Gene Wolfe was born on May 7, 1931 in New York state. He fought in the Korean War and later graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Medical Engineering. He was editor for the periodical Plant Engineering, retiring to write full-time in 1984. Wolfe's works have won a variety of awards, and he is considered one of the premier writers in the genre over the past fifty years.
Wolfe is most famous for his series The Book of the New Sun (1980-1983), a science fiction/fantasy tetralogy featuring the protagonist Severian, an unreliable narrator who tells the story of an Urth of the distant future. In addition to The Book of the New Sun, Wolfe has published several other books taking place in the same universe.
Wolfe is also a prolific writer of short stories and has published several short story collections, including The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980) and Endangered Species (1989).
Wolfe currently lives in Illinois.
Awards Won:
"The Death of Doctor Island" (Nebula Award, best novella (1973))
The Claw of the Conciliator (Nebula Award, best novel (1981); Locus Award, best fantasy novel (1982))
The Shadow of the Torturer (World Fantasy Award, best novel (1981); British Science Fiction Association Award (1982))
The Sword of the Lictor (Locus Award, best fantasy novel (1983); British Fantasy Award (1983))
The Citadel of the Autarch (John C. Campbell Memorial Award (1984))
Soldier of the Mist (Locus Award, best fantasy novel (1987))
The Urth of the New Sun (Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award (1988))
Storeys from the Old Hotel (World Fantasy Award, best collection (1989)) | 
After a seventeen-year absence, Gene Wolfe's memory-deprived hero Latro returns, this time in ancient Egypt. How does Soldier of Sidon compare to the first two books in the Soldier series?