I just got notice that the book I requested via Inter-Library Loan—The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories—has arrived at the desk. By coffee time I’ll have it in my hands, and by evening I’ll be reading some Gene Wolfe short stories.
I’m probably more excited about this than I should be, but then I’m a late-in-life Wolfe convert, and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Wolfe is the one that once tore to shreds a pretty common writing trope—calling something indescribable when it isn’t really—and then, I like to think, poked fun at his own advice a few years later in a different novel. I’ve seen him described more than once as the writer’s writer, and I look forward to reading some of his short works.