A fun, tricky, disturbing, hilarious mystery by my fave, the old master himself. The conceit is that it's told from the perspective of an unusual library resource--a clone of an author, who can be checked out by "real" humans. ( )

Not my favourite Gene Wolfe. Too many tangents and changes of direction in plot. Yes, I know these are typical of Wolfe but it was overdone and not as well plotted as other works. ( )

This was certainly less strange than the rest of Wolfe's work that I've had the pleasure to read, but I kinda expected something a bit more progressive. I mean, the idea behind a genetic library that reconstructs men and their lives to be checked out of a library *does* sound pretty interesting, and I can think of several storylines right off the bat that would really lend themselves to a very interesting story, even when it's an author who had been dead for a hundred years coming back to play a part in someone's game.

But here's where managed expectations come in very nicely. If I had gone into this just knowing that we're dealing with a mildly clever *character* concept to be dumped into a full blown Mystery novel that also happens to be SF, I wouldn't have much of an issue with it at all. I tweaked my expectations and soon just got into the novel for what it was and it was fine.

There was a shadow of Castle (tv), a shadow of [b:Kiln People|96478|Kiln People|David Brin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1287261951s/96478.jpg|2300358], and even a pretty cool jaunt into a different world, but mainly it was all mystery-times following all normal conventions. It was entertaining and standard, with even reveals and a solid end.

On the other hand, if you're reading the novel from a slightly deeper perspective, you'll be pleased to note the over and undertones of the book publishing industry, including shelf-life for novels, reprints, and expectations for new works. Read this way, it's a very entertaining novel and extremely tongue-in-cheek.

If you don't care about that kind of thing, however, you might not really connect with the character concept too much. Maybe. It just feels a bit odd with a few major logical gaps. In other words, this is genuine Gene Wolfe. :) ( )

3.75 stars!
Clearly, Gene Wolfe wrote many works of depth and breadth and of inestimable worth to genre fiction, if we deign to call it that.

A Borrowed Man was his final published novel, from 2015, published 45 years after his first one. In this slightly futuristic tale, he adopts an unaccustomed voice and tells an unpredictable tale with a wacky conceit. I can see how the narrator, Ern A. Smithe, will fluster a lot of fans, but since this character was a mystery writer - before his 'recloning' - I found the somewhat average to sub-par word choice strangely appropriate. What is more likely, that Gene Wolfe wrote all of these mediocre sentences in order to construct the illusion of reality around his pulp concoction world building and further obfuscate his satire and sleights of symbolism, or he suddenly lost his writing ability after 45 years? You can believe the reviewers who bash the book if you want, but you'd be missing out on another absorbing, fast-paced, layered Wolfian creation.

In this version of the future, libraries have other uses, 'bots, and clones intrude into the lives of jaded aristocrats, and murder is an act as cliched as it is serious. What better way to poke fun at the mystery genre than to write a mystery with a mystery writer as the main character, and put this character through the ringer in ways that he could not predict or extricate himself from?

Aside from the subtle comments on publishing, genres, and the subliminal library puns there is an underlying sadness to Smithe's less-than-human life, his lost love, and the tired tropes he embodies. Like Wolfe's An Evil Guest, what might have been a clever, light reading experience is complicated by contortions of reality and the slow-burn surprise of the ending. Relish the hidden clues in minor details, and even if you don't read between the lines, you will be entertained. ( )

I fell through too many plot holes and couldn't continue. ( )