Storeys from the Old Hotel

These short stories are excellent entertainment. They're varied, from sci-fi to horror to comedy, all crafted with a steady hand and uncompromising vision. His futuristic, robotic homage to Sherlock Holmes is amusing, if a bit taxing to those not versed in the cutting edge of scientific technology, and "The Packerhaus Technique" was downright creepy. That latter serves as a great example of a riddle that continues unfolding itself, one of Wolfe's greatest strengths in storytelling.

A collection of what Wolfe, in his introduction, call "my most obscure work" and "mostly stories that I feel are good, but that have received little or no praise." I have to put myself in the "no praise" camp here. There are two tales from the Liavek shared world series, two attempts at Sherlockian SF that were so convoluted in their explanations, I thought they must be parodies, some New Yorker submissions that try very hard to emulate that publication's "make sure nothing happens" style, and so on. Wolfe is simply too clever a writer me. Even when he explains what he was doing in the story "Beech Hill", I still don't get it.

Back in the day, Wolfe could really write. The rich language, and unique characters, are still new and interesting.

Short summaries can be found at the WolfeWiki.

+ means hit, - means miss:

+ The Green Rabbit from S'Rian (1985)
- Beech Hill (1972)
- Sightings at Twin Mounds (1988)
+ Continuing Westward (1973)
+ Slaves of Silver (1971)
+ The Rubber Bend (1974)
+ Westwind (1973)
- Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee (1970)
- The Packerhaus Method (1970)
+ Straw (1975)
+ The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton (1977)
- To the Dark Tower Came (1977)
+ Parkroads -- A Review (1987)
+ The Flag (1988)
+ Alphabet (1988)
+ A Criminal Proceeding (1980)
+ In Looking-Glass Castle (1980)
+ Cherry Jubilee (1982)
+ Redbeard (1984)
- A Solar Labyrinth (1983)
- Love, Among the Corridors (1984)
- Checking Out (1986)
- Morning-Glory (1970)
+ Trip, Trap (1967)
+ From the Desk of Gilmer C. show more Merton (1983)
- Civis Lapvtvs Svm (1975)
+ The Recording (1972)
- Last Day (1982)
- Death of the Island Doctor (1983)
+ On the Train (1983)
+ In the Mountains (1983)
+ At the Volcano's Lip (1983)
+ In the Old Hotel (1983)
+ Choice of the Black Goddess (1986) show less