One soon learns not to make sweeping, restrictive generalizations about the fiction of Gene Wolfe. Some writers, especially in a field like science fiction, can become identified with a narrow subject which they explore time and again. Others gain their identities through a dominant tone, style, or narrative technique. Not so with Wolfe. One discerns recurrent topics, of course, and he is one of the fine stylists writing in the field, but there is no sense of limitation in an appraisal of his work. The story "Trip, Trap" (1967), perhaps his first important contribution to the field of science fiction, does offer a point of departure for insight into Wolfe's work.
The body of the narrative shifts back and forth between the reports of a recent recipient of a degree in extraterrestrial archaeology, who has been sent to investigate the planet of Carson's sun, and Garth, a warrior inhabitant of the planet whose society recalls Earth's barbarian hordes.
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