THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS By Gene Wolfe

Published : 1972
Pages : 252
Overall Mark : 8/10

A young boy, the narrator, whose name is not known has been brought up in relative seclusion with his younger brother David. Together they have been treated to a barrage of psychological tests by their father for reasons they do not know, and the narrator is given the new name of Number 5. He later breaks into a slave trader’s warehouse where he finds a mutated slave who looks like his father, and from there he starts to question his very existence.

This is a fascinating story, which takes the idea that humans are an alien race that have invaded another species world and makes it into something truly remarkable. The other stories in the book, telling a tale of the original planets inhabitants and what happened to them, as well as a story of the consequences met by the anthropolgist from the first story, John Marsch, are not quite as good but are still well worth reading and lend a lot of substance to the original tale.