Described as a collection of “stories of steampunk and supernatural suspense”, Ghosts by Gaslight is published by Harper Voyager. There are 16 other stories in addition to “Why I was hanged”, including contributions from Peter S. Beagle, Lucius Shepard and Robert Silverberg.

We wish him continuing health and vigour and avidly look forward to reading all the books, stories and essays which he has still to write.

Jonathan Laidlow & Nigel Price

In the fall of 1987 I found myself with a new job in a rural town, where one Sunday I visited the local shopping mall, and there in a dump of used paperback books I found a copy of The Shadow of the Torturer. It was auspicious, I thought, to find an old friend in a new place, especially since it was a Japanese edition. But then again, I was living in Japan at the time.

To be clear, I couldn’t read Japanese very much at all, but I could spot the “Sci Fi” symbol on the book’s spine (a planet Saturn), and I could read the phonetic writing they use for foreign words and names, such that “Jiin Urufu” is Gene Wolfe.

I opened the book at random. (I should mention that Japanese books are “reverse” to Western standards–their front cover is where our back cover is. In addition to this, the text runs vertically, from top to bottom, from right to left.) So anyway, I opened the book and my eye alighted upon bits of phonetic writing contained within brackets–in other words, a parenthetical note on the text. I believe it was a gloss on “amschaspand.” (You were guessing it would be “graven.” That would have been neat, but no.) I flipped through the book and saw a few others, probably “Nilammon” among them.

“Ah-ha,” I thought to myself. “How clever! They have taken notes from Wolfe’s article ‘Words Weird and Wonderful’ in The Castle of the Otter and incorporated them as footnotes. I’ll bet they don’t have any such notes in later volumes.”

I bought the book (for 250 yen, about $2 then and now) but didn’t search out the others during my two years living there. I brought the book back with me to the States and it remained a curio as I embarked on writing my Lexicon.

Nineteen years later, I returned to Japan for a summer job, and it seemed like an opportunity to fill out my set of the Japanese edition of The Book of the New Sun, so I did. Contrary to my earlier theory, the other volumes did in fact have word glosses. This meant that it wasn’t the easy thing I had thought it was, and that the Japanese translators had, in effect, worked up their own lexicon!

This long-winded and self-aggrandizing introduction is just a prelude to the real thing, the wordlist of the Japanese lexicon for The Book of the New Sun. One strategy would be to spread the “Words Weird and Wonderful” glosses out among all four volumes, but that does not seem to be the case here–it seems like the translator did most of the work himself, only asking Wolfe directly about two chapters in the fourth volume.

In annotating the words, I trace some to the words defined in the appendix to volume II (marked *), many to “Words Weird and Wonderful” (marked †), and a few to words defined in other articles in The Castle of the Otter (marked ‡).

Volume I (68 notes)

1. League (measurement) *
2. Exultant †
3. Amschaspand †
4. Arctother †
5. Erebus ‡
6. Matachin tower †
7. Cubit (measurement) *
8. Saros (“period of 6,600 days,” i.e., the modern sense of the word. Here the translator made an error, since I believe the ancient sense of the word is required at this spot.)
9. Urth †
10. Cacogen †
11. Chain (measurement) *
12. Minim (measurement) †
13. Half-boot (torture)
14. Ophicleide †
15. Diatryma †
16. Thylacodon †
17. Triskele †
18. Glyptodon †
19. Smilodon †
20. Nilammon
21. Megatherians
22. Graven
23. Drachma
24. Ell (measurement) †
25. Saffron
26. Pantocrator †
27. Hypostases †
28. Quadrille (card game)
29. Urticate †
30. Salpinx †
31. Bordereau †
32. Cabochon emerald †
33. Omophagist †
34. Span (measurement) *
35. Moira †
36. Stride (measurement) *
37. Externs †
38. Ophicleide †
39. Ascians †
40. Baldy
41. Paduasoy †
42. Balmacaan †
43. Surtouts †
44. Dolman †
45. Jerkin †
46. Jelab †
47. Capote †
48. Smock
49. Cymar †
50. Onager †
51. Dulcimer †
52. Lamia †
53. Hesperorn †
54. Oreodont †
55. Cloisonné
56. Fearnought
57. Simar †
58. Succubus †
59. Abacination †
60. Defenestration †
61. Estrapade †
62. Burginot †
63. Verthandi †
64. Coal Sack Nebula
65. Alzabo †
66. Merychip †
67. Teratornis †
68. Pandour †

The article “Words Weird and Wonderful” has around 230 entries for unusual words found in The Shadow of the Torturer. The Japanese edition of The Shadow of the Torturer gives 68 glosses, so there are less than a third of those given in “Words Weird and Wonderful.”

Volume II (23 notes)

1. Scylla
2. Demiurge
3. Baluchither
4. Kestrel
5. Phorusrhacos
6. Tribade
7. Hierodule
8. Notule
9. Jennet
10. (A note to explain that the White Knight bit mentioned by Jonas in the antechamber is a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass.)
11. Faille (fabric)
12. Naviscaput
13. The three fates
14. Khaibit †
15. Megatherian
16. Capote †
17. Ushas
18. Petasos
19. Tyrian purple
20. Water moccasin (snake)
21. Eclectics (people who fold other cultures into their own–”this refers to Americans”!)
22. Glamour
23. Spelaeae

Volume III (25 notes)

1. Rosolio (wine)
2. Coronas lucis
3. Remontado
4. Sangria (wine)
5. Sanbenito
6. Sikinnis
7. Cuvee (wine)
8. Saros (“18 years,” which is about equal to the previous definition of 6,600 days.)
9. Barghest
10. Caloyer
11. (Re: old man in Casdoe’s cabin, Palaemon wears glasses.)
12. Notule (“message from Notus, God of South Winds”!)
13. Galleass
14. Gegenschein
15. Squanto
16. Verthandi
17. Amschaspand
18. Xebec
19. (Complication over English word “toadstool,” to explain the poisonous, loathsome aspect of something that looks like a yummy shitake mushroom.)
20. Pele tower
21. Hellebore
22. Skuld
23. Catamite
24. Logos
25. Estoc

Volume IV (31 notes)

1. Caitanya
2. Bowspirit
3. Narthex
4. Arsinoither
5. Apeiron
6. Schiavoni
7. Bushmaster (snake)
8. Anpiel
9. Merychip
10. Cherkaji
11. Coryphaeus
12. Cuir boli
13. Onager †
14. Phenocod
15. Ophicleide †
16. Ziggurat
17. Calotte (cap)
18. Ransieur
19. Uintathier
20. Platybelodon
21. Acarya (science)
22. Samru (King of Birds)
23. Jupe (female clothing)
24. Aquastor
25. Mandragora
26. Piquenaires
27. Pilani
28. Capote (cape, hood) †
29. Chechia
30. Lugsails
31. Pandour †

A summary of the numbers is in order, which calls for a table. The first column shows the total number of notes per volume, while the second column gives the number of those notes that appear to be from original research rather than being simply copied from The Castle of the Otter.

NO.     ORIGINAL
68          13
23          21
25          24
31          27

Volume I has the lion’s share of notes, nearly half of the 149 that is the total, and it also has the lowest percentage of original notes (18%). But in subsequent volumes the percentage of original notes is quite high, so that in the end there are 85 original notes, which amounts to 57% of the 149 total.

In fact I have no certain knowledge that the translator used The Castle of the Otter at all, it is just my long-held hunch. He might very well have done all the research on his own.

At the end of Volume IV, the Japanese translator gives three endnotes about a single sentence in chapter 38, specifically about the mysterious séance at the stone town. I’ll give the English sentence he is footnoting:

I know now the identity of the man called Head of Day[1], and why Hildegrin, who was too near, perished when we met[2], and why the witches fled[3].

Here are his endnotes:

1. “Head of Day” is one of Severian’s future shapes.
2. Hildegrin’s disappearance was caused by the energy released at the union of old and new Severians.
3. The witch was a member of the temple slaves, and realizing that she had interfered with a very important matter, she withdrew.

In addition, the translator writes that he got help from Gene Wolfe on chapters 37 and 38, and thanks him for that.

–0-0–

What is the moral of this story? “Every curio you collect has a deeper meaning that will come to you in the fullness of time”? Maybe.

It is funny, nearly haunting, that I thought the annotations to the Japanese edition of volume I were a simple work of cribbing notes from “Words Weird and Wonderful,” when in fact it is not. I have no doubt that its presence in my collection, or my awareness of its existence, was another obscure milestone on my path to creating a Lexicon. Which is to say, years before Lexicon Urthus was even a twinkle in my eye, months before I had even laid eyes upon The Urth of the New Sun, my investigative gaze fell upon a narrow spine whose alien, angular letters proclaimed Jiin Urufu, so that I caught my breath, smiled, and said, “What have we here?”

By Scott Wowra

Michael Andre-Driussi is a courageous sort. After all, only a handful of brave scholars gleefully plummet into the literary mazes of science fiction’s Daedalus, American author Gene Wolfe. In this endeavor, Mr. Andre-Driussi has few peers. Michael’s painstaking research produced LEXICON URTHUS, the Rosetta Stone of Mr. Wolfe’s award-winning tetralogy THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and coda THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN.

For the uninitiated reader, THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is full of bizarre and seemingly counterfeit words like omophagist (an eater of raw flesh) and cherkaji (Persian light cavalry). In the early 1980s, frustrated readers accused Mr. Wolfe of deliberately fabricating unusual words to confuse them. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of the strange words that appear in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN are real. And they remind us just how odd language can sound without science fiction authors inventing new words that lack inherent meaning.

In response to his critics, Mr. Wolfe produced the essay “Words Weird and Wonderful” in THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER (1982) to demonstrate that, in fact, all the words he used in THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER were genuine. The brief essay was an incomplete dictionary covering the first book in his tetralogy. Mr. Wolfe wisely left the rest of the work up to the reader.

And that leads us to Michael Andre-Driussi, the lexicographer of THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and a science fiction writer in his own right. What sort of person tirelessly tracks down the definition of obscure words, creating hundreds of 3×5 index cards in the process? Undoubtedly, the same sort of person crafty enough to pen them in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. In a series of email interviews, I set out to learn more about Michael Andre-Driussi, a leading Lupine scholar.

SW: Who were some of your favorite authors growing up?

MAD: I read a ton of science fiction, and my favorites included Burrough’s Barsoom books, Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, and Herbert’s Dune series. The first author whose work I liked beyond the one set was Samuel R. Delany, and then Jack Vance. Outside of genre, I liked James Joyce, but I never read FINNEGANS WAKE. I still haven’t!

SW: Who are you currently reading?

MAD: I just finished THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO (2007), which isn’t genre, but the eponymous character is a fanboy steeped in science fiction, fantasy, pen and paper gaming, anime, etc. It was okay. The details on genre, gaming, anime, etc., were very impressive, hard nuggets of true expertise. I only found two errors in that regard, and both might have been simple typos.

I’m in the Gene Wolfe Book of the Month Club, so I’ll be starting SWORD OF THE LICTOR today. Yay!

I’m still tracking down Jack Vance mysteries that I haven’t read yet. These are hard to find, but I discovered I can get many through the interlibrary loan system. In the last few months I’ve read BAD RONALD, then THE MAN IN THE CAGE, followed by THE VIEW FROM CHICKWEED’S WINDOW, and most recently THE DARK OCEAN.

SW: Tell us about your short story, “Under the Moons of Jizma.” Can we expect more stories recounting the adventures of Dr. Lee?

MAD: I don’t have anything planned, but I could do that if there were any interest. I have a new story, “The Gray-haired Girl,” coming out soon in “Doorways” magazine.

SW: Congratulations! How would you characterize your short stories? Do you find that your stories are influenced by other science-fiction writers?

MAD: Thank you! My stories vary. “The Gray-haired Girl” is similar to the last one that was published, “Old Flames in New Bottles,” in being set in the local area (East Bay Area) and local time. Sort of Twilight Zone or slipstream, I guess.

Whereas “Under the Moons of Jizma” was a literary trick of making William Burroughs look like Edgar Rice Burroughs. I guess it didn’t work very well, since people just take it as an Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche! But anyway, that was a clear case of modeling a story after two different authors. A bad habit I haven’t shaken yet.

Sometimes I try to write something like Burrough’s Barsoom, Asimov’s Foundation, or Herbert’s DUNE. Not in that voice or style, but reworking that substance. Likewise, I don’t try to write in a Gene Wolfe style, nor even the substance.

SW: Tell us about your writing process. Where do your ideas come from?

MAD: That’s a difficult question. Depends on the story. “Jizma” came from a line in Delany’s THE JEWEL-HINGED JAW where he compared the two Burroughses as a study in contrasts. I took it as a challenge, thinking that the two were a lot more alike than ol’ Chip was stating for the point of his argument. I knew that Farmer had done “The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod,” so I thought I’d go the other way.

The other two stories I’m talking about here, hmm. Dreams, local events, urban legends, and my observation on youth culture in Japan. Sometimes a story is like a movie in my head–Old Flames was like that.

SW: In addition to your work in science fiction, you have reviewed a variety of anime films. What attracts you to anime?

MAD: That’s a long story. In a nutshell, I’ve been interested in animation all my life, and I used to watch the international animation festival anthologies every year.

I wasn’t particularly interested in the material coming out of Japan, and at a certain point, specifically the anthology “Robot Carnival” (1987), I decided I simply didn’t like anime. “Robot Carnival” to me was too much about surfaces, not enough about story. One or two of the segments were great, but the rest . . . well, it broke my desire, after a long string of misfires. I mean, I had seen the sneak preview of “Metamorphoses” (1978)! (And I’d gotten those passes while standing in line to see “Star Wars” for the first time.)

So anyway, about eight or ten years after swearing off anime, I watched a Miyazaki movie on VHS. I thought it was good. My daughter, who was two or three at the time, liked it a lot, so over weeks and months we watched it again, and watched other Miyazaki movies as well. In the repetition I began to see how very good the work really is (remember, I knew animation already!), so then I set out to explore new worlds and claim them in the name of genre.

That is, I look for true genre content–the same things I love in science fiction, fantasy, etc. And I find it because the anime industry went through a transformational boom in the late 1980s which has raised the bar for quality and content.

The most recently viewed anime I would recommend is a short series called “Rocket Girls” (2007). It is in the “hard sf” tradition of “Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise” (1987) and “Planetes” (2003-04). This is very rare in anime!

SW: Given the commercial success of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, I recently read that Michael Moorcock is producing movies for his character Elric. Do you think Severian will ever make it to the big screen or perhaps in an animated version?

MAD: No, I don’t, but I’d like to see what is already in the can–a short film version of “The Death of Doctor Island” is in post production. If anybody tries something else, I wish they would film “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”–just the first novella. If that does well, they can make a trilogy by filming the other two.

SW: What gravitates you to Mr. Wolfe’s oeuvre?

MAD: He has just the right blend of style and content for my tastes. I liked it from the first book I read. The variety and the mysteries play a part.

SW: Onomastics is one approach to unraveling Mr. Wolfe’s texts. Have you traced the onomastics of your name?

MAD: Yes, but I’d like to learn about yours!

SW: Okay, let me try again. What are the meanings Michael, Andre, and Driussi?

MAD: Michael is overly abundant, Andre is fairly common, so the nut of the question is really the outlandish “Driussi.” It turns out that it means the same as Andre (Interviewer’s Note: “Andre” and “Driussi” are from the Greek “Andreas” meaning “manly,” “courageous”). Which is funny, since you can kind of see it there, in the letters. But still, it is rare enough that Italians will say it is not Italian. (This in turn leads to questions of “What is Italian?” Like, what language did Garibaldi speak, and who could understand him?)

The origin point is in Northern Italy, the city of Udine, north of Venice. I found out the meaning too late to have any effect–instead of becoming a “manly man,” I became the slinking scavenger that I am. Ah well!

My mother’s uncle was the B-movie film star, Morris Ankrum. What I want to know is, where did he get that Ankrum from? We had it, obviously–it is like a family heirloom, a trunk of traditions, and reaching into that mathom full of names, he pulled out the one best suited for the role. Then they set up the Ankrum Gallery in Los Angeles to show the art of my famous uncle, Morris Broderson (who was named after his uncle).

SW: “Michael” appears as a character in Mr. Wolfe’s THE WIZARD KNIGHT. Is this a coincidence or recognition of your friendship with Mr. Wolfe?

MAD: That has nothing to do with me, and it is not a coincidence–that’s the archangel, appearing as himself.

Granted, some readers have spotted me in PIRATE FREEDOM. (I’m flattered by the theory!) Others have followed a certain trail of roman a clef associations and think I’m in the Long Sun series. (I’m honored by the supposition!) If I were in any of these works, that’s how it would look–not as anybody named Michael. Not likely.

SW: Speaking of onomastics, is “Gene Wolfe” a pseudonym?

MAD: Nope.

SW: If I recall correctly, Mr. Wolfe indicated in an interview that he is in some way related to Thomas Wolfe.

MAD: Yep. (Interviewer note: Michael appears to be channeling his inner Gylf).

SW: You have already produced some insightful essays on THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN based on your work for LEXICON URTHUS. Do you plan on releasing more critical essays on the Urth Cycle?

MAD: Thank you! Yes. There are a couple of them working their way toward publication right now.

SW: Will these essays be released in some sort of collected form?

MAD: Eventually, I suppose. I don’t have anything like that planned at the moment.

SW: Can you tell us a little bit about the projects you are working on now?

MAD: It is probably better if I don’t. I mean, I don’t know why it gets so complicated, but it does. For example, I promised a book on the LONG SUN (LS) series a long time ago. That’s a whole complicated story I can’t get into right now, but there is no book yet, even though the thing was promised. That promise has weighed upon me, believe me!

Okay, so when I saw Gene Wolfe at Seattle in 2007, I told him about LEXICON URTHUS, SECOND EDITION (LU2) being near completion. (See, I don’t keep him in the dark.) And yet, from what he said at the time (which I thought was just enigmatic joking around), and the fact that when LU2 came out, he was genuinely surprised, I have come to believe that he thought this project I was talking about (LU2) was really the long-promised LS book.

Anyway, I’m =finally= working on the LS book, which is actually the LONG SUN/SHORT SUN book. But before that comes out, suddenly THE WIZARD KNIGHT book came along, and that will be published next. Then the LS/SS book. Maybe. Thank you, everyone who has been waiting, for all your patience!

In addition to that, there is the updating the John Crowley book now that the Aegypt series is finally completed. So there, that’s three, or four, if we add this book of collected essays and whatnot, and I should have stopped at one.

SW: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Michael.

MAD: You are very welcome! Thank you for the opportunity. And now I must get back to work, reinvigorated by this refreshing recess!

Fans of THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN are encouraged to visit Michael’s website at http://www.siriusfiction.com/ for information on LEXICON URTHUS, SECOND EDITION, which contains over 1,200 entries of words weird and wonderful.

Wolfe has kindly agreed to take part in a public discussion at the convention with Ultan’s Library contributor Michael Andre-Driussi of his depiction of warfare in the Urth Cycle. The discussion, entitled “Post-Historic Warfare” in the convention programme, is due to be chaired by Ultan’s Library co-editor Nigel Price and is scheduled for noon on Saturday 15 November.  Among other topics due to be raised in the discussion are Wolfe’s experiences as a soldier during the Korean War and how they subsequently affected his writing.

Ultan’s Library hopes to be able to make a recording or a transcript of the discussion available in due course.

Wolfe is also due to take part in a WindyCon panel discussion on the subject of “Child Soldiers” at 4 o’clock on the previous evening, Friday 14 November.

Master Ultan: Let’s start at the beginning. Where and when you did first encounter Gene Wolfe’s writing and what did you read first?

Michael Andre-Driussi: In a chain bookstore at the Santa Monica Place. I was in high school and I had a part-time job there. I saw the paperback covers for The Shadow of the Torturer and I said, “Oh great, just what we need–more blatant sadism in science fiction.” I was not at all interested in it, since it looked like it was out-doing the Gor books in that department.

But I was reading a lot of Jack Vance. While I was hunting for more Vance, somebody told me, “Well then, you ought to try Shadow–it is like The Dying Earth. The tower is a rocket ship.” This must have been at a used book store–probably the one on Wilshire in Santa Monica.

So I started reading. Then I had to wait for the other books to come out, so in the mean time I read The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. When the New Sun books came out I read copies from the Santa Monica Library.

The Science Fiction Book Club offered four books for $1 or something when you join, and they were listing something called The Castle of the Otter. So I joined and requested four copies of Castle. Then I bought the whole New Sun set from them, and that fulfilled my obligations to the SFBC.

I gave one of my copies of Castle to the Santa Monica Library, as a way of paying back to the house of books and paying forward to other Wolfe fans.

Master Ultan: What did you think of The Book of the New Sun when you first read it?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I thought it was pretty good. It grew on me, obviously.

Master Ultan: When did you first start working on the Lexicon Urthus and what originally inspired you to undertake the project?

Michael Andre-Driussi: The Castle of the Otter has that article “Words Weird and Wonderful.” That one in particular seemed like a blueprint, or a sponge-dinosaur in a gelatin capsule – just add water and the thing grows into an earth-shaking thunder lizard.

Because Castle came out so early, I figured that somebody must be writing such a thing, and I was patient enough to wait. Years went by and nothing was happening, so I wrote to Gene Wolfe in 1989 or so and asked if something was being written, because if not, then I would. He wrote back that nothing was being written, as far as he knew, so I could go ahead.

I like good guidebooks. I was a kid reading Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom books when I found John Flint Roy’s A Guide to Barsoom (1976), which is good in many ways but there are things about it that I would do differently. For example, that book is divided into nearly a dozen sections (Geography, Biography, Flora/Fauna, etc.) rather than being a straight alphabetical listing for most of it and appendices for longer things. So if you have a Barsoomian word, but you don’t know if it is animal, mineral, or vegetable, then you have to look it up in various sections.

That bugged me.

I wanted there to be a book like that (but better!) for the New Sun. I wanted it to be done by an expert. Alas, I had to do it myself!

Gene Wolfe gave me the go-ahead while I was still living in Japan. I did a certain amount of work using paperbacks (ugh), but I didn’t really get going until I returned to the States in the Fall of 1990.

Master Ultan: How did you go about compiling the Lexicon? What was your method and how long did it take?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Writing words down on 3″ x 5″ cards. Looking them up anywhere I could. Early on I would go into a library and the books were practically jumping off the shelves, but then it became a trickle, and finally a desert marked by an occasional oasis. I found “Madregot” in a book in a shop in London while on my honeymoon.

I had a solid work in progress when I met Gene Wolfe in person for the first time at the 1991 World Fantasy Convention in Tuscon, Arizona. Our plan was to sit down with David Hartwell and convince him to take it on for Tor. That was Gene’s idea. Kind of a knight and squire deal, I guess. (It didn’t work out, obviously. But we tried!)

Anyway, first we saw Kathryn Cramer. She asked me, “So how are you doing this project? Is it like each word is a game of twenty questions with Gene?”

It took me a split second to see the semi-truth in that, so I said, “Yes.”

But Gene Wolfe was already saying, “No, not at all – he looks things up!”

Master Ultan: How did you come up with the name Lexicon Urthus?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Whimsy, I guess. I thought it was okay, Gene Wolfe thought it was okay, but John Brunner tried to talk me out of it. “Why not ‘Lexicon Urth’? That’s perfect German.”

“But I don’t want German.” (And I didn’t want perfect, either, but that is more difficult to explain. Anyway, perfect German was simply out of the question.)

What to call it? “Words of Urth” sounds like Whitman. (As it stands, we had a number of order requests for something like “Lexicon Urethra,” which sounds like a highly specialized medical dictionary. Now that’s where the money is! Why didn’t I think of that?)

For what it’s worth, some people early on gave me a hard time for coining “Urth Cycle.” That seems to have gone away.

Master Ultan: When did you realise that all the words in the Urth Cycle were real words and not Wolfe’s coinages?

Michael Andre-Driussi: That’s what all the fans were saying, that the words were real, and then that’s what Wolfe himself said in “Words Weird and Wonderful.” So pretty early on I had that information. I naively thought that I could find all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary – the work of a weekend! The main task would be assembling all those cards.

Master Ultan: How soon did you uncover the various naming schemes Wolfe uses in the Urth Cycle, like naming people in the Commonwealth after Catholic saints? Were there any surprises once you started looking into the meaning of the names of people and places?

Michael Andre-Driussi: The saints clue was given in Castle. Still, nobody had published the results of tracking them all down, and a few of them, like Yrierix, were really quite difficult to find.

But The Urth of the New Sun came out after Castle, so I got to figure that stuff out on my own – the “iron” names of the sailors, the star names of the people in Yesod. People on GEnie were spooked that I figured the iron thing, but that one was easy for me – I happened to have the perfect reference book for that! (The Concise Dictionary of 26 Languages.) They were also spooked about my figuring the Proust angle for “Suzanne Delage” (a short story in Wolfe’s Endangered Species), and yeah, that one was spooky. I started getting a reputation.

But really, it is easier if you have read Gene Wolfe before you go on to read all the literature you’ve been meaning to read. So when you read, say, The Pickwick Papers, and you see those guys with the big keys, and you say, “Hey, look at the clavigers!” And you read Proust, and you say, “Suzanne Delage, Suzanne Delage, now why does that name sound familiar?”

Master Ultan: Why does it sound familiar? What is the connection between Proust and Wolfe’s story “Suzanne Delage”?

Michael Andre-Driussi: It sounded familiar only because I’d already read Wolfe’s story. Suzanne Delage is a minor character who is mentioned in Le Côté de Guermantes, the third book in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. The context is the funny part: the context of my reading a book at random (but it is known that Gene Wolfe really likes Proust) and seeing an unsuspected link to a Wolfe story; the context of Suzanne Delage within Proust’s monumental work, wherein she is only a name, only mentioned in one part! She has far less impact than a number of unnamed background characters.

Anyway, I realised that Wolfe had named his character after Proust’s and mentioned my discovery to others when we were discussing the story. Well, it took on a life of its own. It started on GEnie; it came up on the Urth List, years later; Damien Broderick wrote an essay about it for The New York Review of Science Fiction (where, if I recall, he gave me credit for my discovery – yay!); Robert Borski wrote an essay about it in The Long and the Short of It; and now there’s even an entry on it in the WolfeWiki (http://www.holkar.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.SuzanneDelage) which doesn’t mention me (understandable), nor Broderick, nor Borski (both of whom really should be mentioned).

Master Ultan: You mentioned John Brunner just now and you also thank him for his help in the Acknowledgements at the start of the Lexicon. Is that John Brunner the English science fiction writer? How did he come to know about the Lexicon Urthus?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Yes, the same John Brunner. I already knew his work very well, having read those wonderful fat books Stand On Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and Shockwave Rider. Anyway, it turns out that he was something of a word nut, so after he read “Words Weird and Wonderful”, he wrote a letter about word definitions to Gene Wolfe, and Gene forwarded it to me. So then I corresponded with John Brunner for a while. I had plans on getting him to write a preface of some kind – I thought it would be grand to have one by Gene, one by me, and one by John Brunner, just load the thing up. But I stopped at just getting the one from Gene.

And then John Brunner died, making it all the more a pity that I didn’t get him when I could.

Master Ultan: Yes, it would have been interesting to read what he had to say, as a science fiction author, about the way a fellow practitioner used such an unusual vocabulary. As it is, though, the Foreword by Gene Wolfe makes fascinating reading. How did that come about? What did he think of the whole Lexicon Urthus project?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I asked him to write something, and I offered him money and copies. He knew I wanted to get John Brunner, too – maybe that’s what got him. He has always been very supportive, and patient, and generous with his time. He seems to like the Lexicon, but maybe he is just being polite! Or “always glad when it’s over,” that sort of thing. Actually I didn’t bug him at all this time round, he hardly knew the second edition was coming.

Master Ultan: Some of the entries in the Lexicon are relatively short, but there are some longer articles in there as well which give a lot of useful background about Severian’s world. You refer to them in the Lexicon as “special articles and tables”. Could you tell me a little about them?

Michael Andre-Driussi: There is one on calendar, which is really a week-by-week tracing of Severian’s life in The Book of the New Sun. The version in the second edition is much expanded from that in the first.

There is one on history, putting together all the posthistorical bits into one place. There is the synopsis at the end, which is pretty long. There is a part about prehistoric life forms, which have either been reintroduced on Urth or whose names have been given in the Urth Cycle to their posthistoric analogues, just to get a grip on that sizeable chunk of time and its parade of strange creatures.

Master Ultan: What sort of reception did the original Lexicon Urthus receive? How did it sell? (David Langford wrote a good article about the original edition of the Lexicon back in 1998 which is still available here: http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/odyss03.html.)

Michael Andre-Driussi: The reception was favorable, and early sales were surprisingly brisk. We sold 80 copies pre-release! That is, we made a brochure, and sent it out by snail mail to a list of Wolfe fans that we had assembled. Eighty people were willing to buy it, sight unseen, with no reviews out yet.

It was so energetic, in fact, that we thought we might have a second printing in a year. But after the first few months the sales were a bit anaemic. I mean, it took me eight years to sell all 1,000 copies!

This is mainly due to the niche-market nature of it.

Master Ultan: What prompted you to revise the Lexicon Urthus and produce a second edition?

Michael Andre-Driussi: In addition to fan mail, the readers kept sending in corrections and quibbles. I kept finding new tidbits. So I made a little booklet, a chapbook, of corrections and additions. Then I made another one, so it was a series. Then I made a third one, the fat one, to try and end it. But then I made a fourth one that was just a synopsis of The Book of the New Sun and The Urth of the New Sun.

So all this revision and correction work was already done. It was just the matter of putting it all in. That drudgery would be the least I could do.

But I also wanted to rise to the challenge of catching all the characters. Plus there were a few new things I wanted to add. That is, I wanted to do some fun stuff to offset the drudgery.

Master Ultan: So what are the major differences between the first and second editions of the Lexicon? The second edition is a lot longer than the first. What have you changed? What have you added?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I added just about all of the material in the four chapbooks, so there are those additions and the synopsis. I added the rest of the characters – it turns out the first edition had the majority already, but still, it is nice to be complete. A new map.

Master Ultan: How long did the revision take? Did the process of putting together the second edition differ from that you used for the first? If so, in what ways?

Michael Andre-Driussi: The whole thing was delayed six or nine months because we spent the summer of 2007 in Tokyo. Still, I think it managed to come out on schedule – I said it would take a year or two and I got it to market in two years.

The process was different in that I had less help than the first time! So it was a slow developing nightmare in that sense – it was at its worst at the very end. But I’ve learned! The next book will be different.

Master Ultan: Are there any words or names in the Urth Cycle whose meanings are still uncertain?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Yes. There are some that seem tentative. I wonder about the second R in “Yrierix,” for example – it might be a typo, but it didn’t originate with Wolfe. There are entries that seem solid, yet in the future a reader will write in and point out some problem.

Master Ultan: What is your favourite name or word in the Lexicon, and which is your favourite entry?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I like “yurt” more than I should, to the point where I could not be argued out of including it.

I’m really enthused about the solid work in the calendar section. I should weep bitter tears that the moon symbols got all messed up – it seems like a curse, since they were messed up in the first edition, too! But despite this, the text part is still solid enough that it isn’t totally ruined.

Master Ultan: Some of the illustrations in the first edition, such as the drawing of the “achico” on page 4, are missing in the second. Why is that?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I had to remove most of the illustrations because the book was getting too big. The material from the chapbooks and the rest really added up!

On the other hand, I have a story about the new illustration on page xii, “Colossal Statue of Mount Athos”. I chanced upon this illustration in a used bookstore (in a district called Sawtelle, in between Santa Monica and West L.A., up by the Nuart Theater), back when I was in high school. I immediately recognized the connection to Mount Typhon, far more direct than any Mount Rushmore variation. I thought, “Man, this really needs to be in a book about The Book of the New Sun!” The illustration was in a book entitled Futuropolis by Robert Sheckley, and I bought it.

Of course I wanted the illustration when I created the first edition of the Lexicon, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. In the years between creating editions of the Lexicon, the Internet grew more powerful, so that when I got around to shaping the second edition I was able to find the illustration on line, and pay for it on line. That makes me very happy, since that illustration was such an early intimation of the Lexicon.

Master Ultan: What insights into the meaning and significance of the works in the Urth Cycle have you gained through all your work on the Lexicon?

Michael Andre-Driussi: I can’t tell you that now. It will have to come out in essays.

The good news is that I am still not sick of the text! That is pretty amazing, in itself – the fan runs a serious risk in working too hard on the subject of enthusiasm, such that what was once pleasure is degraded into a threadbare remnant, or worse, a chore.

Master Ultan: Well, we’ll certainly look forward to reading the essays. Meanwhile, has Gene Wolfe himself commented at all on the new edition?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Yes, he wrote to me that it is “a marvelous book to get lost in. I know you’re proud, and you have every right to be.”

Master Ultan: Tell me about the printing, publication and distribution of the new edition of the Lexicon.

Michael Andre-Driussi: The first edition was printed in the traditional way, so that we took possession of all 1,000 copies and stored them in our apartment, then put some in storage. As a result, I had the drudgery of all that – being my own warehouse, warehouse man, shipping guy. In addition to sales rep, etc.

This time we are going with Print on Demand, meaning that we do not have boxes of a book cluttering the place up – each copy is made when the order comes in. That is much better!

Plus this time we are offering hardcover, trade paperback, and also Kindle versions. This gives customers more choice. (First edition was hardcover only, and there were complaints about that.)

The distribution is about the same, with the book being carried by major distributors Baker & Taylor and Ingram. Online sales were strong for the first edition, and that continues.

Master Ultan: How’s it going so far? What sort of response have you had to the new edition – reviews, sales, readers’ comments? Do people still make suggestions for definitions, revisions or changes?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Sales are strong. We are now seven weeks in and over 330 have sold (mixing hardcover, trade paperback and Kindle versions). These are mainly to people who know what the book is and know they want it, people who have been frustrated for up to six years (the first edition sold out in 2002). They are an informed group, a crop of patient customers linked by word of mouth and their own Wolfe discussion groups. But they are a finite reserve, and I don’t know how long their sales can go on. (I mean, you look at 330 sales in about two months and you are tempted to think that you will sell 1,000 by the seventh month, or surely in one year. But no, that is not likely.)

The question of reviews is a tricky one. Many places don’t want to review a reference book; many shy away from reviewing a second edition.

And yet a review is one of the only ways to get the information to new people, potential customers. There have been a couple of online reviews so far (the BookSpot Central one is at http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2008/09/book-review-lexicon-urthus/ and there’s a nice one by Michael Swanwick at http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post.html - Master Ultan), for which I am grateful, and I hope that there will be one or three print reviews as well.

The readers seem to be very enthusiastic. I’ve received a number of very nice emails.

As for corrections and quibbles, yes! Darrell Schweitzer has already given me two. One was a phrasing problem on my part. In tracing down the other problem, I discovered on line that the book of saints I was referencing had a name typo (Eudoxia for Eudocia) that was cleared up in subsequent editions.

Master Ultan: Do you have any plans for further revisions to the Lexicon? Is there likely to be a third edition?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Never say never. Print on Demand offers the potential for easy revising, but I haven’t really explored that yet. For one thing, I’d like to put aside all essays and stuff just long enough to read An Evil Guest! It would be like a mini-vacation that I could stretch out to a whole week if only I could pace my reading . . .

Master Ultan: One last thing! Have you ever considered extending the scope of the Lexicon to include The Book of the Long Sun and The Book of the Short Sun? Or maybe writing a separate Lexicon Whorlus?

Michael Andre-Driussi: Interestingly enough, that was David Hartwell’s idea, to mix Long and New suns. I refused to even consider it.

However, I did publish a series of chapbooks on The Book of the Long Sun. And that was to be the opening move of a book called Gate of Horn, Book of Silk. So I’ve already made that promise, and look! The work is already done! (Well, The Book of the Short Sun hasn’t been integrated into the material, so maybe that’s the joy quantum to get me going.)

No publishing date has been announced.

Can I read An Evil Guest now?

Master Ultan: Yes, I’m sure you can! Michael, thank you for telling us about the Lexicon Urthus.

Disclaimer: Rumours have been circulating recently that an emissary from Ultan’s Library has travelled out to California to meet with Michael Andre-Driussi not once but on two separate occasions. A legal representative of Sirius Fiction has reluctantly confirmed that this is indeed the case, citing clandestine meetings in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, in 2005 and in San Francisco the following year. He confirms that Mr Andre-Driussi received hospitality on each occasion (breakfast in Santa Rosa, supper in San Francisco) but denies claims that he was either offered or accepted financial inducements in exchange for his literary services on Master Ultan’s behalf. He goes on to admit, however, that Mr Andre-Driussi did accept the gift of a small coffee mug emblazoned with a science fictional motif on the occasion of his first meeting with Master Ultan’s representative. He confirmed that it had subsequently become “a favourite” but vigorously denied the claim that it had influenced Mr Andre-Driussi’s decision to contribute material of a literary critical nature to Ultan’s Library. When asked whether a third meeting had ever been planned (reportedly in Seattle and possibly including a meeting with a certain famous author), the Sirius Fiction spokesperson would only state that Mr Andre-Driussi had been willing to arrange child-minding facilities for Master Ultan’s emissary’s dependents on such an occasion but that, as discussions about the proposed meeting had broken down at a very early stage, this had never in fact been necessary.

Still frame from hidden surveillance camera footage of the meeting between lexicographer Michael Andre-Driussi and Ultan's Library co-editor Nigel Price in California in 2006

The original edition of the Lexicon Urthus has long been out of print, but now author Michael Andre-Driussi has reissued it in a new updated and expanded edition with many additional entries and articles. (The first edition came to 297 pages, the second weighs in at 439.) Published under his own Sirius Fiction imprint, the Lexicon Urthus, second edition is available in both hard- and paperback editions and can be bought directly from the author’s website, from Amazon and from nearly all good booksellers.

[Ultan's Amazon UK affiliate links (for European readers): It is available via Amazon.co.uk in a hardback and paperback edition. It's not showing as available to order in those links, but it does come in and out of stock, and you can buy it from the bookdepository via Amazon, and they are very reliable.]

Nigel