Gene Wolfe

Gene Rodman Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose and the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and novelist and won many literary awards. Wolfe has been called "the Melville of science fiction" and was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Wolfe is best known for his Book of the New Sun series (four volumes, 1980–1983), the first part of his "Solar Cycle." In 1998, Locus magazine ranked it the third-best fantasy novel published before 1990 based on a poll of subscribers that considered it and several other series as single entries. Wolfe was born in New York City, the son of Mary Olivia (née Ayers) and Emerson Leroy Wolfe.

He had polio as a small child. He and his family moved to Houston when he was 6, and he went to high school and college in Texas, attending Lamar High School in Houston. While attending Texas A&M University, he published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal.

Wolfe dropped out during his junior year and subsequently was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States, he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He was a senior editor on the staff of the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time. Still, his most famous professional engineering achievement is contributing to the machine used to make Pringles potato chips.

Wolfe lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with his wife Rosemary, where they raised four children. Wolfe also has three granddaughters. The Wolfes moved to Peoria, Illinois, in 2013. Wolfe underwent double bypass surgery on April 24, 2010. Wolfe also underwent cataract surgery on his right eye in early 2013. Wolfe's wife, Rosemary, died on December 14, 2013, after a series of illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease. 

Wolfe said, "There was a time when she did not remember my name or that we were married, but she still remembered that she loved me." Wolfe died at his Peoria home from cardiovascular disease on April 14, 2019, at the age of 87. Wolfe's first published book was the original paperback novel Operation Ares (Berkley Medallion, 1970). He first received critical attention for The Fifth Head of Cerberus (Scribner's, 1972), which examines "colonial mentality within an orthodox science fiction framework".

It was published in German and French-language editions within the decade. His best-known and most highly regarded work is the multi-volume novel The Book of the New Sun. Set in a bleak, distant future influenced by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, the story details the life of Severian, a journeyman torturer exiled from his guild for showing compassion to one of the condemned. 

The novel is composed of the volumes The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator (1981; winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel), The Sword of the Lictor (1982), and The Citadel of the Autarch (1983). A coda, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), wraps up some loose ends but is generally considered a separate work. Several of Wolfe's essays about writing the Book of the New Sun series were published in The Castle of the Otter (1982; the title refers to a misprint of the fourth book's title in Locus magazine).

In 1984, Wolfe retired from his engineering position and was then able to devote more time to his writing. In the 1990s, Wolfe published two more works in the same universe as The Book of the New Sun. The first, The Book of the Long Sun, consists of the novels Nightside the Long Sun (1993), Lake of the Long Sun (1994), Caldé of the Long Sun (1994), and Exodus From the Long Sun (1996). 

These books follow the priest of a small parish as he becomes wrapped up in political intrigue and revolution in his city-state. Wolfe then wrote a sequel, The Book of the Short Sun, composed of On Blue's Waters (1999), In Green's Jungles (2000), and Return to the Whorl (2001), dealing with colonists who have arrived on the sister planets Blue and Green. 

The four Sun works (The Book of the New Sun, The Urth of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun) are collectively called the "Solar Cycle." Wolfe also wrote many stand-alone books. His first novel, Operation Ares, was published by Berkley Books in 1970 and was unsuccessful. He subsequently wrote two novels held in particularly high esteem, Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus. 

The first is the seemingly-rambling narrative of Alden Dennis Weer, a man of many secrets who reviews his life under mysterious circumstances. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is either a collection of three novellas or a novel in three parts, dealing with colonialism, memory and the nature of personal identity. The first story, which gives the book its name, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella.