Endangered Species

Rating:
Summary: The most underrated collection since Borges.
Review: Gene Wolfe is a thinker. His intricate fiction demonstrates a mind that is crammed with ideas which hurl themselves into the souls of his characters and the ideals of his stories with forceful abandon. So insightful and varied that it usually defies the overapplied label of science fiction, Wolfe's work is not for the shallow reader; for those who desire food for thought, on the other hand, this is the richest of feasts. Yet in spite of his subtly interwoven social commentary and his consinstently profound innovations, Wolfe's most valuable trait is his skill as a pure storyteller. The quality of the material in these stories and the adeptness with which their themes are transferred to prose is enough to entice even the most bored bookworm

Rating:
Summary: The most underrated collection since Borges.
Review: Gene Wolfe is a thinker. His intricate fiction demonstrates a mind that is crammed with ideas which hurl themselves into the souls of his characters and the ideals of his stories with forceful abandon. So insightful and varied that it usually defies the overapplied label of science fiction, Wolfe's work is not for the shallow reader; for those who desire food for thought, on the other hand, this is the richest of feasts. Yet in spite of his subtly interwoven social commentary and his consinstently profound innovations, Wolfe's most valuable trait is his skill as a pure storyteller. The quality of the material in these stories and the adeptness with which their themes are transferred to prose is enough to entice even the most bored bookworm

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, but too long
Review: Wolfe's second short story collection is packed with excellence, but it goes on too long. At over five hundred pages and twenty stories, it is hard to maintain interest while reading straight through the book. The book is still worth reading, containing many stories of the highest quality, but I suggest reading through it at a slower pace.