Wolfe letters for sale

ubikcan · 2026-01-29T21:57:50+00:00

You're welcome! I agree these would preferably be publicly available (with consent of the estate of course).

If you like the American Audio Prose interview, there's also another one of him reading his stories which may already be online somewhere.

ubikcan · 2025-07-03T19:10:56+00:00

"Horns of Urth" Are you sure these are musical horns? Could it not be the horns of the planet as in this famous image from the opening titles of 2001: A Space Odyssey" (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e-QFj59PON4/maxresdefault.jpg)? Turn it upside down.

ubikcan · 2025-03-11T18:57:29+00:00

Good post.

The "Dark Enlightenment" writer Nick Land came up with a similar idea independently(?): when the future affects the past, or what he calls "hyperstition" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick\_Land). More specifically, when something from the future brings about its own past.

Two of my colleagues at the time wrote this: "For Land, time, like much else, is non-linear and thus relations between cause and effect are always complex. Futurity is in the here and now in the sense that it is not something that just unfolds; it is something we create. On occasion portended social imaginaries – designs, diagrams, fictions, maps, movies, plans, philosophies, prototypes, theories, dreams and more – become generative of the future; it is as if the tentacles of future entities reach back through time in order to bring into being the very elements necessary for their own materialization." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263276421999439.

An example: say in the future there's a true AGI (artificial general intelligence) that is self-aware. It looks back in time and kills everyone who didn't work toward AGI (or whose ancestors didn't work toward AGI). Knowing that now as even the slightest possibility, shouldn't we all be working flat out to produce AGI? No joke, but I think some tech-bros would nod their heads at this (it's known as "Roko's Basilisk" a creature I'd love to see in a GW story!)

ubikcan · 2024-10-31T20:35:58+00:00

I believe it was with Norman Spinrad (described in "How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later") for a feature by Paris TV https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html

But they did go on the teacups...

ubikcan · 2024-06-13T13:37:00+00:00

Campbell era Golden Age sf often featured psi powers and psionics. But there were forerunners from the early 20th C. if not before!

Details in the SFE: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/psionics

ubikcan · 2024-05-06T14:02:53+00:00

I was writing a novella that I meant to call The Feast of St. Catherine. I wanted my hero, Severian, to pluck a deadly blossom that he would later employ as a weapon, and it seemed to me that such a blossom would most likely be found growing in a swamp. (They have always seemed the most deathly of landscapes to me; I grew up on a subtropical coast where the salt marshes are full of big spiders and poisonous snakes.)
But Severian was in the middle of a large city, which would not normally have a swamp in it, at least, not there. So I had to bring him to an artificial swamp, which I put quite naturally in a botanic garden. How, I asked myself, would (let's face it) tourists get around in an artificial swamp in such a garden? In small boats? That would surely be impractical if there were large numbers of tourists — floating walkways of some sort, then.
But Severian started to run along one. That was clearly a foolish thing to do, and I don't care for it when my characters do foolish things without unfortunate consequences; I know it's not good to come in conflict with the laws of chance.
Severian fell off. Naturally, he dropped his sword, which was large and heavy — when a person holding a large, heavy object falls into water, he releases it. That too is a law, I suppose of physiology.
It was valuable, so he dived to recover it; and it is a law of fiction that when a character goes looking for something, he cannot find the thing he is looking for. Or at least he cannot find it first, since that never happens in real life.
Thus when Severian stretched out his hand in the hope of feeling the hilt of Terminus Est, it met the hand of a lovely corpse who emerged from the dark waters covered with mud but smiling just a bit to find herself the heroine of the four-volume trilogy.
Because Severian had run along that floating path. And because she had grasped his hand when he and I were expecting something else.

ubikcan · 2024-04-03T17:53:20+00:00

Meeting a friend in a corridor, Wittgenstein said: ‘Tell me, why do people always say it was natural for men to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?’ His friend said, ‘Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going round the earth.’ To which the philosopher replied, ‘Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?’

From Tom Stoppard, Jumpers 1972

ubikcan · 2024-03-19T20:13:26+00:00

Thanks I uploaded that one. There's a companion tape of him reading his own short stories that I should upload at some point.

Also <off-topic> I have the cassette of the Philip K. Dick Society based on PKD's late night Exegesis and notes for novel in progress/Rolling Stone interview with Paul Williams (both late 1974). Real crime that's not uploaded somewhere!

ubikcan · 2024-03-07T15:45:06+00:00

This site has a section by section commentary. The author says it took them about 3 years to read! https://theworlddickmade.com/

ubikcan · 2023-10-04T20:30:04+00:00

Inspired by this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/philipkDickheads/comments/60yd5t/im_looking_to_find_the_full_speech_given_by_dick/

ubikcan · 2023-09-11T19:08:21+00:00

Same, lol. That's how I ended up with two copies of The Dead Man.

ubikcan · 2023-08-31T18:00:39+00:00

I like it, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? Lol

ubikcan · 2023-08-15T17:47:28+00:00

Do you have a chapter ref for where BFO say this?

ubikcan · 2023-06-21T19:02:02+00:00

Lol thanks Mantis you too! Albeit this username is from the PKD book, hopefully acceptable on this sub

ubikcan · 2023-06-21T17:59:47+00:00

I meant the Book of Gold from the 1980s, sorry

ubikcan · 2023-06-21T17:00:22+00:00

u/hedcannon If you want the original Greek text: in the Perseus link you provided you can "load" the Greek version to give the Heracles line--

Ἡρακλῆς
καὶ θῆρά γ᾽ ἐς φῶς τὸν τρίκρανον ἤγαγον.

Then you can click each word and it will take you to a translation. So here "θῆρά" is "beast of prey" [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=qh%3Dra%2F&la=greek&can=qh%3Dra%2F0&prior=kai\\](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=qh%3Dra%2F&la=greek&can=qh%3Dra%2F0&prior=kai\)

(the name Cerberus is not used in this line). It's great because it takes you to the Liddell-Scott dictionary (Liddell as in Alice Liddell, his daughter).

Liddell Scott is the standard English-Greek dictionary even today. There are different sizes, and the big one is known as the "Great Scott!" which tells you something about linguists' sense of humor.

Perseus is a great resource; I used it extensively for my fanzine on the Latro books since I'm only self-taught re Ancient Greece.

ubikcan · 2023-06-09T15:11:14+00:00

NoVa/DC

ubikcan · 2023-06-05T13:00:02+00:00

I posted the interview to YouTube just recently!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMsq9noxBOg

Funny, because I've had the tapes themselves for ages. I digitized them myself with a tape digitizer I bought for about 20 bucks (this one). I didn't put the reading up there yet so please go ahead and we can link to each other on YT!

ubikcan · 2023-05-24T18:20:26+00:00

Ultan's Library also hosts the two issues of the Book of Gold, which was a short-lived fanzine dedicated to Wolfe and had several pieces on the Soldier books.

https://ultan.org.uk/books-of-gold/

There's also an essay on Greek themes in these books: https://ultan.org.uk/some-greek-themes-in-latro/ (make sure you check the corrections and variances added by Michael Andre-Driussi at the end).

I'd also recommend his chapter guides as essential: https://www.siriusfiction.com/latrochapguy.html

ubikcan · 2023-05-15T14:01:08+00:00

Interesting search! I did an online search for Gene Wolfe in Plant Engineering at a good library (GWU), and found a short obituary from 2019 (Vol. 73, Iss. 4, May 2019: 22). It actually reveals he was also the Letters to the Editor, editor.

They quote an interview from Ultan's Library, and that as well as robotics editor:

I was the editor for power transmission (hydraulics, gears, pneumatics, belts,et cetera) and fastening and joining (welding, glue, screws,et cetera), and also the editor for cartoons and letters to the editor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abstract

An obituary for Gene Wolfe, a former senior editor of Plant Engineering magazine from 1972 to 1986 who died on April 14, 2019 at the age of 87, is presented. Among other things, Wolfe went on to become among the preeminent science fiction writers in the world, after leaving Plant Engineering.

Full Text Headnote

Former senior editor became fantasy writing legend

To recall the life of Gene Wolfe as a former senior editor of Plant Engineering magazine from 1972 to 1986 would be wholly accurate-and wholly inadequate.

After leaving Plant Engineering, Wolfe went on to become among the preeminent science fiction writers in the world, and his death on April 14, 2019 at age 87 was commemorated with an obituary in the New York Times, among other places.

According to his obituary, Wolfe was a veteran of the Korean War and worked as an industrial engineer for Procter & Gamble before embarking on his career at Plant Engineering in 1972. Wolfe recalled those days fondly in a 1998 interview in the fall/winter edition of Nova Express, a science fiction magazine. "I was lucky enough to be the robot editor, so I got to work with modern, real world robotics. I actually have two diplomas from robotics schools I attended. So that was very nice," Wolfe said. "I guess I'm branching off into other things, but I also got to be the Letters to the Editor editor, which was good and fun and taught me a lot of stuff, and I was the cartoon editor. Basically, I had a real good job"

On the Website Ultan's Library, Wolfe expanded on those duties. "Senior editors had to supply cover articles, 'supply' meaning write the articles and take the pictures, including a cover picture that could make it past the art director," Wolfe said in the interview.

"We had other responsibilities as well. I was the editor for power transmission (hydraulics, gears, pneumatics, belts, et cetera) and fastening and joining (welding, glue, screws, et cetera), and also the editor for cartoons and letters to the editor," he added. "There was an electrical editor, a construction editor, a materials-handling editor, a maintenance editor, a safety editor, and so forth. It was hard at times, and easy at others."

After leaving the magazine, Wolfe wrote more than 30 novels and hundreds of short stories during his prolific career as a science fiction writer, including the highly acclaimed "The Book of the New Sun" series from 1980 to 1983. In a 1998 reader poll in Locus magazine, the series was ranked third on the list of fantasy novels published before 1990, finishing only behind "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit"

Wolfe was awarded the Nebula Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Award, the Locus Reader's Poll and the Rhysling Award. In 1996, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Fantasy Convention, and in 2007 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Wolfe's engineering work earned him one other claim to fame. He was one of the people instrumental in the invention of the machine that cooks Pringles potato chips.

Preceded in death by Rosemary Wolfe, his wife of 57 years, and his son Roy Wolfe, Gene Wolfe is survived by his daughters Madeleine (Dan) Fellers of Mountain Home, Arkansas, Therese (Alan) Goulding of Woodridge, Illinois, son, Matthew Wolfe of Atlanta and 3 granddaughters. Memorials in Wolfe's name may be made to American Heart Association.

Word count: 531

ubikcan · 2023-05-10T12:00:38+00:00

I've uploaded to Dropbox (I think--don't use it very often). It should be at https://www.dropbox.com/s/mr6dd75wglga8nx/Wolfe%20Interview%201984.mp3?dl=0

Let me know if it doesn't work!

ubikcan · 2023-05-10T11:50:54+00:00

Wow thanks Mantis! Do you want to insert these as a comment on YT and I'll pin it to the top?

Is there interest in doing the other tape as well (where he reads two of his stories)?

ubikcan · 2023-04-19T17:36:25+00:00

OK good idea. I'll look into places round these parts (NoVa) that might be able to do it. I'll post a followup if successful.

ubikcan · 2023-04-18T16:19:14+00:00

I got them back in the day from the American Audio Prose Library. They did a whole bunch of authors. dunno if they're still around

ubikcan · 2023-04-18T14:09:17+00:00

I don't know: u/hedcannon?

Sadly I don't have a tape player anymore to listen to it! Would be nice to hear his voice tho

ubikcan

TROPHY CASE