206 reviews for:

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Gene Wolfe

3.95 AVERAGE

dunkules's review against another edition

4.25

challenging mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

themildlyeccentricprofessor's review against another edition

4.0

challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

magtferg's review against another edition

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Dense. Worried about your effect on the next generation. And your obliteration of history. And the self. Both as being lost and being obsorbing. Worried about how we create selves and how we create society. An epitomy of layered sci fi.

revolution666's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

7homkat's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

illomens's review against another edition

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Gene Wolfe you son of a bitch!!!!!!!!
Its a fucking good book!
What starts as a criticism of Colonialism starts a narrative spiral where you find a LOT of the subjects and themes Gene will explore later (esp in the three series of the Solar Cycle), a lot of the techniques he already has control of (the familiar rendered alien, the alien deceptively familiar) in a layered narrative with each layer giving complications to the ones before. 

And dont get me wrong it stays on the topic of Colonialism Evil all the way through but via stuff like cloning and shapshifting and what Identity and Selfhood mean, but also slavery, prison systems, anthropological racism, and so on.

nathanesparza's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mike_word's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mili_starling's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

steve_pikov's review against another edition

3.5

challenging mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

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Think of this not as merely a collection of novellas, but as a trilogy of them set in the same twin-planet system, with Marsch as the character who unifies them. He's a minor character in the first, and the narrator of the folkloric origin tale in the second. In the third, he's the focal character, imprisoned for an unnamed crime by a brutal regime disturbed by the shape-changing nature of the Indigenous population. Still relevant for anyone concerned with Indigenous-Settler issues, and complicated enough to merit re-reading.