The Washington Post has called Gene Wolfe "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced." This volume, Castle of Days, joins together two of his rarest and most sought after works--Gene Wolfe's Book of Days and The Castle of the Otter --and add thirty-nine short essays collected here for the first time, to fashion a rich and engrossing architecture of wonder. “Here are glamour and magic to stretch the mind and break the heart.” ― Steven Brust “A treasure trove....Aficionados will find this a marvelous and fascinating collection, and readers new to Gene Wolfe should find this a welcome place to enter.” ― Fort Worth Star-Telegram “ Castle of Days is also a flight of yesterday, a twinkle of todays, and a promise of tomorrows. Charming and entertaining from drawbridge to tower-tip.” ― Roger Zelazny Gene Wolfe (1931-2019) was the Nebula Award-winning author of The Book of the New Sun tetralogy in the Solar Cycle, as well as the World Fantasy Award winners The Shadow of the Torturer and Soldier of Sidon . He was also a prolific writer of distinguished short fiction, which has been collected in such award-winning volumes as Storeys from the Old Hotel and The Best of Gene Wolfe . A recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and six Locus Awards, among many other honors, Wolfe was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007, and named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2012. Castle of Days By Wolfe, Gene Orb Books Copyright © 1995 Wolfe, Gene All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312890421 LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY     How the Whip   Came Back     Pretty Miss Bushnan’s suite was all red acrylic and green-dyed leather. Real leather, very modern—red acrylic and green, real leather were the modern things this year. But it made her Louis XIV secretary, Sal, look terribly out of place. Miss Bushnan had disliked the suite from the day she moved in—though she could hardly complain, when there was a chance that the entire city of Geneva and the sovereign Swiss nation might be offended. This evening she did her best to like red and green, and in the meantime turned her eyes from them to the cool relief of the fountain. It was a copy of a Cellini salt dish and lovely, no matter how silly a fountain indoors on the hundred and twenty-fifth floor might be. In a characteristic reversal of feeling she found herself wondering what sort of place she might have gotten if she had had to find one for herself, without reservations, at the height of the tourist season. Three flights up in some dingy suburban pension , no doubt. So bless the generosity of the sovereign Swiss Republic. Bless the openhanded city of Geneva. Bless the hotel. And bless the United Nations Conference on Human Value, which brought glory to the Swiss Republic et cetera and inspired the free mountaineers to grant free hotel suites in the height of the season even to non-voting Conference observers such as she. Sal had brought her in a gibson a few minutes ago, and she picked it up from the edge of the fountain to sip, a little surprised to see that it was already three-quarters gone; red and green . A brawny, naked triton half-reclined, water streaming from his hair and beard, dripping from his mouth, dribbling from his ears. His eyes, expressionless and smooth as eggs, wept for her. Balancing her empty glass carefully on the rim again, she leaned forward and stroked his smooth, wet stone flesh. Smiling she told him—mentally—how handsome he was, and he blushed pink lemonade at the compliment. She thought of herself taking off her clothes and climbing in with him, the cool water soothing her face, which now felt hot and flushed. Not, she told herself suddenly, that she would feel any real desire for the triton in the unlikely event of his being metamorphosed to flesh. If she wanted men in her bed she could find ten any evening, and afterward edit the whole adventure from Sal’s memory bank. She wanted a man, but she wanted only one, she wanted Brad (whose real name, as the terrible, bitter woman who lived in the back of her skull, the woman the gibson had not quite drowned, reminded her, had proved at his trial to be Aaron). The triton vanished and Brad was there instead, laughing and dripping Atlantic water on the sand as he threw up his arms to catch the towel she flung him. Brad running through the surf… Sal interrupted her revery, rolling in on silent casters. “A gentleman to see you, Miss Bushnan.” Sal had real metal drawer-pulls on her false drawers, and they jingled softly when she stopped to deliver her message, like costume jewelry. “Who?” Miss Bushnan straightened up, pushing a stray wisp of brown hair away from her face. Sal said blankly, “I don’t know.” The gibson had made Miss Bushnan feel pleasantly muzzy, but even so the blankness came through as slightly suspicious. “He didn’t give you his name