7 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Publication date 1984 ISBN 0-9612970-1-8 Genre Science Fiction Cover artist Carl Lundgren | 3.5/5 Goodreads Language English Pages 496 Originally published 1984 Page count 496 Publisher Mark V. Ziesing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Similar Works by Gene Wolfe, Science Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Free Live Free is a novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, first published in 1984.
Contents
Plot
Mr. Free has a house which is slated for demolition. He puts an ad in a newspaper advertising free living quarters to anyone who helps him find a mysterious lost object hidden in the house. Four strangers (a mystic, a private eye, a prostitute, and a salesman) arrive.
Publishing history
The novel was initially published as a limited edition small press item in 1984, then mass market published by Gollancz in 1985. In 1999, it was republished by Tor Books, with an appendix intended to "untangle some of the more serpentine elements of the plot."
Reception
In Starburst, David Langford called Free Live Free a "fine, delightful book", while emphasizing that it is ultimately "unclassifiable". At the SF Site, Jean-Louis Trudel called it "deeply engaging", with "a compassion not always evident in Wolfe's other books", but felt that its conclusion was "a bit of a letdown", with certain revelations and explanations being "not entirely persuasive;" while Kirkus Reviews described it as "an uneasy, lurching mix of fantasy, science fiction, and mystery", stated that the conclusion was "a bust", and asked why Wolfe "can't put together a book that fully convinces and satisfies." CNN states that it is "outrageous", "ingenious", "highly entertaining", and "masterful", but concedes that the ending is not only "contrived", but "confusing", and that only "Wolfe's mastery of the written word" prevents the novel from being entirely burlesque.