was more variety in this collection than there often is in multi-author collections.

OK, after "accessible" I should add "compared to some of Wolfe's other collections." This one doesn't have any stories linked to his "Solar Cycle," and it has several stories which appeared in themed anthologies -- "Death of Koshchei the Deathless" appeared in one of the Datlow and Windling Fairy Tale anthologies, "Ain't You Most Done" appeared in an anthology of work inspired by Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_ series, "Queen of the Night" appeared in a collection of vampire stories, "Flash Company" in an anthology of fantasy about music ... Thus, for fans of SF, this is a good introduction to Wolfe.

As long, I should say, as you don't mind some darkness in your SF. You may never recover after reading the Christmas (!) story "And When They Appear"; "One-Two-Three for Me" and "Queen of the Night" are utterly chilling; and most of the stories have, at the very least, some deep dark shadows (which will come as no surprise to Wolfe veterans). But if you're worrying about graphic, visceral horror, don't. Wolfe will terrify, even horrify, but he won't disgust.

The collection contains:
Bluesberry Jam
One-Two-Three for Me
Counting Cats in Zanzibar
The Death of Koshchei the Deathless
No Planets Strike
Bed and Breakfast
To the Seventh
Queen of the Night
And When They Appear
Flash Company
The Haunted Boardinghouse
Useful Phrases
The Man in the Pepper Mill
The Ziggurat
Ain't You Most Done

Some notes:
The collection is framed by the linked tales "Bluesberry Jam" and "Ain't You Most Done?".
"Useful Phrases" is Wolfe doing a Borges story.
"No Planets Strike" and "And When They Appear" join the growing collection of Wolfe Christmas stories (which also includes "La Befana" "War Beneath the Tree" and "How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen").
I rarely have a definite favorite in Wolfe collections, but here I have to give special mention to "The Haunted Boardinghouse."

traveling companions. Ziggurat makes it worth the purchase, When Planets Collide, Counting Cats in Zanzibar etc. are icing on the cake.

I'd read most everything by Gene Wolfe that
I could lay my hands on. He tells the most
marvelous stories. But, then I read "And
When They Appear". I guess having my
own children to worry about, I was put
off by how he treated his - albeit fictional -
child. What a horror. I haven't been able
to enjoy Wolfe ever since. Sad