(urth) Embryonic Wolfe

[mournings glory]

Some terrific discussion taking place lately over in the Asimov's Message 
Board:

http://www.asimovs.com/discus/messages/2/4857.html?1138501545

Among other things Gardner Dozois is currently reading (or more likely has 
probably finished by now) Wolfe's _Soldier of Sidon_ which according to 
Gardner *will be out in a couple of months.*
But even more fascinating, Dozois admits to having rejected a very early 
Gene Wolfe novel -- quite possibly his first.

Dozois: <As for the early novel of Wolfe's that I did indeed reject (or, to 
be more accurate, that I recommended that the editor not buy, since I was 
just a lowly slush-reader), it was hardly a hard SF novel--it was a 
metaphysical novel about strange occult happenings in a small town, narrated 
by the unborn fetus of one of the characters, who dies in a miscarriage at 
the end of the novel (in fact, as I recall, the last line was "And then I 
died.").>

<Gardner, I've never heard of such an early novel by Gene Wolfe. Did it 
precede 'Operation Ares'?>

<Yes. And he never did sell it to anybody, although after he became famous, 
he probably could have, at least to some small press. >

Could, I wonder, this possibly be _Frieda from the Fire_ mentioned in 
Urth-Man Extraordinary as a phantom title? If so, it sounds similar to one 
of my favorite all-time reads, Thomas Keneally's _Passenger_.

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