Customer Reviews
Nicely packaged omnibus of one of the greatest novels of speculative fiction - By: Craig Lam, 19 Apr 2008 
Do you like Nabokov - did you meet the challlenge of Pale Fire?
Do you like Borges - did you enter his labyrinths?
If the answer is yes, then you will like Wolfe, & hopefully you will spend some time on Urth!
It is difficult to summarise these books. On the surface they are a bildungsroman detailing young Severian's amazing adventures on a far future earth. So far in the future that - to paraphrase an expression of the late, great Arthur C. Clarke - technology is indistinguishable from magic. But delve deeper & you will find multitudes of puzzles, mysteries & profundities. It is a book that demands rereading: I have read the entirety of it maybe 7 times & I've discovered something new every time.
There are drawbacks to depth, however. Sometimes Wolfe's prose can be tiring, sometimes one may wonder where the plot is going, or be frustrated when interesting characters are not developed & falll by the wayside. Wolfe challlenges us to read actively, to think, to pick up clues. The sheer length is daunting too, but if people can put up with thousands of pages of Terry Goodkind or Robert Jordan, then maybe they can try this as well.
I feel that if Wolfe had chosen to write "real" fiction instead of Fantasy or Science Fiction, he would be lauded as one of the best American novelists around.
High Fantasy Compendium - By: Gareth Wilson, 27 Nov 2007 Famed for his writing style & well known amongst a certain number of fans of the fantasy genre, Gene has been something of a badly kept secret with recommendations left right & centre. Now for the first time an omnibus of what some would think of as his greatest work has hit the book shops & I hope will alllow those unsure of whether to buy a tale or two the pleasure of reading his work for the first time.
After alll 1008 pages of reading pleasure for under a tenner. That's pretty damn good value for money & is probably something that will make Gene cringe when he thinks about how long he slaved over each manuscript contained within. High fantasy at its best with easy access for fans new & old & something that will make sure that a high time is had by the readers. Wonderful stuff.
