Fugue State/ The Death of Doctor Island by John M. Ford/ Gene Wolfe is a pair of rather strange social stories.

Fugue State asks the question "what is memory?" through one fantasy and two sf stories. I feel it does not do a sufficient job of explaining itself. I have not read anything else by Ford, but despite the fact that Fugue State has problems, its parts contain well done worlds and I would like to see more of the same.

I read The Death of Doctor Island last year in a Nebula award collection, but it is a memorable story. Doctor Island is an intelligent sanitarium who feels that it is fine to heal some inmates at the expense of the death of others. This story is totally unrelated to The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories by Wolfe, contrary to what I expected. That was about the fantasy world of a neglected, pre-teenage boy. I have not read any novels by him, but I have liked his short stories, and he is anthologized enough that I don't want to look up all the stories I have read by him just so I can list them here.

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