Ultan's Library » Articles

The Religious Implications Of Gene Wolfe’s The Book Of The New Sun

Jonathan — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:56:50 +0000

Stephen Palmer This is an amended version of an article I wrote almost twenty years ago for the British BSFA magazine Vector. The original version was entitled Looking Behind the Sun: Religious Implications of Gene Wolfe’s “The Book of the New Sun” and was published in the August 1991 edition. The Book of the New Sun is [...]

Japanese Lexicon for The Book of the New Sun

Nigel — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:38:18 +0000

Michael Andre-Driussi examines the wordlist of the Japanese lexicon for The Book of the New Sun.

The Book of Gold… returns to Ultan’s Library

Jonathan — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:36:41 +0000

Republishing electronic copies of Jeremy Crampton's 1980s Wolfe fanzine THE BOOK OF GOLD.

The Death of Catherine the Weal and Other Stories (1992)

Jonathan — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:11:42 +0000

by Michael Andre-Driussi.

This essay was written for John Clute’s proposed book of essays on Gene Wolfe’s fiction back in the early 90s. Never published until now, we publish it here to promote the publication of Michael's new edition of Lexicon Urthus.

Lions and Tigers and Bears . . . of the New Sun

Jonathan — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:39:21 +0000

by Michael Andre-Driussi 1. The Strange Bear Man at the Threshold The first time I read The Urth of the New Sun, one scene tantalized [...]

Desanctifying Victor Trenchard: some notes on Peter Wright’s “Confounding the Skin and the Mask”

Jonathan — Fri, 24 May 2002 19:26:45 +0000

by Robert Borski I’ve now had the opportunity to read Peter Wright’s “Confounding the Skin and the Mask” several times and it continues to generate much thought. Congratulations and thanks to Ultan’s Library for publishing this erudite piece on its e-site, [...]

Confounding the Skin and the Mask: Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus and the Politics of Ambiguity

Jonathan — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 19:04:52 +0000

by Peter Wright Since its publication in 1972, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe’s collection of three inter-linked novellas, has earned a reputation for being the author’s most perplexing single volume. Such a reputation is entirely justified since ambiguity is [...]

Torture and confession in Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun

Jonathan — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 18:57:04 +0000

by Jeremy Crampton Abstract This document briefly examines the use of torture and confession in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun and how it both differs from and reflects actual historical practice (at least in Europe and America). It is not the purpose of [...]

The Reader as Augur: Beginnings and Endings in Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the Long Sun

Jonathan — Tue, 05 Sep 2000 19:32:56 +0000

By Nick Gevers Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the Long Sun (1993-6) is a deeply complex expression of momentum: the momentum of faith, of history, of escape, of understanding. Science Fiction is replete with texts that involve such accelerations of vision and concept; but Wolfe, with his penetrating and parodic understanding of the conventions and [...]

Five Steps towards Briah: Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the Long Sun

Jonathan — Mon, 28 Aug 2000 09:42:21 +0000

By Nick Gevers The title is a multiplex pun, so typical of Gene Wolfe. The Book of the Long Sun (1993-6) can only closely follow, or mirror The Book of the New Sun (1980-3). And just as Severian, the narrator of the first Book, is the New Son of God, a man [...]