The Castle of the Otter

When Gene Wolfe finished the third volume of his "The Book of the New Sun" heroic fantasy epic, fans of the series began clamoring almost immediately for the fourth and final book in the tetralogy. As time passed and this concluding volume did not materialize, they began to root about for "any" information concerning the book, which did not even have a working title. The first glimmer was the title, which was announced by the Locus magazine as "The Castle of the Otter".

"The Citadel of the Autarch" was the actual name of the final work in the series. Author Gene Wolfe liked the inaccurate title, though, and used it as the name for a companion work of non-fiction essays and un-used materials from the series (including an article about how "Otter" got its title).

"The Castle of the Otter" (1982, ISBN 0-917488-10-5) is something of a collector's item. Originally published as a small press edition by Mark V. Ziesing, it was also offered for sale through the Science Fiction Book Club.

The material in "Castle of the Otter" was combined with his short story collection "Gene Wolfe's Book of Days" to make the volume "Castle of Days".