Storeys from the Old Hotel

Gene Wolfe is famous, and rightly so, for his New Sun books and countless imaginative and thought-provoking (and sometimes head-scratching) short stories. Storeys from the Old Hotel gathers what must be the comparatively mediocre leftovers. On the whole, these feature Wolfe's most frustrating qualities: oblique story-telling, endless dialogue, and seemingly lacunose plots. On his better days, these can be worked up to levels inconceivably ingenious (Book of the New Sun, for example), but can sometimes (as with this collection) leave one wondering, "why bother?" There are, however, some stories worth reading here: the first Liavek story is more entertaining than the usual Gene Wolfe and actually has a surprisingly effective ending. "The Marvelous Brass Chess-Playing Automaton" is another very entertaining piece, with the good kind of Wolfean twists. "Straw" may seem incomplete at first, but keep thinking about it. "Love, Among the Corridors" is a moving retelling of the Galatea story, with role-reversal and addition. "From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton" is hilarious metafiction. "Death of the Island Doctor" has a special, old-school-graduate-student charm. Finally, "Redwood Coast Roamer" is a set of flash-fiction stories quickly sketched on a long train ride, but they're surprisingly good at every turn. Completists will want this one, if only for the diamonds in the rough. For others, I would suggest Endangered Species or The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories.

The very title is a gentle pun: "storeys" rather than "stories", and it opens the door to another of Gene Wolfe's just slightly cockeyed universes. I usually read Wolfe's books with an unabridged dictionary nearby, and I am never annoyed at interrupting my reading in order to refer to it. As with all his books, reading him is a slow process, and yet that only makes me feel that I am getting more for my money. His characters are real. While they are all characters in the other sense of the word, none seems unbelievable. Read this book. And read "Free Live Free."

I am having a hard time trying to figure out what I should say in this reveiw. I think this mostly because these stories are so varied and all of them well written. I guess I'll just list my favorites: "Sightings at Twin Mounds"; "Westwind"; "Redbeard"; "Cherry Jubilee"; "Trip, Trap"; "Straw"; and "The Packerhaus Method".

I should try to load this review down with penetrating insights into Mr. Wolfe's methods and modus, and his (to me, lofty) place in the post-modern literary world, but I get toungue (finger?) -tied and flounder and it comes off sounding lame. Suffice it to say that this short story collection is interesting in that it is comprised almost entirely of stories that were never published or published only with great difficulty. Not all, or even most, of these stories are science fiction (but then, what of Mr. Wolfe's work has ever been exclusivly SF? And who cares?) These tales form a diverse collection ranging from a various ghost stories, wide ranging fantasy pieces, a light meditation about life as seen from a train, and, as always (Mr. Wolfe's forte'), some very incisive comments on humans and why they do the weird things they do.My own favorites are "The Sightings at the Twin Mounds," "The Death of the Island Doctor," "Redwood Coast Roamer," "A Solar Labyrinth," and "Redbeard."If you've never read Wolfe, this is a good place to start. If you have read Wolfe and you don't have this book, then what the heck are you waiting for?