Novels by Gary Wolf
"Updating Orwell for the postmodern era"
The Cubist Supremacy (2023)
A high-class Manhattan antique dealer, Carleton Peabody, is dismayed at the degradation of art and architecture in his beloved native city. He must cope with unscrupulous galleries and auction houses, who peddle their debased and infantile works as sophisticated cultural artifacts. Carleton teams up with his old army buddy, a Brooklynite with Mafia connections, to beat them at their own game. “Scamming the scammers,” with the aid of some unlikely allies, yields some initial success, and quite a bit of profit. Carleton soon discovers, however, that he has stepped into a minefield. It appears that behind the scenes, the destruction of art is being pushed by some of the most powerful people in the world, and the agenda is far wider than a mere attack on aesthetics. When he reaches the inner circle of these purveyors of ruin, Carleton reveals a secret almost too horrible to bear--the very core of evil.
Read the review in Moonbattery
Read the review in Moonbattery
Voyage of the Mind Carriers (2011)
An ancient scroll unearthed in Sicily contains an epic tale about an advanced civilization that existed tens of thousands of years ago. This hyper-cerebral culture, in which people are called mind carriers, produced works of art, literature, and philosophy that have yet to be surpassed. The mind carriers are instructed by tradition that the entire universe is actually a brain of cosmic dimensions--otherwise known as the Omnificent Cerebrum. The visible world is but a cell within it; a multitude of additional cells, populated by other races of mind carriers, fill the remaining gray matter. To ensure that the Omnificent Cerebrum functions harmoniously, society must strive continually to create works of genius in arts and letters. Not everyone, however, is satisfied with this state of affairs. A new movement, Bioprimalism, challenges the pre-eminence of logic and reason. The Bioprimalists instead proclaim the dominance of raw feelings, animal instincts, and the natural environment. The ensuing strife threatens the cohesion of the Omnificent Cerebrum. Who will carry the day--the partisans of intellect or those who revere Mother Earth above all else?
The Kicker of St. John's Wood (2009)
This is a story of America in the year 2020: Fractured socially and politically, its enemies are gaining ground and its civil liberties are threatened like never before. Jayesh Blackstone, a professional football player, finds himself at the focal point of an historic experiment: a woman is going to play in a football game, and it will happen in the Super Bowl. It turns out that this is just a foretaste of the metamorphosis that is taking shape. The very same event is the venue for an announcement by world leaders of a new order, one that defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender. The new reality steadily encroaches on Blackstone's world; he is compelled to choose his allies, declare his identity, and determine the price he is willing to pay to live the life of a free individual. Embracing controversy from its very first pages, The Kicker of St. John's Wood is a rampage through the pantheon of contemporary idols, and a literary journey into the American national psyche of the twenty-first century.
Read the review by Thomas Bertonneau
Read the review by David Huntwork
Read the review by Thomas Bertonneau
Read the review by David Huntwork
Workshop of the Second Self (2006)
The year is 2030. The place is Centerville, a typical city. Clifton Pembroke is a young professional with a promising career in the field of "disability advocacy." He helps people raise their disability profile--a single index that encompasses every variety of injustice and disadvantage that may befall an individual. Raising one's disability profile can bring a host of benefits, including subsidies and preferential treatment. But some people are no longer satisfied with these benefits. They assert that their very birth was an injustice, that a fundamental travesty has occurred, that in fact they should have been a different person.They even know who that other person is, and they intend to receive their just compensation--by obtaining the legal right to seize the other's identity. Clifton becomes entangled in ethical dilemmas that run to the core of what it means to be human. In choosing sides, he must make difficult, even dangerous decisions. In his search for answers, he gropes in the darkness until he meets the people who are building the workshop of the second self.
Read the review in The People's Cube
Read the review in The People's Cube
Alternating Worlds (2004)
Graham Rohde is one of the most respected art and antique dealers of the twenty-fourth century. Son of an eminent scholar, he is one of the period's leading art historians. Rohde spends his time traveling across the Galaxy, buying and selling rare and valuable objects. After an antique is stolen from an isolated and forgotten planet, he is hired to find the missing piece. He soon discovers that the theft is only one incident in an interplanetary dispute that is mushrooming into a clash of civilizations. A bitter struggle is erupting over the redefinition of humanity, and it may determine the destiny of the Galaxy for millennia to come. He watches as mankind vacillates between two antithetical conceptions of society and human nature: On the one hand, reaching for the summit of creativity and intellectual proficiency through ever-greater accomplishments in arts and letters; on the other, the preplanned distribution of physical attributes, intelligence, and ideas among the population--a world in which individual genius is banished from life. As he faces the growing danger, Rohde resolves to decipher the outstanding enigma of his era: Why are people willing, even eager, to attain an existence without spontaneity, without the free and unfettered evolution of the human spirit?
Read the review by Thomas Bertonneau
Read the review by Thomas Bertonneau
The Embracer (2003)
Imagine a society without gender roles, and even without gender itself. This is the emerging reality in the world of the early 2040s. Harris, a talented but despondent software engineer, spends his free time chasing the latest rage in consciousness-expansion. His mundane life takes an unexpected turn when he lands a high position at the BrainHost company, located at the pinnacle of world culture, the CityTech urban agglomeration. Harris discovers that in CityTech, romance is being replaced by the "coital matrix" where every stage of the process is preplanned and engineered. Meanwhile, BrainHost and others are experimenting with the implantation of male and female sexual organs inside the body of a single person, while eliminating all external traces of gender. This self-contained human, the Embracer, is seen by its creators as the panacea of humanity. Alternately repelled and enticed by the new order, Harris is drawn into the maelstrom. He eventually becomes a leading advocate. But then he must confront a beautiful young woman who aims to sabotage the mighty CityTech . . .