A gentle story of alien encounter, “Dormanna” is available on the Tor website as part of a series of five stories, each by a different author and all inspired by an illustration by John Jude Palencar.

In contrast, “Innocent” is as disturbing a tale as Wolfe has ever written, a criminal’s extraordinary account of why he could not have committed the dreadful crime of which he is accused. An audio recording of the story is included in issue 8 of Tales to Terrify.

(Actually, there’s a third Wolfe story newly on the web, though it’s not a new story per se. Thanks to Simon Fletcher for pointing out that “The Legend of Xi Cygnus” has been reprinted in Lightspeed magazine here.)

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.

• The Gollancz blog discusses the reissue.
• Then Gollancz author and Wolfe fan Alastair Reynolds talks about the Book of the New Sun in this video interview.
• Gollancz’s parent company also recently launched the SF Gateway to publish ebooks of many classics of science fiction and fantasy, including 3 of the 4 volumes of the Book of the New Sun (with the missing Lictor to follow shortly)

The Guardian previously (2009) ran a discussion of the Book of the New Sun as “Science Fiction’s Ulysses.”

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

More info @Locus

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 one of science fiction’s greatest achievements, and it is generally recognised that the book conceals rather more than is initially apparent. Wolfe, a Catholic, uses his faith to underpin a monumental work. This article looks at some of the religious implications, and hopes to draw comment from other readers.

If Severian is the Conciliator, who then is the Conciliator? Christ seems to be the answer, the Christ of the parousia. There are several clues. The first Conciliator is described as having a shining face, as Christ had during the Transfiguration; one of the Conciliator’s attributes is that he will return to Urth, as the Bible says Christ will; the Conciliator performed healings and miracles in the manner of Christ. Severian’s name may also be a clue to his nature if it is a future corruption of Steven, the name which comes from the Greek word stephane, meaning a crown (the stephane was a fillet of silver or gold worn on the forehead). The crown which the undines saw on Severian’s brow, and which is implied by the hierodules’ use of the term “Liege” to address him, is perhaps mirrored in his name. The name Severian does have another history however, and is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary thus:

“A member of the Encratite or Gnostic sect of the 2nd century which condemned marriage, etc.”

The dictionary goes on to note that the name may be derived not from a founder called Severian but from the austerity of the typical Severian’s life (i.e. from the Latin severus).

There are also clues in Father Inire’s effusive letter to Severian at the close of volume four. Father Inire refers to Severian the Autarch as Surya, the Indian god of the sun, as Helios, the charioteer who pulled the sun on its course, and as Hyperion, the father of Helios. Severian’s nature is also revealed at the end of the fever dream in the lazaret, golden rays pouring from him as he stands with the Cumaean and Master Malrubius, light which falls on all the Earth and gives it new life. There is also a “missing” name in the holy trinity; we hear of the Increate (Holy Ghost) and the Pancreator, but never of any son. The Conciliator, “the greatest of good men,” must be this figure.

During his wanderings across Urth, various mystical events occur around Severian. The most remarkable is the appearance of blood on his forehead when, in the House Absolute, he looks into the mirror-leafed book bound in manskin. It seems that Severian has experienced a book bound metaphorically with his own death; he blurts out that he saw his own dead face in the leather. The eclipse carved in the cabinet door that holds this book refers to this death, the hiding of the sun, and Severian’s blood is then that produced by the Crown of Thorns. Earlier, when drinking with Jonas, water becomes wine. When he drinks with Dorcas, as she is about to leave him, wine becomes water. He carries a sword with a blunt end on his travels – a cross.

Two of Severian’s personal symbols, acquired when a child in the Necropolis, are significant. The ship refers to his voyage to Yesod, but the other two may have religious implications. The fountain, although it seems to correspond to that laid in the House Absolute, is also an ancient symbol of life (sometimes depicted as a waterfall), while the rose is a symbol of Christ dating from the Middle Ages.

Wolfe, then, wrote a parousia in which Severian was either Christ or an equivalent figure (there are in him echoes of the Greek god Apollo, the god of the sun). But if Severian is such a figure there are other figures to account for, most importantly the Antichrist (the Beast) and the False Prophet. It would seem that Baldanders is the former and Dr Talos the latter.

Baldanders, who experiments on the world and spends the proceeds on himself, is an ideal Antichrist, for, despite his brutal nonchalance, he embodies an aversion to humanity; understated, but an aversion nonetheless. He is a direct opposite to Severian. The pair duel at the end of book three, as was foreseen in an underwater dream of Severian’s. Baldanders is the narcissistic boy for whom the world and all its inhabitants are merely constructions of his own imagination, lacking reality, while Severian is the man fully connected with people and the world, who does not need to place himself at the centre of the universe to live sanely. Baldanders is his own greatest work, and his only work; but Baldanders has nothingness within him, desiring power, money and facts, while Severian epitomises all humanity.

Dr Talos seems to be the False Prophet. It is interesting that several times Severian is reminded of a stuffed fox when Dr Talos’ face appears; if the letters F-O-X are taken according to Cabala traditions they make 6,15,24, i.e. 666, the Number of the Beast. This is perhaps the means by which Dr Talos is marked in Severian’s imagination. Meanwhile, Dr Talos’ main task seems to be wandering the Urth performing his ignoble play; that is, misinforming the people about the Conciliator. For example, at the very end of the play it is Baldanders who breaks his own bonds to achieve freedom.

The Claw of the Conciliator is itself steeped in the Roman Catholic tradition. Severian refers to the blue shell as a pyx when he finds the Claw wedged between rocks. A pyx is the box or container in which the consecrated host, the Eucharist, is kept, and it can also mean the container in which supplies of wafers for the Eucharist are kept. Meanwhile, the Pelerines wear scarlet in the Catholic tradition (“Pelerine” derives from the Latin for pilgrim). Angels and archangels make appearances too – Hierodules (holy slaves) are angels and hierogrammates are archangels. The hierodules wear angelic white. Of the latter class, there are two explicitly referred to, Gabriel and Tzadkiel, perhaps paralleling the only two angelic figures referred to in the Bible, Gabriel and Michael. Tzadkiel appears extensively in the final volume showing his shape-changing ability, while in the fourth book there is Melito’s story about birds and an angel who clearly has the same transforming ability.

It is also possible that Wolfe worked the Wandering Jew into his book, although this figure is an invention of later centuries and does not appear in the Bible. According to legend the Wandering Jew taunted Christ as he dragged his cross to Golgotha. Christ responded, saying he would wander the Earth until the time of the Second Coming. Could Hethor correspond to this figure?

Then there is the problem of Mary. Wolfe intentionally presents the reader with an enigma here; there are various candidates for Severian’s true mother, but is it correct to assume that there was one mother? There are two Severians. Using the scene at the end of the fourth book at the Inn of Lost Loves, it seems that Dorcas is related to Severian because of the facial likeness – she is the grandmother of the first Severian. However, she cannot be the mother of the second Severian, the carrier of the Claw; that title perhaps goes to Cyriaca, a.k.a. Catherine, who recognised Severian even though his mask was on, then tried to cover her tracks. Incidentally, Catherine means “pure,” which could be translated as Virginal.

A curious parallel occurs when the Cumaean is considered. This figure seems to echo the sibyls of Roman times, for like them the Cumaean is a prophetess, a seer. But there is a further point, since the Cumaean is “sleekly reptilian” when seen by Severian from his extended temporal perspective; that is, serpentine. In the days before Judaism and Christianity had destroyed the ancient matriarchal religion, that of the Goddess, the snake was the symbol of female potency, wisdom and prophetic ability. Even today, pythoness means prophetess. So it is significant that the acolyte Merryn refers to the Cumaean as “Mother”.

Full article at Locus online.

Find out more at the author’s site: http://www.siriusfiction.com/twk.html

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.