The Best of Gene Wolfe

I have legally changed my name to Wolf Moon. Gilmer C. Merton is dead. (See the enclosed clipping from the No. Velo City Morning Advertiser.) In the future, please address me as “Mr. Moon” or, in moments of extreme camaraderie, “Wolf.”

I require the monies due me IMMEDIATELY.

Wolf Moon

* * *

Dear Wolf,

Saul assures me that your check is probably in the mail by this time.

The obit on Gilmer C. Merton was interesting, but didn’t you have to give the paper some disinformation to get it printed? I hope you haven’t got yourself into trouble.

The 10:00 news last night carried about a minute and a half on the mysterious goings-on around No. Velo City. Have you thought of looking into them? They would seem to be right up your alley, and it is entirely possible you might get a nonfiction book out of them as well as a new novel. (But that poor guy from the electric company—ugh!)

Since your name is now legally Wolf Moon, it would be well for us to execute a new agency agreement. I enclose it. All terms as before.

Very fondly,

Georgia

* * *

Dear Georgia,

I was sorry to hear of the unfortunate accident that befell Mr. Hearwell’s wife and children. Please extend my sympathy.

While you’re doing it, you might mention my check, which has yet to arrive. If you could contrive to drop the words disembodied claws into your conversation, I believe you might find they work wonders.

Now a very small matter, Georgia—a whim of mine, if you will. (We writers are entitled to an occasional whim, after all, and as soon as you have complied with this one of mine I will Air Express you the ms. of my latest, The Shrieking in the Nursery.) I have found that I work best when everything surrounding a new book corresponds to the mood. I am returning all four copies of our new letter of agreement. Can I, dear Georgia, persuade you to send me a fresh set signed in your blood?

Very sincerely,

Wolf

Afterword

This is my editor’s favorite. For the sake of such attorneys as he may employ, I desire to state now, and categorically, that there is no connection whatsoever between editor David G. Hartwell and “Saul Hearwell.”

None!

My agent, who was still very much alive when this was written, was Virginia Kidd. “Georgia Morgan” is only a slight exaggeration. I have no idea whether Virginia liked this story, but I liked her a lot. I miss her terribly, and in that I have a whole bunch of company—including, I believe, David G. Hartwell.

Death of the Island Doctor

This story took place in the same university I mentioned in the Introduction to Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days.

At this university, there was once a retired professor, a Dr. Insula, who was a little cracked on the subject of islands, doubtless because of his name. This Dr. Insula had been out to pasture for so long that no one could remember anymore what department he had once headed. The Department of Literature said it had been History, and the Department of History said Literature. Dr. Insula himself said that in his time they had been the same department, but all the other professors knew that could not be true.

One crisp fall morning, this Dr. Insula came to the chancellor’s office—to the immense surprise of the chancellor—and announced that he wished to teach a seminar. He was tired, he said, of rusticating; a small seminar that met once a week would be no trouble, and he felt that in return for the pension he had drawn for so many years he should do something to take a bit of the load off the younger men.

The chancellor was in a quandary, as you may well imagine. As a way of gaining time, he said, “Very good! Oh, yes, very good indeed, Doctor! Noble, if I may resort to that rather old-fashioned word, and fully in keeping with that noble spirit of self-sacrifice and—ah—noblesse oblige we have always sought to foster among our tenured faculty. And may I ask just what the subject of your seminar will be?”

“Islands,” Dr. Insula announced firmly.

“Yes, of course. Certainly. Islands?”

“I may also decide to include isles, atolls, islets, holms, eyots, archipelagoes, and some of the larger reefs,” Dr. Insula confided, as one friend to another. “It depends on how they come along, you know. But definitely not peninsulas.”

“I see . . . ,” said the chancellor. And he thought to himself, If I refuse the poor old boy, I’ll hurt him dreadfully. But if I agree and list his seminar as Not for Credit, no one will register and no harm will be done.

Thus it was done, and for six years every catalog carried a listing for Dr. Insula’s seminar on islands, without credit, and in six years no one registered for it.