Gene Wolfe is one of the most important American writers to emerge in the latter half of the twentieth century. The fact that he publishes in the field of fantastic literature (which includes horror, science and speculative fiction) has meant that his significance has been largely unacknowledged beyond and, at times, even within the genre. Nevertheless, he remains the author of some of the most stylistically distinct, structurally complex and intellectually invigorating imaginative fiction of recent years. Born in 1931, an engineer by training, a Roman Catholic by choice and a writer by inclination, Wolfe is a subtle literary craftsman whose work has yet to receive the wider audience and academic attention it deserves. It is undeniable that Wolfe's fiction is deceptive in its themes and plotting, misleading in its allusiveness and intertextuality and labyrinthine in its structuring, yet it is varied, vigorous, challenging and entertaining. The variety found in his work is not solely the product of diverse subject matter, which ranges from the experiences of a priest aboard a generation starship in The Book of the Long Sun(1993–96) to the events unfolding around an amnesiac soldier in ancient Greece in Soldier of the Mist(1986) and Soldier of Arete(1989). Nor is it found exclusively in his mastery of forms extending from the short story to the multi-volume novel. It arises equally from his notable narrative versatility (Wolfe is as convincing narrating as an all-American high school girl in Pandora by Holly Hollander(1990) as he is a phantom haunting his own memories in Peace(1975)); his stylistic ingenuity – demonstrated, for example, in the contrast between the spare prose of The Wizard Knight(2004) and the baroque richness of The Book of the New Sun (1980–83) – and his intricate interweaving of discourses on theology, faith, evolution, philosophy and psychology. This is not to say that Wolfe is given over to static, ruminant works: the truth is quite the contrary. His short stories and novels are brisk, incident-driven, dramatic. They can be as emotionally affecting as they are mentally engaging. There is a vibrant energy infusing Wolfe's fictions; they crackle with a sophisticated and restless vitality.