Interlibrary loan is the follow-up to A Borrowed man. Ultimately, this one just didn’t grab me as much as the first did. I found I just wasn’t as invested and really had trouble suspending my disbelief at some of what happened. There was a sense of incompleteness to the book that just seemed to sit with me. Overall, It was just a meh book for me, and as such I’ve decided not to feature this review on my blog.

I love Wolfe to pieces, but the thing is, his trickiness as a writer--his use of unreliable narrators, or narrators whose cluelessness is part of the point--means that you can't tell when he's doing a clever trick vs. just writing badly. In this book, the prose was distractingly pedestrian, and even if it was intentional, I just couldn't keep going. Why read this when you could reread The Book of the New Sun again?

Did not like the supernatural notes at the end. I enjoyed the mystery and getting to know the continuing characters better.

Having not encountered this writer previously, I was excited to taste test a prolific author who offered the potential for a whole new series of intriguing titles. Interlibrary Loan is perfectly geared for the librarian crowd, obviously, and the premise is strong. This book is the second in a series that will be the last because the author is no longer with us. Unfortunately, the book is unfinished. I have never experienced such a disappointing conclusion. I will leave it at that - another abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

Comentaba mi amigo Josep María Oriol que existen bastante prejuicios sobre novelas póstumas, ya que realmente no sabes si el «producto» está terminado o quedó incompleto. Después de leer Interlibrary Loan de Gene Wolfe, creo que es un caso para abogar a favor de estos prejuicios.

Esta novela es la continuación de A Borrowed Man, con su peculiarísimo entorno. La tecnología para clonar personas se utiliza para reproducir a los escritores y almacenarlos en las bibliotecas. Se pueden pedir prestados previo pago de una tarifa algo elevada, pero no tienen derechos como personas por sí mismos. Suena raro y lo es, aunque en otros aspectos el mundo ha avanzado bastante permanece fácilmente reconocible.
En Interlibrary Loan E. A. Smithe, el escritor de novelas de misterio que protagonizó la primera entrega, viaja a otra biblioteca merced a un préstamo interbibliotecario. Como es de esperar, lo sacan de la biblioteca para resolver un misterio, con la particularidad de que en esta biblioteca en particular ya existía una copia de él mismo y estuvo en préstamo en el mismo domicilio al que va ahora.
Y con este interesante principio, se comienza a desarrollar la historia. Pero, por desgracia, resulta bastante confusa y deslavazada. Es cierto que la forma de escribir de Wolfe exige al lector un esfuerzo constante para comprender la trama, pero en este caso me temo que le faltaban revisiones al resultado final. Hay un falso final muy brusco que luego enlaza con una nueva investigación con algunos personajes compartidos con la primera parte que ya digo, da la impresión de no estar pulido del todo.
No puedo recomendar este libro por ese aire de estar ante una obra incompleta, sobre todo proviniendo de un genio como Gene Wolfe. Mucho mejor volver a sus maravillosas obras anteriores.

I enjoyed Wolfe's future version of our world with smaller centres of population where robots and clones are taken for granted.

Ern A. Smithe, introduced in 'The Borrowed Man' is a clone of an author, a writer of murder mysteries, whose personality has been uploaded into his clone. He is not a legal person but belongs to the library and may be borrowed with a library card (and a deposit to make sure he is returned unharmed). When they are not checked out they live on a library shelf and are fed and provided with clean clothes. When Ern and two other clones (Millie and Rose) are requested as an interlibrary loan they are sent by truck to a library in the small coastal town of Polly's Cove. Ern is checked out by Chandra Favre on behalf of her mother Adah Favre who wants Ern's help in finding her missing husband, Dr Barry Fevre.

Wolfe then takes us on a wondrous adventure, on a self-aware sailing boat across the sea, looking for Dr Fevre, where we visit an icy arctic island, ice caves and find a treasure of sorts. However, once back on land the book seems to veer into more of a fantasy with a disjointed feel. It felt unfinished, and maybe Wolfe didn't get to finish editing it before he died, but it could be that I'm just not clever enough to appreciate what Wolfe was trying to show me and may have missed the point. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, the strange world and the places it took me, but I did leave it feeling a little puzzled.

I’ll be honest. I chose this book solely on its title. I am the lending coordinator in Interlibrary Loan for our institution, and the title (along with that card catalog on the cover) got me! Once I read the summary, I knew I’d enjoy it. I haven’t read the first book, but honestly, it wasn’t a problem for me. I do want to go back and read it now, though, because I enjoyed this one so much, but diving head first into this world with little context did not take away from the characters, story, or world that Wolfe has built.

In a futuristic world with an extremely paired down population, E.A. Smithe is a borrowed person, a clone of a deceased mystery writer. On loan from his library, Smithe meets a cookbook and romance writer. They are shipped off to Pirate’s Cove to a little girl who wants to save her mother and whose father is dead. Probably. Maybe.

I have to say, I loved this world and its details far more than the actual story, though I am not much for mystery genre fiction on the whole, so it’s probably more of just a personal preference. The craftiness of this somewhat dystopian future fascinates me, however, and borrowed people is such a cool concept. I did enjoy the little girl very much, even when I wasn’t too endeared to the two Interlibrary Loans.

I really enjoyed the narration of this one as well. The tone was solid, and I didn’t lose the thread of the plot as I often do with male narrators. You’d do well to grab a copy of either the print or audiobook of this one, but if you enjoy a good storytelling, the audiobook is a solid bet.

Published by Tor Books on June 30, 2020

A sequel to A Borrowed Man, Interlibrary Loan is Gene Wolfe’s final novel. Wolfe reportedly turned it over to his publisher shortly before his death, but it feels incomplete. Perhaps if Wolfe had survived, an editor might have wanted him to flesh out the story, or at least to provide additional context for the ending, but Wolfe died and the manuscript is what we have, take it or leave it.

The 22nd century world established in A Borrowed Man makes cloned authors available to library patrons. Check out a cookbook author and you can get a hands-on cooking lesson. Check out Ern A. Smithe, a “recloned” mystery writer, and perhaps you can get help solving a mystery.

The background is interesting but it was largely established in A Borrowed Man. I’m not sure that Interlibrary Loan adds anything noteworthy to the concept.

The plot sends Smithe and a couple of female reclones (one a cookbook author, the other a romance novelist) to a smaller library on an interlibrary loan. Smithe prefers the library where he was residing but any chance to be checked out is welcome. Being checked out once a year pretty much guarantees his future. A prolonged period of being ignored might cause the library system to burn him as an unwanted book.

The little girl who checks out Smithe at her mother’s direction explains that a dark spooky shape invades her mother’s bedroom at night. The mother, Adah Fevre, wants Smithe to solve a mystery involving a treasure map pasted into a book. The map has hallucinatory properties. Why this should be true is, like much of the plot, is never adequately explained. The beginning of the story seems like a collection of false starts that might have been trimmed away if Wolfe had lived to give the manuscript the rewrite it needs.

The story sends Smithe and a reclone named Audrey (famed for writing books about her adventures as an explorer) to Corpse Island, where Adah’s estranged husband finds cadavers that his anatomy students can dissect. The husband is busy having sex with the reclone romance writer (who doesn’t seem to mind) and Smithe gets busy with Audrey (to their mutual satisfaction, at least in Smithe’s opinion). Adah is jealous but Adah is also crazy so nobody pays much attention to her unless she’s holding a knife.

Something like an adventure story that turns into a treasure hunt follows the arrival on Corpse Island. A treasure is located but its purpose or properties are never explained. Reclones come and go, sometimes returning as different reclones of the same dead author. It’s all a bit confusing, made all the more so by an unexplained portal to an ambiguous place through which nebulous beings travel for mysterious reasons. Perhaps Wolfe intended to elaborate on the other world in a later book. Perhaps he simply sent off an unfinished manuscript because he didn’t want his estate to refund his advance for failing to submit the book. We’ll never know.

The story and the relationships are sort of intriguing, but the novel’s merits are balanced by its flaws. Fans of A Borrowed Man might want to read Interlibrary Loan simply to immerse themselves further in the strange future that Wolfe created. Other readers might find it more satisfying to read or reread Wolfe’s earlier and better books.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

This book is difficult to review, as it was well written, lovely & frightening- all things that I find highly desirable in a story. I appreciate the ethical inquiries & discussions it inspired around things like cloning that are realistic possibilities given scientific advances. I also felt compassion for the characters, and I wanted them to somehow find a good end, despite the realities of their world and position within it... then, unfortunately there was no real end? I’m aware that the author passed away, so perhaps there was an intended ending or another book planned for.. but as it is, it felt incomplete. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4.

Thank you NetGalley & Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the e-ARC!

The setup is still amazing, but like other reviewers I wondered if my eARC was missing sections, or the entire ending. I went back and reread and still could not make heads or tails of what was going on. The beginning purports to be looking back on this adventure, but the end doesn't match that at all. Sorry I just didn't get this.

It took a moment to get the storyline of this book. Once in it has warmth but the kind you find in science fiction a backbone of unemotional truths. The villain isn’t so tangible and lies in the facts of the era, punishment comes in the form of removal from the familiar. I now must read the first of this trilogy I am hooked. Happy reading

Interlibrary Loan is the second book (and last) in the Borrowed Man series by award-winning American author, Gene Wolfe. It’s the twenty-second century, the human population is down to a billion, technology is highly advanced, and ‘bots, sims and clones are part of everyday life.

Ern A. Smithe, a reclone of the 21st Century mystery writer, is puzzled to find himself on the new and luxurious truck with two other reclone resources from Spice Grove Public Library. Ern’s friend, Millie Baumgartner is a renowned cookbook writer, while Rose Romain is a romance writer. They have apparently been requested for interlibrary loan to Polly’s Cove Public Library.

Once there, Ern is checked out by young Chandra Fevre on behalf of her mother, Adah, but on his way out the door, he catches sight of an older, very much dilapidated copy of himself for sale in the lobby. At the Fevre house, Ern is shown what resembles a treasure map and is told a fantastic story of a boat journey and a missing husband: one Dr Barry Fevre, anatomy professor at Spice Grove University. But is Barry really missing? Adah’s story isn’t entirely reliable.

Before long, Ern has enlisted the help of reclone nautical author, Audrey Hopkins, and a journey in an apparently sentient boat with mother and daughter Fevre to an Arctic island, reputed to be the source of cadavers for anatomical dissection, is underway. From there the story manages to include ice caves, angels(?), a self-building, animate house, a Continental cop, and some very tall trees. Ern is checked out to help solve a murder.

It’s difficult to say whether the ending is intended as a cliff-hanger (never to be explained now the author has died) or simply vague because the manuscript was perhaps incomplete. There were some inconsistencies that might have been corrected by a diligent editor. The last fifteen percent is rather disjointed, and the lack of any real resolution gives this sequel an unfinished feel. After the promise of A Borrowed Man, this last novel by Wolfe is, sadly, disappointing.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Tor/Forge

Interlibrary Loan is the sequel to Borrowed Man. This was the lady novel written by Gene Wolfe before his death.
In this series, the main (and point of view) character is Ern A. Smithe, a clone of a mystery writer from a century before when this tale is set. These clones act a living books who can be checked out to provide reference and insight onto the author's works.
The story begins when Smithe, along with certain other "books" is sent to a second library where they are all due to be checked out. If you read borrowed man, you know already that people sometimes want these "books" to be more than idle references. This time is no exception. Smithe is asked by his patron (the woman who checked him out) to help investigate what happened to her missing husband. An interesting start to a sci-fi mystery. As the story progresses, there are twists and turns in the plot. Some of these are almost expected, others are quite strange. At about the 50% mark, things become especially strange with characters and plot devices seeming to appear and disappear with little notice. The story does recognizably move along however and draws toward a resolution. Then, at the 75% mark, it all changes.
When I got to 75% done with the book, I felt like I had just picked up a new book with the same character names. The sci-fi mystery became subsumed by an almost fantasy feel and ultimately by a fairly disjointed narrative where characters would appear and disappear within the same page to be acknowledged by only one character... they may or may not have a memory of meeting any of the other characters before. It took such a weird turn that I found myself flipping back and rereading sections to see what I'd missed (this was an ARC copy, so it is possible that there were missing sections). The ending was abrupt and it felt like it left no resolution for most of the storylines to that point.
Honestly, I enjoyed the book until it began to feel like I was missing segments. Then my enjoyment quickly ebbed. I like books that require thought from the reader and mysteries can be fun to solve. This book, however, didn't provide clues for the reader and the quick fade to the supernatural from science fiction was jarring. In the end, I loved the world being fleshed out further and the initial mystery kept me going, but I the last quarter of the book ruined it for me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read a pre-release copy of this book.

A disappointing finish(?) to a remarkable career. Wolfe was always cryptic, but he usually wrapped things up by the end. I have to wonder if the ARC was missing a chapter or two.

This sequel to A Borrowed Man (2015), Wolf's tale of cloned copies of dead writers that can be checked out of a library in a dystopian future, stars the same character as the first, 20th-century noir mystery writer Ern A. Smythe in all his hard-boiled elocution. Don't blame him for the way he talks, he's wired that way.

In the first book, Ern got checked out in the hope that he could solve a mystery. That was good for him because if reclones don't get read, it's off to the furnace for them. Lightning strikes the mystery writer clone again as he's requested by another library,  in the small town of Peggy's Cove, where a reclusive woman wants him to find her husband. That's not all that happens along the way, and if you're expecting a hard-boiled noir PI piece, it doesn't get there. As Ern will tell you, he's a writer, not a detective, but he knows human nature pretty well, and it turns out that's more than half the battle.

Gene Wolfe died in 2019, and we nearly didn't get this book. If you're a fan, you'll hear the author's voice coming through the characters, even if he plays ventriloquist through a variety of genre authors, from cookbook to western. If you're not already a fan, this probably isn't the place to start. It's not impenetrable prose by any means, but it's hooks are more subtle, than overt, and newcomers might be left wondering what the fuss was about. Those readers would do better to start with The Best of Gene Wolfe, which featured many of his best short fiction works.

This was an interesting book, and I enjoyed the premise: "reclones" are clones of book authors who have learned everything about the authors' works, as well as their lives. They are interactive, and can be checked out of the library for borrowers who are willing to make a significant deposit. Reclones have no legal rights, although the library has rights - borrowers who lose reclones must pay for them, just as they would for lost books. Ern A. Smithe, the main character, is one such reclone, a copy of a mystery novel author who is checked out to help a patron investigate a mystery. I enjoyed the first nine-tenths of this book, but the last tenth was somewhat disappointing, as if Gene Wolfe couldn't decide how to finish the novel, and so just ended it; the solution to the mystery is never clearly given, with a character stating that those who are observant will have figured it out, and then, it just ends. The resolution is largely missing, which was disappointing; however, I would still recommend this book for the rest of the story.

Wolfe is an acquired taste and I love many of his books. This one was just too obtuse and non linear for me to follow and enjoy

Unlike the first book in this series, which I liked specifically because it was not fantasy, this one IS definitely fantasy. It is a good book, I think, with good writing, but it is not for me. Fantasy fans who were somewhat dissatisfied with A Borrowed Man because there was not enough fantasy in it might want to give this a try.

What a good book! Wolfe was my favorite American author for a long time, His last book, A BORROWED MAN, was as enjoyable as any of them so I was excited to hear that a sequel was in the works. You may know the events surrounding the end of Wolfe's life, but the sequel was written and INTERLIBRARY LOAN is here. It's a quick, fun read that gives us one last visit from a master storyteller.

The story begins with our old friend Ern, the "borrowed man" from the first book. Ern Smith is a "reclone": a clone imprinted with the lifestory of a dead author whom library patrons can check out as if he were a book. As a mystery writer, Ern gets checked out in Book 1 to help solve a mystery; Book 2 begins the same way but it's a missing persons case this time rather than murder.

I didn't realize how much I missed Wolfe's writing until I started reading this one. I love how the characters talk like engineers! I love the pacing, the level of description, and the exposition. Wolfe hadn't lost his touch, even this late in life. As always, there is a hidden subtext that you can puzzle over as you read. I've read the book twice now and I'm still pondering some things.

The story itself is quite enjoyable on the surface. Ern and two other resources are checked out via interlibrary loan to another library several days' ride away. It's about 200 years now and while things have changed dramatically since our time, the changes aren't the focus and little is said. Ern *may* have traveled from somewhere in the American Midwest to somewhere in southeastern Canada, but it isn't specified and that's OK. What we do know is that he was requested by a woman whose "haunted" house may be connected to her missing husband. The husband, interestingly enough, shares his surname with a character in the first book.

Ern seems to quickly resolve the haunting (but never comes out and says it), and is soon embroiled in a larger plot to see where the absent husband was going and what we he was doing when he disappeared. He is a medical doctor who teaches anatomy and cadavers are difficult to procure in this future; that is a key plot element but describing any more would rob you of the fun of seeing it all revealed.

As with most late Wolfe, some things are resolved (with or without a clear statement as such), some things are not resolved, and a few things appear to be resolved but may not be. Who's reliable in this story? Whom can we trust to tell the truth? Read the book and see if you can tell.

One last thing: for Wolfe's final book, reading the ending the first time through was great. I can't recommend this enough.