In 2001, Wolfe completed The Book of the Short Sun. Three new anthologies, Strange Travelers(1999), Innocents Aboard: New Fantasy Stories(2004) and Starwater Strains(2005) collected the best – and the majority – of Wolfe's recent fiction. In 2004, he published The Knight, the first volume of a twonovel fantasy, The Wizard Knight.In the following interview, a somewhat inscrutable Wolfe discusses – to borrow Nick Gevers’ phase – the ‘Briah Cycle’.

When I interviewed Gene Wolfe by e-mail in January 2002, I came to the conversation aware that Wolfe the person is not unlike his books: genial (of course), accommodating, plain-spoken at times to a surprising degree; and yet a magician, a poser of paradoxes that, however simple on the surface, are in fact like the Labyrinth at Knossos, the mazes so many of his characters tread, as enormously involved and logically convoluted as reality itself. One cannot expect direct answers, at least about his books: they will speak for themselves, or not at all, and any candour is deceiving. But on certain practical topics (publishing, possibly engineering problems), all is clarity. For allowing me to be the latest interviewer errant to tilt at the windmills of his mind, a tourney of much fascination, I am very grateful to Mr Wolfe.

NG: With The Book of the Short Suncomplete, and new, unrelated projects such as the fantasy epic The Wizard Knightunderway, have you finished with the Urth/Whorl fictional universe? Or do you contemplate further novels – or short stories – set there?

GW: In brief, no. At this point I have nothing planned beyond completing The Wizard Knight. Frankly, there is no point in planning that far in advance. I'll start planning when the end is a month or two away.

NG: You've previously commented at length on the creative genesis of The Book of the New Sun– its growth from novella into novel into trilogy into tetralogy. Did The Book of the Long Sunalso burgeon, from a singlevolume novel into a multi-decker one? And how, in its turn, did The Book of the Short Sunevolve?

GW: No, The Book of the Long Sunwas planned as a multivolume work – three or four.