Review of There Are Doors (1988)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2024.
A nondescript salesman chases the love of his life through vague worlds of alternate history, or dreams.
Wolfe is not quite as good at this sort of thing as Philip K. Dick, but he’s not paranoid, and I appreciate that. There Are Doors has a couple of action scenes, but it’s mostly gentle, a fiction of idle speculation without the high stakes typical of The Fantastic (1970). As such it’s quite relaxing, but the ideas aren’t strong.
References here: Twelve Monkeys (1995), Rozen Maiden (2004).