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The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas
 
 
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The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas (Paperback)

~ (Author) "When I was a boy my brother David and I had to go to bed early whether we were sleepy or not..." (more)
Key Phrases: light rifle, heavy rifle, sacred cave, Old Wise One, Sainte Anne, The Fifth Head of Cerberus (more...)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A brothel keeper's sons discuss genocide and plot murder; a young alien wanderer is pursued by his shadow double; and a political prisoner tries to prove his identity, not least to himself. Gene Wolfe's first novel consists of three linked sections, all of them elegant broodings on identity, sameness, and strangeness, and all of them set on the vividly evoked colony worlds of Ste. Croix and Ste. Anne, twin planets delicately poised in mutual orbit.

Marsch, the victim in the third story, is the apparent author of the second and a casual visitor whose naïve questions precipitate tragedy in the first. The sections dance around one another like the planets of their settings. Clones, downloaded personalities inhabiting robots, aliens that perhaps mimicked humans so successfully that they forgot who they were, a French culture adopted by its ruthless oppressors--there are lots of ways to lose yourself, and perhaps the worst is to think that freedom consists of owning other people, that identity is won at the expense of others.

It is easy to be impressed by the intellectual games of Wolfe's stunning book and forget that he is, and always has been, the most intensely moral of SF writers. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk



Review

"Gene Wolfe is unique. If there were forty or fifty of this first-rate author--no, let's be reasonable and ask Higher Authorities for only four or five--American literature as a whole would be enormously enriched." --Chicago Sun-Times

"One of the major fictional works of the decade...Wolfe's novel, with its elusiveness and its beauty, haunts one long after reading it." --Pamela Sargent

"A richly imaginative exploration of the nature of identity and individuality." --Malcolm Edwards, The Science Fiction Encyclopedia

"SF for the thinking reader..The style is highly literate and the ideas sophisticated and handled with sensitivity." --Amazing SF

"One of the 100 best science fiction novels...A truly extraordinary work. One of the most cunningly wrought narratives in the whole of modern SF, a masterpiece of misdirection, subtle clues, and apparently casual revelations." --David Pringle
-- Review
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Orb Books (March 15, 1994)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312890206
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312890209
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #436,880 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Gene Wolfe
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
When I was a boy my brother David and I had to go to bed early whether we were sleepy or not. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
light rifle, heavy rifle, sacred cave
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Old Wise One, Sainte Anne, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Free People, Frenchman's Landing, Seven Girls Waiting, Cedar Branches Waving, Pink Butterflies, Sainte Croix, Number Five, Flying Feet, Thunder Always, The Other Eye, Burning Hair Woman, Field Guide, Veil's Hypothesis, Cave Canem, Department of Parks, Saltimbanque Street, The Daysleep Song, The Fifth Head of Gerberus
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The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas
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The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas 4.5 out of 5 stars (32)
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Customer Reviews

32 Reviews
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4.5 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but where are the Cliffs Notes?, May 9, 2003
This review is from: Fifth Head Cerberus (Paperback)
Out of the many, many fine books Gene Wolfe has done, this is probably considered his greatest single novel (as opposed to the Long Sun, Short Sun, etc series, all of which deserve their critical acclaim) due to its richness and complexity. People looking for an easy way to break into Wolfe's writing won't find it in this book, he piles on the head hurtin' stuff pretty early and it doesn't let up, adding layer upon layer of meaning and detail to the point where the reader cannot ignore it, you have to spend time actively interepreting the novel or reading it becomes a wasted effort. Such is the genius of Wolfe and of not taking the easy way out. The novel actually consists of three fairly separate novellas and while Wolfe could have devised some vague basic linkage and taken three novellas and dumped this arbitrary linkage over them and been done with it, he goes way further than that. The novellas are all different, but they're also all connected in some way, either through offhand scenes or subtle clues or overarching themes or perhaps all of that and more. There's a reason for nearly everything done in the book, from the placement of the novellas to the order of events happening in each section, heck, even the titles are chosen for specific reasons that resonate within the structure as a whole. The first novella sets the scene, a pair of sister planets orbiting each other, colonized by man, and rumored to have once been home to a race of shapeshifters who may have been so good at shapeshifting that they took humanity's place and then promptly forgot they did (the "copy is not the original, or is it?" argument), one of the ideas explored throughout the novel is this question of identity, whether the human race has really been replaced and if so, do the new people count as humans since they're like them in every way. And would anyone even notice? This is not typical SF stuff and it's not told in a typical SF way, for every nuance that I "got" I'm sure a hundred more went over my head, this is a book that demands rereading and is so far from the "So, Zolgar, we meet again" type of SF that fans of literate, intelligent novels will want to jump up and cheer. For all the literary tricks in the novel, it never comes off as pretentious, Wolfe is exploring real themes with real resonance and it all works with the scheme of the novel, none of it can be confused with arty indulgence. Still kind of in print (most bookstores seem to carry at least one copy) it's an excellent introduction to Wolfe, since the longer series can be a bit overwhelming, but again, don't think you're getting off easy. Smaller doesn't mean simpler and shorter doesn't mean less work is involved. People who demand a little more effort from their book and want more than simple entertainment, regardless of genre, should give this a look.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An awesome literary achievement of enigmatic narrative and original plot, March 26, 2006
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THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, Gene Wolfe's first book-length work of note, is a collection of three seemingly unrelated novellas that are, at the close of the third, shown to be cunningly interlinked. The first novella, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", was published in one of Damon Knight's Orbit anthologies in 1974, while the latter two were written and published together to expand the themes and plot of the first. The setting of it all is Sainte Anne and Saint Croix, two sister planets revolving around a common center of gravity in a far-away solar system, colonized first by Frenchmen and later occupied (in a brutal fashion, it is hinted) by later waves of English-speaking colonists. Before men arrived, legend goes, Sainte Anne was inhabited by an indigenous race of shapeshifters, which humans wiped out. Or did the aboriginals wipe out the colonists, imitating them so faithfully that they forgot their own origins? The novellas touch upon many themes of post-colonial theory.

In the first novella, a young man grows up in a strangely sheltered environment on Saint Croix, discovering at last the secrets of his scientist father's work. Here, the aboriginal inhabitants of the sister planet are only briefly mentioned, but the plot has much more local concerns. The second novella "'A Story' by John V. Marsch" is inevitably confusing to first-time readers, and initially seems unrelated to the first. It is the story of an adolescent's initiation to manhood in a primitive society, a dreamquest that brings him across a bizarre landscape and introducing him to various tribes espousing peculiar religious beliefs. In the third novella, "V.R.T." a bureaucrat on Saint Croix goes over the diaries of an imprisoned anthropologist. Again, it seems a complete change of direction with little to link it to the first two, but by the end a story arc spanning the three novellas is revealed. THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS is an excellent example of Wolfe's love for mysteries, some revealed so casually the reader might easily miss it, and others so deeply buried that it may take several tries for the author to find the key. This all gives the book excellent re-read value. And here one can see the genesis of the techniques that Wolfe used in later works, such as his masterpiece The Book of the New Sun.

The narrative here is so ingeniously constructed that I would recommend THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS to any lover of literature, even those that are usually wary of anything called science-fiction. Wolfe's novel PEACE, published a year later, continues this strong writing and is also highly recommend, and its plot might be attractive to a more general audience.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wolfe is the best author alive, February 5, 2002
When I originally read this book, I had trouble making it through the first of the three novellas. I wasn't prepared for Wolfe's many layers, and thus missed a great deal of symbolism and hidden meaning.

When I came back to this book and read the final two novellas, something clicked and I realized how beautiful and subtle a writer Wolfe is, filled with ideas. The stories are interpretable many ways, and thus with each reading of them I find myself thinking more and more, and enjoying the book more and more.

For anyone who is interested in the deeper meanings of Wolfe's works, I would suggest searching the Internet Public Library for criticism on him, specifically the Post-Colonial thought found throughout the novellas in Fifth Head of Cerberus.

Get this and all of Gene Wolfe's works.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Anthropological Mystery/Speculative Ethics
If you were expecting space opera, yes, you will be disappointed. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a novel with some serious literary intentions. Many (most? Read more
Published 23 days ago by blockfault

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh, please
A huge disappointment. Another "serious" sci-fi novel that makes everything opaque and tedious and intentionally baffling so no one will mistake it for "kid-stuff". Read more
Published 3 months ago by A Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance
This book is, quite simply, brilliant, especially if you like sophisticated puzzles. The three tales, each of which stands on its own, intertwine in mysterious ways to lay out a... Read more
Published 12 months ago by D. Barrett

5.0 out of 5 stars vintage wolfe
In the first novella, the familiar voice of Severian appears in full bloom. It was so comforting and familiar to join with this world weary narrator that I had grown so close to... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Christien L. Gagnier

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant work
Easily one of the most creative, well-written works I've ever read. Deviously clever, like watching a play through an intermittent crack in the curtains. Read more
Published 19 months ago by M. Bain

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader
This, as the title suggests, is not one novel, but three novellas, and
they are not all directly related. In the first, a story is set on an
odd planet. Read more
Published on September 2, 2007 by Blue Tyson

5.0 out of 5 stars greatest living writer?
I'm not a huge sci-fi fan so I wasn't sure I would like this one. I finished it in awe, thinking this might be the greatest living author, and a relative unknown, in the... Read more
Published on July 20, 2007 by Charlie B

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best novels I've ever read
This is an amazing multi-layered work, so rich and complex that it rewards multiple re-readings. I pretty much believe that careful reading of this book will make you more... Read more
Published on April 9, 2007 by Paul Burt

3.0 out of 5 stars not sure how i feel about this one...
i was really looking forward to this book after reading the reviews, but after finishing it i feel its one of those books where if you never read it trust me you didn't miss out... Read more
Published on December 31, 2006 by mark twain

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Wolfe's stand-alone masterpieces, a true jewel
Like a Flatlander getting to explore a tesseract, this novel will at first leave you scratching your head in bewilderment. What really happened? Read more
Published on August 12, 2005 by G. Jenkins

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