Although he was not a best-selling author, Wolfe is highly regarded by critics and fellow writers. He was often considered to be not only one of the greatest science fiction authors, but one of the best American writers regardless of genre. In 2003, award-winning science fiction author
Michael Swanwick said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it.
Shakespeare was a better stylist,
Melville was more important to American letters, and
Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."
Patrick O'Leary has credited Wolfe for inspiration. He has said: "Forget 'Speculative Fiction.' Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period. And as Wolfe once said, 'All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.' No comparison. Nobody – I mean nobody – comes close to what this artist does." O'Leary also wrote an extensive essay concerning the nature of Wolfe's artistry, entitled "If Ever A Wiz There Was", originally published in his collection
Other Voices, Other Doors.
Ursula K. Le Guin is frequently quoted on the jackets of Wolfe's books as having said "Wolfe is our Melville."
Harlan Ellison, reviewing
The Shadow of the Torturer, wrote: "Gene Wolfe is engaged in the holy chore of writing every other author under the table. He is no less than one of the finest, most original writers in the world today. His work is singular, hypnotizing, startlingly above comparison.
The Shadow of the Torturer breaks new ground in American literature and, as the first novel of a tetralogy, casts a fierce light on what will certainly be a lodestone landmark, his most stunning work to date. It is often said, but never more surely than this time: This book is not to be missed at peril of one's intellectual enrichment." Wolfe's fans regard him with considerable dedication, and one Internet mailing list (URTH, begun in November 1996) dedicated to his works amassed over ten years and thousands of pages of discussion and explication. Similarly, much analysis and exegesis has been published in fanzine and small-press form (e.g.
Lexicon Urthus ). When asked the "Most overrated" and "Most underrated" authors,
Thomas M. Disch identified
Isaac Asimov and Gene Wolfe, respectively, writing: "...all too many have already gone into a decline after carrying home some trophies. The one exception is Gene Wolfe... Between 1980 and 1982 he published
The Book of the New Sun, a tetralogy of couth, intelligence, and suavity that is also written in
VistaVision with
Dolby Sound. Imagine a
Star Wars–style
space opera penned by
G. K. Chesterton in the throes of a religious conversion. Wolfe has continued in full diapason ever since, and a crossover success is long overdue."
Michael Dirda included Wolfe's
Book of the New Sun in his "Science Fiction Reading List", writing: "If
Proust, while listening to
late Beethoven string quartets, wrote
I, Claudius and set it in the future, the result might resemble this measured, autumnal masterpiece."
Neil Gaiman introduced Wolfe at the
World Horror Convention, where Wolfe was the Guest of Honor. He offered some advice on how to read Wolfe, noting: "There are two kinds of clever writer. The ones that point out how clever they are, and the ones who see no need to point out how clever they are. Gene Wolfe is of the second kind, and the intelligence is less important than the tale. He is not smart to make you feel stupid. He is smart to make you smart as well." Gaiman wrote about Wolfe for the "My Hero" feature in
The Guardian: I've met too many of my heroes, and these days I avoid meeting the few I have left, because the easiest way to stop having heroes is to meet them, or worse, have dinner with them. But Gene Wolfe remains a hero to me. He's just turned 80, looks after his wife Rosemary, and is still writing deep, complex, brilliant fiction that slips between genres. He's my hero because he keeps trying new ways of writing and because he remains as kind and as patient with me as he was when I was almost a boy. He's the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer. Most people haven't heard of him. And that doesn't bother Gene in the slightest. He just gets on with writing the next book.
Awards Wolfe won the
World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1996, a judged award at the annual
World Fantasy Convention. The
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named him its 29th
SFWA Grand Master in December 2012; the annual
Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award was presented to Wolfe during Nebula Awards weekend, May 16–19, 2013. He was Guest of Honor at the
1985 World Science Fiction Convention and he received the 1989
Edward E. Smith Memorial Award (or "Skylark") at the New England convention
Boskone. In March 2012 he was presented with the first Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fuller Award, for outstanding contribution to literature by a Chicago author. After his death, Wolfe was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in a ceremony on September 21, 2021. Wolfe was the first Fuller Award recipient to be inducted; and though he was part of the 2019 class, the ceremony to honor him did not occur until 2021. He also won many awards for individual works: Wolfe also amassed a long list of nominations in years when he did not win, including sixteen Nebula award nominations and eight
Hugo Award nominations. ==Works==