Plan[e]t E ngineering com m em orates Gene Wolfe’s appearance as

  Boskone XXI G uest of H onor. It

  contains a wide range of works

  displaying his m ultifaceted w ritin g talents. Included are stories,

  essays an d poems; plus the first

  ever publicatio n of a m ap from

  the w orld of T h e B ook o f the N ew

  Sun. A m ong the w ritings included

  are:

  f “T h e Books in T h e Book o f the

  N ew S u n ”, a new essay about that

  world;

  f “T h e R ubber B end” , the fu n niest detective pastiche ever;

  f “T h e C om puter Iterates the

  G reater T ru m p ”, the R hysling

  Award w in n in g poem ;

  f “In L ooking-G lass C astle” , w in-

  er of a 1981 Illinois Arts C ouncil

  Award;

  t “T h e Detective of D ream s” , an

  unrecognized masterpiece;

  t “T h e A natom y of a R o b o t” , a

  technical w ork ab o u t the robots in

  o u r everyday world;

  an d m uch more. Also included is

  an in tro d u ctio n by David G.

  H artw ell, Boskone’s Special Guest

  this year an d editor of T h e Book o f

  the N ew Sun.

  e

  n

  &

  THE NESFA PRESS

  BOX G, MIT BRANCH P O

  CAMBRIDGE. MA 02139-0910

  1984

  COPYRIGHT W 1984 BY GENE WOLFE

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN

  ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING

  INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL WITHOUT PERMISSION IN

  WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY

  QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  FIRST EDITION

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 83-73532

  INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NO.

  0-915368-25-0 (REGULAR EDITION)

  0-915368-83-8 (SLIPCASED EDITION)

  C o p y r ig h t A c k n o w le d g m e n ts

  Map, copyright © 1984 by Gene Wolfe.

  “Gene Wolfe”, copyright © 1984 by David G. Hartwell.

  “Logology”, copyright © 1984 by Gene Wolfe.

  “Books in The Book of the New Sun”, copyright © 1984 by Gene Wolfe.

  “In Looking-Glass Castle”, copyright © 1980 by TriQuarterly, originally published

  in TriQuarterly 49, Fall 1980.

  “The Rubber Bend”, copyright © 1974 by Terry Carr; originally published

  in Universe 5, edited by Terry Carr.

  “The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton”, copyright © 1977 by Terry Carr;

  originally published in Universe 7, edited by Terry Carr.

  “When I Was Ming the Merciless”, copyright © 1976 by Terry Carr; originally

  published in The Ides of Tomorrow, edited by Terry Carr.

  “The HORARS of War”, copyright © 1970 by Harry Harrison; originally published in

  Nova 1, edited by Harry Harrison.

  “A Criminal Proceeding”, copyright © 1980 by Gene Wolfe; originally published in

  Interfaces, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Kidd.

  "The Detective of Dreams”, copyright © 1980 by Gene Wolfe; originally published in

  Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley.

  “British Soldier near Rapier Antiaircraft Missile Battery Scans for the Enemy”,

  copyright © 1984 by Gene Wolfe.

  “ Last Night in the Garden of Forking Tongues”, copyright © 1984 by Gene Wolfe.

  “The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps”, copyright © 1978 by Gene Wolfe.

  “The Anatomy of a Robot”, copyright © by Technical Publishing, a Division of

  Dun-Donnelly Corp., a Company of the Dun fe Bradstreet Corporation, 1983—all rights

  reserved. Reprinted with permission from the July 21, 1983 issue of Plant Engineering

  magazine.

  To Rosemary, because she comes

  down for coffee,

  because she wants to be with me.

  Northwest Area of the Commonwealth

  I w ould like to thank the follow ing people for

  h an d lin g am ounts of work that at times became

  staggering. O u r typing staff, w hich consisted of

  Alyson Abramowitz, Sue Lichauco, Skip M orris,

  Pat Vandenberg, George Flynn, Shira Ordower, A1

  Kent, Kelly Persons and Mary Ellen M ulholland

  (our newest NESFA member). T h e M IT Science

  Fiction Society, for use of their archives. Suford

  Lewis, w ho drew the m ap for the w orld of the

  New Sun from G ene’s notes. D. C hristine Benders,

  w ho graciously came ou t of retirem ent to design

  the book. George Flynn, o u r tireless copyeditor

  and cataloguer. Rick Katze, w ho drew u p the

  book contract. C hip H itchcock, for his continued

  nagg in g to “get it rig h t.” T h e u n su n g NESFAns

  w ho read thro u g h the story packets to com pile

  o u r final selection, and later proofread the typeset

  m aterial. And finally the poor diehards who

  stayed u p w ith me till 5 AM to get the book

  produced on time: Jim M ann, Alexis Layton,

  Jam es T urner, Joe T urner, S haron Sbarsky and

  Sue H am m ond. Bless you all.

  G reg T hokar, Editor

  C am bridge, Mass.

  5 AM, Saturday

  December 3, 1983

  ^ a n /e n /d y

  Gene Wolfe by David G. Hartwell

  xi

  Logology

  xv

  T he Books in The Book of the New Sun

  3

  In Looking-Glass Castle

  17

  T he Rubber Bend

  33

  T he Marvelous Brass Chessplaying

  57

  Automaton

  When I Was Ming the Merciless

  79

  T he HORARS of War

  87

  A Crim inal Proceeding

  107

  T he Detective of Dreams

  115

  Poems

  135

  British Soldier near Rapier

  137

  Antiaircraft Missile Battery

  Scans for the Enemy

  Last N ight in the Garden

  138

  of Forking Tongues

  T he Com puter Iterates the Greater

  139

  Trum ps

  The Anatomy of a Robot

  145

  I have been told th at years ago in the early seventies, there was a

  com plex and silly gam e played one n ig h t am ong the attendees of the

  famed M ilford SF W riting Conference. R eports differ, but my sources

  tell me that G ene Wolfe beat ou t G ardner Dozois that evening for the title

  of writer whose everyday personality seems to relate least to his w ritten

  work. H istory has blotted from memory why this was a gam e-point at

  issue in the first place, but everyone afterw ard used to nod wisely and say,

  "true, tru e,” .. .after all, G ardner the clown writes long in tense stories of

  grim , hard-w on optim ism , and genial Gene Wolfe, the M idwestern

  businessm an, acts very m uch like the kind of ad u lt you w ould like to

  grow u p to be if you had not been made irrevocably m aladjusted by

  overexposure to SF. N ot long ago, the only people w ho knew m uch

  about G ene Wolfe were his fellow writers, and many of them , if not most,

  could tell rig h t away from those early stories in D am on K n ig h t’s Orbit

  that he was a w riter of such prodigious talent and craft as to be a m ite

  scary. W ho is he and where has he been and how did he get to be so dam n

  good? And so we play party games.

  But I owe to G ardner Dozois the observation that in physical

  description Gene is a dead ringer for Dashiell H a m m ett’s C ontinental

  Op. He is of average height, over forty, vigorous, balding, bull-necked,

  alert, dressed in a suit — a professional. T h a t im age of the w orking

  undercover agent has always appealed to me as perhaps the best persona

  a writer can have. O thers respond merely to th eouterdisguise, w hilethe

  m ind at work inside is freed to be its ow n strange self, to get its w ork done.

  xi

  Planfejt Engineering

  O ne tends to invent o n e’s ow n Gene Wolfe, a grave om niscient persona

  w ith the voice of O rson Welles, w ho tells us disturbing stories such as

  “ T h e Fifth H ead of C erberus’’ or “T h e Death of Doctor Islan d ” or “T h e

  H ero as Werwolf.” Yet that version of Gene Wolfe melts and evaporates

  in the face of the cheerful, gentle, convivial wit we meet at conventions,

  that p o d iu m trickster, jokey and entertaining. So Gene Wolfe preserves

  his independence. All we need to know is w hat is quickly a p p a ren t to the

  reader of the works: that Gene has the true speculative m ind, skeptical,

  knowledgeable, open, w ondering, w hich is the hallm ark of the true SF

  person, of all o u r best writers.

  Gene Wolfe entered the SF field as a professional in the I960’san d is of

  the generation of Jo a n n a Russ, T h o m as M. Disch, R oger Zelazny,

  Sam uel R. Delany, and U rsula K. Le G uin. Yet he was som ehow not

  truly discovered by the m ajority of readers u n til 1980, w ith the

  p u b licatio n of the first volum e of T he Book of T h e N ew Sun: T h e

  Shadow of the Torturer. I had the good fortune to be the editor

  responsible for the p u b licatio n of that book and I have never in my career

  seen such an avalanche of im m ediate praise m ingled w ith a kind of awe.

  Perhaps in the end he w ill have done m ore to raise a u th o rs’ sights tow ard

  a higher level of accom plishm ent in SF than any of his aforem entioned

  contem poraries, for his best work is word perfect (as an exam ple, as

  editor of the N ebula A w ard-w inning novel, T he Claw o f the

  Conciliator, I finally found one single word change to suggest in the

  entire m anuscript after two careful readings). Still, his recent surge in

  pop u larity and the com parative scarcity of his earlier works m eans th at

  he is know n to m any readers only as the au th o r of T he B ook o f the N ew

  Sun.

  T h is present volum e, then, (along w ith the recent collection, T h e

  Island of Doctor Death and O ther Stories and O ther Stories) should serve

  as an in tro d u ctio n to the m any and varied delights in store for you

  am ong Gene Wolfe’s works. H erein we have Gene Wolfe the poet, the

  essayist, the hum orist, the storyteller (at least one story in this book,

  “T h e Detective of D ream s,” I consider a generally unrecognized

  masterpiece). And let me add that I think Gene Wolfe’s most underrated

  xii

  Gene Wolfe

  strength is his deadpan wit, here in abundance in thiscollection. I know

  that you will be entertained and I believe that you will be im pressed by

  the range and craftsm anship.

  I bow, as an editor should, before the author.

  You’re on, G e n e __

  David G. H artw ell

  xiii

  Y ou’re h o ld in g the fo u rth collection of my stories. In the first,

  The Island o f Doctor Death and O ther Stories and O ther Stories, the

  stories were chosen by David H artw ell. In the second, Gene W olfe’s

  Book o f Days, Pat Lo B rutto let me choose. In the third, T h e Wolfe

  Archipelago, M ark Ziesing and I agreed to let the stories choose

  themselves.

  T his book is different (and better) because the stories have been

  chosen for you by a ju ry of readers, all of them members of the New

  E ngland Science Fiction Association. If such readers as those do not

  know w hat is good, then good has no m eaning.

  W ith the stories they have included one of my technical articles

  and three of my poem s. I hope you w o n ’t skip those. “T h e Anatom y

  of a R o b o t” contains a little glossary of robotspeak that gave me a

  great deal of pleasure w hen I researched an d wrote it. I hope it w ill

  give you pleasure too; the robots are com ing, and they’re fun guys.

  “ British Soldier near R apier A ntiaircraft Missile Battery Scans for

  the E nem y” is ab o u t the way the p o p u la r m edia use words to

  disguise the tru th of science fiction even w hen a science fiction picture

  leaps off the page. (T he caption should have been som ething like

  “ Royal guardsm an beside rocket gun watches for Dagger jets.” )

  “ Last N ight in the G arden of Forking T ongues” tells of a n ig h t

  when half the people in an audience insisted on trying to speak

  S panish, w hich they could not speak, to a genius w ho speaks

  excellent E nglish. And “T h e C om puter Iterates the G reater T ru m p s ”

  xv

  Planfejt Engineering

  (w hich I wrote about twenty years ago) com bines ancient and

  m odern word magic.

  It’s possible to argue that all these are about words, or that any

  tale or article or poem is about words (though it w ould also be

  possible to argue that they are about other things ju st as easily— two

  of the poem s are surely ab o u t pictures, for example). And I confess I

  am in trig u ed by words, as the essay I have w ritten for this book,

  “ Books in T he Book o f the N ew S u n ,” w ill prove only too well. It

  may do me no great good to know I'm eating a sausage from the

  place where the ax-m en cross the river w hen I eat a frankfurter a t

  lunch, but it makes my h otdog taste better.

  O ne of these stories, “ A C rim inal Proceeding,” is partly ab o u t

  names, m ostly the nam es I see m entioned once in new spaper articles,

  nam es the w riter of the article seems to think I already know. T h e

  roots of nam es interest me even m ore than the roots of o ther words.

  Did you know that Larry Niven is the M an from the Snows of

  L aurentum , or that Kate W ilhelm is the Pure Woman W ith the

  Desirable Helm et? In a thousand years, people may have science

  fictional nam es like Dr. W esting’s, but now nearly all of us have

  legionary or w arrior or h ig h fantasy names of one sort or another.

  My ow n m eans a Wolf Is Born. If you know me (and I hope you w ill

  by the tim e Boskone’s over) you w o n ’t be able to see the b arbarian

  arm ies stream ing tow ard Rom e w hen you read that, but they are

  there. David H artw ell is the Beloved Man From the Spring W here the

  Deer Come to D rink, w hich is even better. But Vincent Di Fate (have a

  look in the art show) is the Liege of the C onqueror From Faerie,

  w hich is best of all.

  You d o n ’t have to keep all this in m ind to enjoy my stories an d

  poem s (or anyone else’s), and yet it may help, and I hope you do.

  Now have a good tim e at Boskone.

  Wait a bit! T h e re ’s more, as Dr. Talos w ould say. I should

  m ention Greg T h o k ar, w ho edited this book. Gregory is V igilant,

  but if you know w hat T h o k a r means, you know m ore than I.

  Perhaps h e ’ll tell us.

  xvt

  Logology

  O h, and I forgot to tell you abo u t the chairm an, Rick Katze. And

  I ’m no t go in g to, not really. To find o u t about Rick, you have to

  read a certain story by Stephen Vincent Benet. (Ask the hucksters for

  D am on K n ig h t’s T h e G olden Road.)

  Gene Wolfe

  X V I I

  ^O cd tA s u v The Book

  of the New Sun

  “We have books here b o und in the hides of echidnes,

  krakens, an d beasts so long extinct that those whose studies

  they are, are for the m ost part of the o p in io n that no trace

  of them survives unfossilized. We have books b o und wholly

  in m etals of u n k n o w n alloy, and books whose bindings are

  covered w ith thickset gems. We have books cased in perfum ed

  wood ship p ed across the inconceivable gulf between creations —

  books doubly precious because no one on U rth can read

  them .

  “ We have books whose papers are m atted from plants from

  w hich sp rin g curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in tu rn in g

  their pages, is taken unaw are by bizarre fantasies and chim eric

  dreams. Books whose pages are no t paper at all, bu t delicate

  wafers of w hite jade, ivory, and shell; books too whose leaves are

  the desiccated leaves of un k n o w n plants. Books we have also

  th at are not books at all to eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings

  on a hun d red different substances. T here is a cube of crystal

  h ere— th o u g h I can no longer tell you w here— no larger than

  the ball of your th u m b th at contains m ore books th an the library

 

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