![]() Gene Wolfe? I’d been reading science fiction and fantasy since childhood, yet I’d never even heard of the guy. I squinted, and muttered the author’s name. ![]() “The most extraordinary hero in the history of the heroic epic,” exclaimed The Washington Post. ![]() “A major work of twentieth-century American literature,” declared The New York Times. The back cover was adorned with the ordinary blurbs, but upon examination these bits of praise indicated the story I held in my hands would be anything but. I hesitated, my arm suspended in midair, lowered the book again, turned it over. “The best science fiction novel of the last century.” – Neil Gaiman Assuming the tacky artwork told me all I needed to know about what lay between the covers, I was already putting the volume back when my eyes snagged on a quote printed on the cover. Intrigued, I pulled the book down from the shelf, only to be greeted by a garish cover featuring a masked man cloaked in black, his hands resting on the pommel of a giant sword. A few years ago I was wandering through a used bookstore in Berkeley when a striking title caught my eye: The Book of the New Sun. ![]()
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