A Borrowed Man

By: Gene Wolfe

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

A Borrowed Man: a new science fiction novel from Gene Wolfe, the celebrated author of the Book of the New Sun series.

It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.

©2015 Gene Wolfe (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Great Gene Wolfe Concept, Distracting Narration

The idea of a borrowed man, and with it the speculative premise that drives this story, are certainly worthy of Wolfe's genius. The protagonist and first-person narrator admits from the outset that, in fact as in law, he is not fully human. The story bears this judgment out in various interesting and poignant ways, but despite the limitations built into him, he's a very appealing character. His story has a good arc, too, though it suffers from a number of the sorts of continuity errors that drive me to distraction.

The narrator's intensity level ranges from breathless fascination to near panic, and listening to him for any length of time is exhausting. All of the character voices are equally over the top, either stentorian or histrionic. Chill out, dude.

Not Wolfe's best work, but solidly entertaining

A Borrowed Man is perhaps my least favorite Gene Wolfe novel I've read to date, but even then I still found it quite enjoyable. While my first reading has left me with the impression that it's much less nuanced than the Solar Cycle, Wolfe's is known for narratives that require close scrutiny to be fully understood. A lot of the more negative reviews criticize the audiobook's stilted narration as if it's a matter of poor workmanship, but a number of lines in the book suggest it mimics the narrating character's actual cadence of speech (a fact he finds infuriating). I'd recommend sampling this book before you buy because some people find it grating, but at its worst it is an overzealous artistic choice. The story itself is a very character-forward spin on a hardboiled narrative with Wolfe's trademark of veiled worldbuilding, leading to a dystopian setting with just enough details to spark the reader's imagination. If you haven't read anything by Wolfe before you may not find this novel particularly appealing, but fans of his style should be satisfied.

Meh

Generally I love Gene Wolfe, but maybe I've grown out of him. Normally I feel her had an uncanny sense of how technology reveals the monsters hiding in our humanity - or visa versa, but this felt more like a short story packed or to fill a novel. The motives of the characters flail wildly between obvious and completely disjointed from the story.

When all was said and done I was left thinking that there were some nifty ideas presented, but they were never played with to any degree to that made the predictable storyline seem worth it.

a rock solid detective story

just wow! I'm liking this blend of wolfe's style with the detective story.Voice acting was a little wooden and lacking emotion but it didnt bother me after a while. still, i may have enjoyed reading it more. This is my favorite of his books so far.

Monotone narrator

Couldn't really keep interest with the narrator's cadence, story seems great as most Gene Wolfe's stories are.