Gene Wolfe,
There Are Doors

The protagonist, never fully named, is obsessively in love with someone from another world who may or may not exist (is there any other kind?). Her world's alternate history seems to derive from a single difference: men die after sex. He passes into her world, is misdiagnosed as mentally unsound for his own safety, finds his way back carrying a magical artifact of that world, has or had a nervous breakdown, and spends more time in both worlds before finally making a decision that I can't interpret, never having understood the Overwood map. The narrative is a little odd, branches turning into trunks, but readable.

eub 1/97


(go to my front-door page) eli+w3@cs.cmu.edu
19 Jan 2002