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Searching... Dallas Public Library | SF FANTASY Wolfe, G. Home | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Gene Wolfe takes us to a future North America at once familiar and utterly strange. A young man and woman, Skip and Chelle, fall in love in college and marry, but she is enlisted in the military, there is a war on, and she must serve her tour of duty before they can settle down. But the military is fighting a war with aliens in distant solar systems, and her months in the service will be years in relative time on Earth. Chelle returns to recuperate from severe injuries, after months of service, still a young woman but not necessarily the same person-while Skip is in his forties and a wealthy businessman, but eager for her return.Still in love (somewhat to his surprise and delight), they go on a Caribbean cruise to resume their marriage. Their vacation rapidly becomes a complex series of challenges, not the least of which are spies, aliens, and battles with pirates who capture the ship for ransom. There is no writer in SF like Gene Wolfe and no SF novel like Home Fires .
Author Notes
Gene Wolfe was born in New York City on May 7, 1931. He dropped out of Texas A&M University during his junior year and was drafted into the Army to fight in the Korean War. After the war, he received a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston. He worked as an industrial engineer for Procter and Gamble, where he developed the machine that cooks the dough used to make Pringles potato chips. He was an editor of the trade journal Plant Engineering from 1972 to 1984 before retiring to become a full-time writer.
He wrote more than 30 books during his lifetime including The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Peace, The Book of the New Sun, and The Land Across. He received the Campbell Memorial Award, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, the Locus Award four times, and the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award two times each. In 1996, he was given the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007 and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2012. He died after a long battle with heart disease on April 14, 2019 at the age of 87.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Against a backdrop of science fictional elements such as time dilation through space travel, cyborgs, and brain downloads, Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee Wolfe (The Sorcerer's House) builds a romance and a mystery. Successful lawyer Skip Grison wants to find a wonderful gift for his contracted paramour, Chelle Blue, now 20 years his junior after an interstellar military tour. After reuniting Chelle with her estranged mother, Vanessa, whose consciousness has been downloaded into a new body, Skip takes Chelle on a round-the-world cruise that turns into an almost screwball comedy of hijackings and chaos as shadowy people may be trying to get to Skip, Chelle, Vanessa, or someone else entirely. Red herrings and unknown, mistaken, or confused identities saturate the novel, making this well suited for readers, especially mystery readers, who don't often read science fiction. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In a future North America not quite crumbling but somewhat less than utopian, Skip and Chelle meet and marry in college. But Chelle has to do her term of military service against aliens many light-years away. Twenty-five years later, thanks to the time-dilation effect, she is a still-young but convalescent combat veteran. Skip is a wealthy businessman. And they are still in love. Unfortunately, when they take a Caribbean cruise to celebrate, they run into pirates, politics, aliens, and Murphy's Law running wild. The ending may not please readers who have come to care for the couple, as over the years it has been easy to care for most of Wolfe's characters. But they will be pleased by this latest display of all the gifts of one of sf's authentic all-time masters, including original and balanced characterization, masterly world building, and an ethical sensibility of the highest degree.--Green, Roland Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Now a successful defense attorney, Skip eagerly awaits the return of his wife, Chelle, from her tour of duty fighting a war in space against hostile aliens-and realizes that the months of service have translated into years. While Skip is now in his forties, his wife is still in her twenties, and their attempts to re-create a life together devolve rapidly into a series of ever more bizarre confrontations that hint at dark doings beneath the surface of normality. Though known primarily for his groundbreaking "Book of the New Sun" series and its spin-offs, Wolfe also excels at infusing seemingly everyday stories with layers of complexity while never losing track of his characters' individual dramas. VERDICT Part cyber-thriller, part love story, part sf adventure, Wolfe's latest novel should appeal to his many fans as well as to general readers. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.