Read recently: The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene Wolfe

In The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972), a poor colony world is haunted by rumors of a vanished aboriginal race. The status of the natives forms a thematic link between the three novellas in the volume, and is framed by this anthropological theory, mentioned in the first story:

“Veil’s Hypothesis supposes the abos to have possessed the ability to mimic mankind perfectly. Veil thought that when the ships came from Earth the abos killed everyone and took their places and the ships, so they’re not dead at all, we are.”

Veil’s Hypothesis seems not to be strictly correct, but it is an excellent guide to the themes of the three stories, which are filled with doublings and murders, of and by: clones, twins, shapeshifters. There are copies and double-reverse copies. All of this stands next to a colonial drama, where the original peoples were (apparently) displaced by French colonists, and the French themselves marginalized by later colonists. As usual with Wolfe, these are presented at first as almost subliminal puzzles. Subject matter that would not be out of place on the lurid cover of an old pulp instead is subtle, and so: spooky, scary and thought-provoking. Life is, after all, a TALE OF THE WEIRD, and it is only because we are weird that we don’t know it.

In the first story, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” a boy named “Number Five” grows up in a brothel run by his father. When he turns 12 or so, his father begins subjecting him to midnight psychological experiments of obscure purpose. The status of the abos and Veil’s Hypothesis come into this story obliquely, as a mirror to the story’s other themes of identity, memory, and domination. Dr. John Marsch, an anthropologist from Earth, enters the story as a minor character, visiting the brothel, but becomes the focus of the next two stories.

The second story is “‘A Story,’ By John V. Marsch,” which appears to be a first-person account of the life of a young aboriginal man before the arrival of humans. The story is broadly about conflict between hill and lowlands tribes, but it is rich with strange detail. There are apparently two species of abo, one of which apparently came from the stars, the other of which mimicked their form (but we don’t know which is which, and the story is unstable); all men are apparently named “John.” In the context of the first story, this seems to be an anthropological fiction told by the earth-man, Marsch

The third story, “V.R.T.,” is framed by Dr. Marsch’s imprisonment by the Kafka-like security apparatus of the planet St. Croix. A prison official considers Dr. Marsch’s case as he sifts through the Dr.’s notebooks, both from his research and his later prison diary. There are two main sources of tension in this story, 1) will Marsch be released, 2) what did he learn in the course of his research that allowed him to write “A Story”? The main story follows a trip that Marsch takes with a local boy guide (V.R.T.), who claims to be half abo.

Each story is told within a fictional frame, and so the puzzle to be solved is generally: “Why? How? By whom?” The answers are mind-opening and frightening.

The first story (“Fifth Head”) can be read stand-alone (and is available in The Best of Gene Wolfe); I recommend the whole collection highly.