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The Book of the Short Sun #3
Return to the Whorl
Gene Wolfe is back with another multiple volume novel, the "Book of the Short Sun, " that follows the narrator, Horn, who appeared in the earlier "Book of the Long Sun, " as he journeys across two planets and returns to the Whorl, the giant ship still inhabited by the civilization that brought settlers to the new worlds, Blue and Green. This three-book work is now generally considered the best thing Wolfe has written in nearly twenty years -- maybe the best yet.
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First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Gene Wolfe
169 books3,522 followersGene Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He was a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field.
The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.’ Wolfe joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as Connie Willis, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013.
While attending Texas A&M University Wolfe published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year, and was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He edited the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato crisps. He lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
A frequent Hugo nominee without a win, Wolfe has nevertheless picked up several Nebula and Locus Awards, among others, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He is also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe
The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.’ Wolfe joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as Connie Willis, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013.
While attending Texas A&M University Wolfe published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year, and was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He edited the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato crisps. He lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
A frequent Hugo nominee without a win, Wolfe has nevertheless picked up several Nebula and Locus Awards, among others, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He is also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe
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March 13, 2013
Gene Wolfe ruined reading for me.
November 21, 2023
2023 re-read thoughts:
(4.5 stars?) In retrospect it’s strange that I’ve never realized that as far as my reading goes it does not appear that Gene Wolfe has ever written what I would call a happy story. Certainly, I wouldn’t have characterized him as a writer of cheerful tales, but it never struck me just how downbeat his stories tend to be. Even with that said, however, I think this one may be the most melancholy one that I have read. The story is heavily woven with a sense of regret and failure even in the midst of apparent victory. Our narrator seems to have been doomed from the start and even his actual success, strange and apparently unperceived by himself as it is, leads to the ultimate loss of his own identity . The merging of personalities, which is such an obsession of Wolfe’s, and which we have seen in such a comparatively straightforward (one might almost say cavalier) manner in the life of Severian, is here portrayed in a much more complex manner. There’s really no mystery about who the main character(s) are, but they way they bob and weave in and out of the narrative voice (though I would argue one is definitely predominant) keeps the reader guessing about many details.
I’ve tended to think of the connections between the Long and Short Sun books with those of the New Sun as rather tenuous (though undoubtedly extant), but they really dovetail in this final volume (even if it is still concentrated in only a few chapters at the book’s conclusion) and the ouroboric nature of the cycle almost leads me back to begin once again that difficult journey with the young torturer Severian.
Ultimately, this one kinda hits like a ton of bricks, especially as events rush to their ultimate (a word I am leery to use in relation to a Wolfe story) conclusion. Wolfe doesn’t go easy on his characters and it is certainly more than simply torture porn devised by the likes of GRR Martin. Wolfe’s characters are put through the wringer physically, emotionally, and mentally to such an extent, and even in ways that call into question their very identity, that it can be somewhat harrowing, but it all leads to somewhere believable and even possibly inevitable (and dare I say salvific?). To say that his protagonist(s) are changed by the experiences they undergo is an understatement. Oreb may cry “Poor Silk!”, but I can’t help countering with my own: “Poor Horn!”
They say beware of meeting your heroes. In some cases, it appears, the experience may just kill you.
Original review:
Well, I think this one took me longer than any of the others in my year of (re)reading Gene Wolfe. I have to admit that my enthusiasm was waning when I finally got to this volume, but having made it through all of the previous eleven volumes of the solar cycle I couldn’t let flagging interest stop me from completing the series. I think this book is better than my slow track record in finishing it would imply and that it actually might be the best of the three volumes of the Short Sun series, but I don’t know that I can fully express why, or say that on this reading I fully appreciated that. I left the book feeling as though I ought to read it again when it doesn’t feel like the end of a marathon and perhaps see it with fresher, and more balanced, eyes.
We finally get some resolutions to the myriad mysteries that have been surrounding our narrator, and his identity, and he finally manages to end his odyssean wanderings and return home to New Viron, perhaps having achieved everything he had promised, even if he doesn’t believe this to be the case. Of course Gene Wolfe is never straightforward, even when he is presenting resolutions, and so we have some new complications to deal with. To add to the time and place jumps that have kept even the attentive reader on his/her toes throughout these volumes we now have the additional issue of new narrators being introduced, sometimes in ways that are not immediately obvious aside from a subtle shift in pronouns. This obviously calls into question the ‘truth’ of the story being told in these sections as they are apparently not coming directly from the (admittedly confused) person directly experiencing them. How can we take anything we find here at face value? Oh Gene Wolfe, you tricky, tricky fellow!
As far as plot goes we have some further repetitions of the cycle of revolution and reform in the settlements that Silkhorn (the spoilerific name usually given to our erstwhile narrator by Wolfe fans on the interwebs…but if you’ve read this far this identity reveal shouldn’t be a spoiler for you) visits, this time the town of Dorp where he is held for trial by a cabal of corrupt judges that have been squeezing the town for their own benefit and are due for some Patera Silk-style justice. We also see Silkhorn continuing to wrestle with the implications of the symbiotic relationship that exists between the humans on Blue and the Inhumi that prey upon them. These elements of the corrupt nature of the human settlements on Blue and the true nature of the Inhumi are subtly intertwined and speak to Wolfe’s examination of the foundations of human nature and the problem of good and evil. Add to this the constant ruminations on the nature of godhood, the role that gods (both ‘real’ and not-so-real) play in human society & morality, and the whole mess of politics, religion, and ethics that all of this drags up and you have a very complex and weighty story.
Ultimately I came away from this book most noticebly with a sense of sadness. There is such an air of strange tragedy around the story of Patera Silk (in both the Long Sun and Short Sun books), and of Horn whose life becomes inextricably intertwined with that of his hero...to his own doom. This set of books is perhaps, then, more than anything a rumination on the pitfalls of the role of ‘hero’, especially when that role involves both a moral and a political angle. Patera Silk, as we know from the first lines of the Long Sun series, was enlightened on the ball court and granted something few humans can boast of, an intimate connection with the Divine. Yet this turns out to be as much (or more?) a curse as a blessing. Silk’s insight into the true nature of reality, and humanity’s inability to live up to it, tied with his inherent love and pity for those around him, leave Silk in a tragic place of near-despair for much of his life. And what of Horn, the boy then man who idolized this figure as a hero and, in his attempts to emulate him and bring salvation to his world, ends up losing himself? Perhaps, given Wolfe’s well-known position as a Catholic writer, he has simply expressed the biblical statement of Jesus that “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) Is it then perhaps a comedy (in the classic sense) and not a tragedy? I guess that depends ultimately on your point of view.
Overall I’d have to say that I’ve come away from the solar cycle with the impression that the Long Sun-Short Sun parts (which really need to be read together to fully appreciate them) are perhaps the most complex, nuanced, and deep-delving books of the series, but I side with the apparent consensus that the New Sun part of the cycle is really Wolfe’s masterwork and is, in some ways at least, more satisfying. Both 'sets', though, definitely leave you with a lot to chew on after you've closed the final pages.
(4.5 stars?) In retrospect it’s strange that I’ve never realized that as far as my reading goes it does not appear that Gene Wolfe has ever written what I would call a happy story. Certainly, I wouldn’t have characterized him as a writer of cheerful tales, but it never struck me just how downbeat his stories tend to be. Even with that said, however, I think this one may be the most melancholy one that I have read. The story is heavily woven with a sense of regret and failure even in the midst of apparent victory. Our narrator seems to have been doomed from the start and even his actual success, strange and apparently unperceived by himself as it is, leads to the ultimate loss of his own identity . The merging of personalities, which is such an obsession of Wolfe’s, and which we have seen in such a comparatively straightforward (one might almost say cavalier) manner in the life of Severian, is here portrayed in a much more complex manner. There’s really no mystery about who the main character(s) are, but they way they bob and weave in and out of the narrative voice (though I would argue one is definitely predominant) keeps the reader guessing about many details.
I’ve tended to think of the connections between the Long and Short Sun books with those of the New Sun as rather tenuous (though undoubtedly extant), but they really dovetail in this final volume (even if it is still concentrated in only a few chapters at the book’s conclusion) and the ouroboric nature of the cycle almost leads me back to begin once again that difficult journey with the young torturer Severian.
Ultimately, this one kinda hits like a ton of bricks, especially as events rush to their ultimate (a word I am leery to use in relation to a Wolfe story) conclusion. Wolfe doesn’t go easy on his characters and it is certainly more than simply torture porn devised by the likes of GRR Martin. Wolfe’s characters are put through the wringer physically, emotionally, and mentally to such an extent, and even in ways that call into question their very identity, that it can be somewhat harrowing, but it all leads to somewhere believable and even possibly inevitable (and dare I say salvific?). To say that his protagonist(s) are changed by the experiences they undergo is an understatement. Oreb may cry “Poor Silk!”, but I can’t help countering with my own: “Poor Horn!”
They say beware of meeting your heroes. In some cases, it appears, the experience may just kill you.
Original review:
Well, I think this one took me longer than any of the others in my year of (re)reading Gene Wolfe. I have to admit that my enthusiasm was waning when I finally got to this volume, but having made it through all of the previous eleven volumes of the solar cycle I couldn’t let flagging interest stop me from completing the series. I think this book is better than my slow track record in finishing it would imply and that it actually might be the best of the three volumes of the Short Sun series, but I don’t know that I can fully express why, or say that on this reading I fully appreciated that. I left the book feeling as though I ought to read it again when it doesn’t feel like the end of a marathon and perhaps see it with fresher, and more balanced, eyes.
We finally get some resolutions to the myriad mysteries that have been surrounding our narrator, and his identity, and he finally manages to end his odyssean wanderings and return home to New Viron, perhaps having achieved everything he had promised, even if he doesn’t believe this to be the case. Of course Gene Wolfe is never straightforward, even when he is presenting resolutions, and so we have some new complications to deal with. To add to the time and place jumps that have kept even the attentive reader on his/her toes throughout these volumes we now have the additional issue of new narrators being introduced, sometimes in ways that are not immediately obvious aside from a subtle shift in pronouns. This obviously calls into question the ‘truth’ of the story being told in these sections as they are apparently not coming directly from the (admittedly confused) person directly experiencing them. How can we take anything we find here at face value? Oh Gene Wolfe, you tricky, tricky fellow!
As far as plot goes we have some further repetitions of the cycle of revolution and reform in the settlements that Silkhorn (the spoilerific name usually given to our erstwhile narrator by Wolfe fans on the interwebs…but if you’ve read this far this identity reveal shouldn’t be a spoiler for you) visits, this time the town of Dorp where he is held for trial by a cabal of corrupt judges that have been squeezing the town for their own benefit and are due for some Patera Silk-style justice. We also see Silkhorn continuing to wrestle with the implications of the symbiotic relationship that exists between the humans on Blue and the Inhumi that prey upon them. These elements of the corrupt nature of the human settlements on Blue and the true nature of the Inhumi are subtly intertwined and speak to Wolfe’s examination of the foundations of human nature and the problem of good and evil. Add to this the constant ruminations on the nature of godhood, the role that gods (both ‘real’ and not-so-real) play in human society & morality, and the whole mess of politics, religion, and ethics that all of this drags up and you have a very complex and weighty story.
Ultimately I came away from this book most noticebly with a sense of sadness. There is such an air of strange tragedy around the story of Patera Silk (in both the Long Sun and Short Sun books), and of Horn whose life becomes inextricably intertwined with that of his hero...to his own doom. This set of books is perhaps, then, more than anything a rumination on the pitfalls of the role of ‘hero’, especially when that role involves both a moral and a political angle. Patera Silk, as we know from the first lines of the Long Sun series, was enlightened on the ball court and granted something few humans can boast of, an intimate connection with the Divine. Yet this turns out to be as much (or more?) a curse as a blessing. Silk’s insight into the true nature of reality, and humanity’s inability to live up to it, tied with his inherent love and pity for those around him, leave Silk in a tragic place of near-despair for much of his life. And what of Horn, the boy then man who idolized this figure as a hero and, in his attempts to emulate him and bring salvation to his world, ends up losing himself? Perhaps, given Wolfe’s well-known position as a Catholic writer, he has simply expressed the biblical statement of Jesus that “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) Is it then perhaps a comedy (in the classic sense) and not a tragedy? I guess that depends ultimately on your point of view.
Overall I’d have to say that I’ve come away from the solar cycle with the impression that the Long Sun-Short Sun parts (which really need to be read together to fully appreciate them) are perhaps the most complex, nuanced, and deep-delving books of the series, but I side with the apparent consensus that the New Sun part of the cycle is really Wolfe’s masterwork and is, in some ways at least, more satisfying. Both 'sets', though, definitely leave you with a lot to chew on after you've closed the final pages.
April 23, 2012
i reread this series slowly over the last few months. life is worth living because writers like gene wolfe exist
August 19, 2019
Wolfe does not disappoint in this, the last of the 12 books of the long series. Once again he chooses another artistic literary style, and at this point the complications of the novel and the style are indescribable. He continues the alternation between two different realities, the concept of the book as "thing-in-itself" (a book about the writing of the book) multiple and untrustworthy narrators, the book as text (physical paper), concepts of multiple identity, ambiguous identity, changing/shifting identity and form and place. The central conceit of this particular novel is the narrator being someone else physically but denying that he is the person, in one place searching for a physical body that he himself possesses, in the other as father/not father traveling with daughter/not daughter and identical twin sons going to places where they take a different physical being representing more of their "essential" self.
He is much more "humanistic" in this work, I suppose he wanted to end on a fairly positive note. Regardless, as I've raved in my prior reviews, Wolfe is a truly great writer - this is as sophisticated and complex as a symphony of a great composer, and comes across as a great "late" work, like Beethoven's 30th through 32nd piano sonatas. It's like nothing else in science fiction, and in fiction reminded me of those certain lines of Shakespeare that are full of ambiguity and multiple meanings.
I need to be clear on this _objectively_ the book is marred - which explains why it's not rated as "science fiction" as highly as it might - there are scenes, attitudes, episodes, which are unpleasant, upsetting, like certain parts of Rabelais - but if you look behind the story line at "how" he is writing, stylistically and thematically, the plot is all rather irrelevant. I've described him as the great science fiction writer of "ambiguity" - and the richness of this approach. Someone said that Wolfe is more like "speculative" fiction than anything else, or "imaginative" fiction, but he's exploring the limits of style through content - the story is a mechanism for the style.
Overarching the whole Long Sun/Short-Sun group of 7 novels, Wolfe's humanism and overarching compassion comes through. His religious asides are a minor puzzlement. The characters are rich and deep, complex and real.
To be critical, there is one rather upsetting and unnecessary scene which goes too far, and there's too much dialogue where his prose is wonderful, but while the book is very difficult, it remains comprehensible, unlike the fifth book Urth in the series.
So - to sum up this exceptionally long and worthwhile series: not for the faint, probably only for the literary, a unique and brilliant artistic conception. I put him with Melville, early Pynchon and Gaddis as the greatest American writers, and the greatest American "imaginative" writer ever. I find it impossible to classify his work as sci-fi or fantasy because his stylistic and literary components are so much of the content. Anyway, I've written about him enough. I hope this inspires someone to read him. I strongly suspect he will be still read in 100 years, which is sense I get from very few writers these days.
He is much more "humanistic" in this work, I suppose he wanted to end on a fairly positive note. Regardless, as I've raved in my prior reviews, Wolfe is a truly great writer - this is as sophisticated and complex as a symphony of a great composer, and comes across as a great "late" work, like Beethoven's 30th through 32nd piano sonatas. It's like nothing else in science fiction, and in fiction reminded me of those certain lines of Shakespeare that are full of ambiguity and multiple meanings.
I need to be clear on this _objectively_ the book is marred - which explains why it's not rated as "science fiction" as highly as it might - there are scenes, attitudes, episodes, which are unpleasant, upsetting, like certain parts of Rabelais - but if you look behind the story line at "how" he is writing, stylistically and thematically, the plot is all rather irrelevant. I've described him as the great science fiction writer of "ambiguity" - and the richness of this approach. Someone said that Wolfe is more like "speculative" fiction than anything else, or "imaginative" fiction, but he's exploring the limits of style through content - the story is a mechanism for the style.
Overarching the whole Long Sun/Short-Sun group of 7 novels, Wolfe's humanism and overarching compassion comes through. His religious asides are a minor puzzlement. The characters are rich and deep, complex and real.
To be critical, there is one rather upsetting and unnecessary scene which goes too far, and there's too much dialogue where his prose is wonderful, but while the book is very difficult, it remains comprehensible, unlike the fifth book Urth in the series.
So - to sum up this exceptionally long and worthwhile series: not for the faint, probably only for the literary, a unique and brilliant artistic conception. I put him with Melville, early Pynchon and Gaddis as the greatest American writers, and the greatest American "imaginative" writer ever. I find it impossible to classify his work as sci-fi or fantasy because his stylistic and literary components are so much of the content. Anyway, I've written about him enough. I hope this inspires someone to read him. I strongly suspect he will be still read in 100 years, which is sense I get from very few writers these days.
March 2, 2023
“Though trodden beneath the shepherd’s heel, the wild hyacinth blooms on the ground.”
Amazing. 12 books later and I’ve just finished reading the Solar Cycle for the first time. This was a very phenomenal read and I can genuinely say that Short Sun and Long Sun definitely held their own and were their own unique and wonderful experience but Wolfe really knows how to elevate and enhance his previous installments and series with each new entry.
Gene Wolfe is a master of dialogue and allusive prose, and he was definitely a master writing New Sun but my god 20 years later and he is outdoing himself. Horn’s journey through this system of planets 20 years after leaving the Whorl was amazing to witness. With a surprising but very entertaining cast, with my favorites being Pig, Sinew, Babbie and Fava. I think the character work done in this especially for the main character is great, with the MC definitely being as strong as Severian, if not slightly better, no exaggeration. The work put into the inhumi and how they became an integral part of the story but not in the way you would expect.
One thing that was cool to see were the revelations about Blue, Green, the Whorl and Typhon and his children. His connections back to New Sun were definitely cool to see and had me emotional during some parts, I can’t even lie. I understand the Red Sun Whorl and stuff of that nature but my questions that need to be answered concern with the ‘when’ and I know certain things like space-dilation have to do with the time spent in the Whorl vs back on Blue and Green but yea, I definitely want to sit with this for a while and really think about this story. I still don’t completely understand dream (astral) travel but that was also something very interesting and fresh to see and I think I might know how that occurs. There’s a lot I don’t want touch upon just yet because of spoilers and just me figuring it out in my head but there were a lot of parts and quotes that hit home. That transformation for the main character throughout this journey and their self-reflection really made this feel a lot more personal and not just an episodic voyage to find Patera Silk.
Last thing I’ll say is I’m every grateful I was able to experience this story and Gene Wolfe is definitely my favorite author for sure, man.
“He wept; and another distant voice, Remora’s, said, “Horn did not fail us, Patera. Caldé. You see that now?”
Silk nodded.”
Amazing. 12 books later and I’ve just finished reading the Solar Cycle for the first time. This was a very phenomenal read and I can genuinely say that Short Sun and Long Sun definitely held their own and were their own unique and wonderful experience but Wolfe really knows how to elevate and enhance his previous installments and series with each new entry.
Gene Wolfe is a master of dialogue and allusive prose, and he was definitely a master writing New Sun but my god 20 years later and he is outdoing himself. Horn’s journey through this system of planets 20 years after leaving the Whorl was amazing to witness. With a surprising but very entertaining cast, with my favorites being Pig, Sinew, Babbie and Fava. I think the character work done in this especially for the main character is great, with the MC definitely being as strong as Severian, if not slightly better, no exaggeration. The work put into the inhumi and how they became an integral part of the story but not in the way you would expect.
One thing that was cool to see were the revelations about Blue, Green, the Whorl and Typhon and his children. His connections back to New Sun were definitely cool to see and had me emotional during some parts, I can’t even lie. I understand the Red Sun Whorl and stuff of that nature but my questions that need to be answered concern with the ‘when’ and I know certain things like space-dilation have to do with the time spent in the Whorl vs back on Blue and Green but yea, I definitely want to sit with this for a while and really think about this story. I still don’t completely understand dream (astral) travel but that was also something very interesting and fresh to see and I think I might know how that occurs. There’s a lot I don’t want touch upon just yet because of spoilers and just me figuring it out in my head but there were a lot of parts and quotes that hit home. That transformation for the main character throughout this journey and their self-reflection really made this feel a lot more personal and not just an episodic voyage to find Patera Silk.
Last thing I’ll say is I’m every grateful I was able to experience this story and Gene Wolfe is definitely my favorite author for sure, man.
“He wept; and another distant voice, Remora’s, said, “Horn did not fail us, Patera. Caldé. You see that now?”
Silk nodded.”
October 5, 2025
Hm, again, not sure why this isn't already marked as read. I read it years ago. I like this trilogy probably the best out of the whole Solar Cycle, even though it is the most difficult in some respects. There's something incredibly magical about the setting and beings and events of this trilogy. I think I found the closed system of the Long Sun rather suffocating by the end and I found the dying system of the New Sun so decadent and decaying that it similarly felt somewhat oppressive, if opulently so. The Short Sun system is alive and open with deep possibility and plenitude - in its societies, in its ecologies, in its interplanetary relations, and in its haunting by a numinous elder race that once inhabited the planet Blue, where most of the humans from the generation starship The Whorl now live. Even the vampiric shape-shifting Inhumi from the neighbouring planet Green provide an invigorating and mysterious sense of danger and horror, in a way more 'wholesome' somehow than all the abominations of the New Sun. (Long Sun mostly lacked any kind of non-human creatures or races, though its android population was quite fascinating.) So the Short Sun trilogy came as a breath of fresh air to me. And its elliptically entangled narration is really quite fresh as well. Wolfe found yet another way to work his narratological magic in this final series of the Solar Cycle. And it works very well for me - beautiful writing, very different from the ornate style of Severian in the New Sun, or even the graceful economy of the Long Sun, but powerful, taut, and lovely nonetheless.
Indeed, this final volume probably has the best prose of the series to me (heresy to most, I'm sure - New Sun is considered the masterwork; and frankly, it is, and it has the most linguistically rich style; but Short Sun achieves a style at least equally great to me, and one that is in most respects just personally preferable).
I'd rank the three books of the Short Sun trilogy thus: On Blue's Waters has the best sense of semi-heroic or questing adventure, peppered with horror and the numinous and the promise of a larger tale unfolding. (It's apparently not nearly enough of an odyssey to some readers, but I found its somewhat contemplative and wandering pace just right for creating an alien quality, yet a gripping sense of quest and action.) In Green's Jungles is the best at taking the metaphysics of the narrative to unexpected levels of beauty and weirdness, and horror - and its density of prose and narrative complexity is heightened as well, making it quite a heady read to me. It was trippy. And finally, Return to the Whorl goes to an even richer level of prose style, mesmerising in its sensual sense of nearness and immersion. It even adds in new narrative voices and their styles, equally rich, and it maybe goes to some of the best and most interesting places theologically. There are some very spiritual and moving scenes in this one. Yet this final volume also suffers from an accumulated complexity that made it really bog down for me. I felt really, really lost through the last half as I recall. (And there were perhaps some overlong scenes of not much going on it seemed to me.) Yet I enjoyed finishing it and I recall enjoying the final chapter or chapters especially, even though they felt in some ways as confusing as the rest. A really poignant final paragraph or so though.
I look forward to re-reading the trilogy and understanding it better.
Indeed, this final volume probably has the best prose of the series to me (heresy to most, I'm sure - New Sun is considered the masterwork; and frankly, it is, and it has the most linguistically rich style; but Short Sun achieves a style at least equally great to me, and one that is in most respects just personally preferable).
I'd rank the three books of the Short Sun trilogy thus: On Blue's Waters has the best sense of semi-heroic or questing adventure, peppered with horror and the numinous and the promise of a larger tale unfolding. (It's apparently not nearly enough of an odyssey to some readers, but I found its somewhat contemplative and wandering pace just right for creating an alien quality, yet a gripping sense of quest and action.) In Green's Jungles is the best at taking the metaphysics of the narrative to unexpected levels of beauty and weirdness, and horror - and its density of prose and narrative complexity is heightened as well, making it quite a heady read to me. It was trippy. And finally, Return to the Whorl goes to an even richer level of prose style, mesmerising in its sensual sense of nearness and immersion. It even adds in new narrative voices and their styles, equally rich, and it maybe goes to some of the best and most interesting places theologically. There are some very spiritual and moving scenes in this one. Yet this final volume also suffers from an accumulated complexity that made it really bog down for me. I felt really, really lost through the last half as I recall. (And there were perhaps some overlong scenes of not much going on it seemed to me.) Yet I enjoyed finishing it and I recall enjoying the final chapter or chapters especially, even though they felt in some ways as confusing as the rest. A really poignant final paragraph or so though.
I look forward to re-reading the trilogy and understanding it better.
April 28, 2014
At the end of his "Solar Cycle" (12 books in all) and after reading 7 of his other novels, I have, finally, come to the realization that Gene Wolfe never writes the book you want him to and The Book of the Short Sun is no exception. This is not to say I didn't enjoy reading the series. Actually this series offered more than I could ever want or imagine, but achieving the payoff and finishing the series was a struggle. It is (like all Wolfe novels, but more so)a subtle, confusing maze where what is said is less important than what is left unsaid. The enjoyment comes when after slogging through page after page of near incoherent dialogue, the light shines and you understand a bit more of what Wolfe is trying to say.
When I finished Return to the Whorl I felt the need to pick up The Shadow of the Torturer and start the cycle over in the hopes that maybe this time I will actually get it...
When I finished Return to the Whorl I felt the need to pick up The Shadow of the Torturer and start the cycle over in the hopes that maybe this time I will actually get it...
May 27, 2019
This was my second read of the book and wraps up my re-read of the entire Sun sequence (apart from Urth of the New Sun). New Sun is often held up as the epitome of Wolfe's work, and it is great. Long Sun has some cool world-building (or Whorl-building) to go with its story of a sort of accidental messiah figure, and it definitely should be read before the Short Sun sequence, but I've always thought the Short Sun books highlight Wolfe's narrative skill. The whole story weaves together two separate timelines, the one that's happening as Horn* is writing and the earlier one he's sitting down intending to recount. The way they play off each other and the way he comments on his own writing as the *now* timeline progresses is stunning. A high wire act.
In this book, the earlier storyline is taking place back in the Whorl of the Long Sun sequence, and the now storyline is back again on Blue as he (maybe, finally) finds himself getting back home to Nettle and the island he'd left so long ago. As is typical of Wolfe, he leaves much of the story off the page for readers to piece together. It would probably take another few re-reads to keep track of everything. But it's a beautiful--and sometimes heartbreaking--story. This one especially has a melancholy to it, but isn't depressing, as you piece together the truth of the inhuma through Horn*'s story. It also includes some journeys to the Red Sun Whorl and Severian of the New Sun sequence. While it fits in-story, it feels somewhat contrived, but I'm willing to forgive that for the impressive story as a whole. And when Hari Mau, who was a character of the *now* timeline in book 1 shows up in the *then* timeline of book 3, I got chills at just how beautifully it all falls into place.
An impressive conclusion to a story by a master at the height of his craft.
In this book, the earlier storyline is taking place back in the Whorl of the Long Sun sequence, and the now storyline is back again on Blue as he (maybe, finally) finds himself getting back home to Nettle and the island he'd left so long ago. As is typical of Wolfe, he leaves much of the story off the page for readers to piece together. It would probably take another few re-reads to keep track of everything. But it's a beautiful--and sometimes heartbreaking--story. This one especially has a melancholy to it, but isn't depressing, as you piece together the truth of the inhuma through Horn*'s story. It also includes some journeys to the Red Sun Whorl and Severian of the New Sun sequence. While it fits in-story, it feels somewhat contrived, but I'm willing to forgive that for the impressive story as a whole. And when Hari Mau, who was a character of the *now* timeline in book 1 shows up in the *then* timeline of book 3, I got chills at just how beautifully it all falls into place.
An impressive conclusion to a story by a master at the height of his craft.
August 28, 2024
Fascinating, frustrating. Layers of mystery, fantastically imagined worlds slowly revealed. Endlessly interrupted dialogue. Winding arcs obliquely seen. These books put my brain to work and I think I love it
March 5, 2018
Wolfe ends his Short Sun series - and with it the entire twelve book Solar Cycle - in typically wonderful, confounding, richly theosophical and willfully frustrating fashion.
I realise that those qualities may not sound like much of a recommendation to some readers, or at best appear to be qualified praise, yet this is how Return to the Whorl struck me, and believe it or not I can't recommend it highly enough.
Horn's search for Silk was always going to take him to the Whorl, the huge generation ship which navigated the ignorant colonists to the planets Blue and Green in the Long Sun series. When he gets there nothing happens as you may have expected, nor with the expected consequences.
The mystery of Horn-Silk's persona is revealed (sort of), as is the mystery of the shapeshifting inhumi, who feed like vampires on the human population. As the narrator observes: 'The inhumi are evil creatures, granted. How could they be otherwise?'
As God is to us, we are to the inhumi; which is to say, it is only the relationship and understanding of one to the other that elevates the lesser above the status of the animals.
As such, we behave towards God in the same way the inhumi behave towards us, with a mixture of reverence and betrayal.
But Wolfe wouldn't be Wolfe without creating a new mystery just as he was clarifying some old ones.
There is one incredibly important scene in this book which is left open to a few interpretations so radically different that the entire theosophy of the story - the importance of which can't be overstated - hangs in the balance while you try to figure it out.
I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't say anything definitive (not that I could!) but to me the answer lies between not just Silk and his wife Hyacinth, but between the one-eyed giant Pig also, a superb new character who speaks with an intentionally difficult to interpret Scotch dialect.
You also need to consider the Old Testament creed of 'An eye for eye...', the view of human justice which Jesus superseded in the New Testament with his advice to 'turn the other cheek'.
I did have one or two grumbles.
The first half of the book did include one or two scenes which to my mind dragged on unnecessarily, then the second half did the opposite and rushed through some scenes which could have done with more attention.
Most disappointingly, the much-heralded scene which connected the world of Severian with the whorl of Silk felt like a let-down to me, offering little to the Solar Cycle as a whole.
But I still loved the book and its confused hero(es). As the narrator says of him, he "was the sort of leader we weave legends about but seldom get - or deserve, I might add."
I realise that those qualities may not sound like much of a recommendation to some readers, or at best appear to be qualified praise, yet this is how Return to the Whorl struck me, and believe it or not I can't recommend it highly enough.
Horn's search for Silk was always going to take him to the Whorl, the huge generation ship which navigated the ignorant colonists to the planets Blue and Green in the Long Sun series. When he gets there nothing happens as you may have expected, nor with the expected consequences.
The mystery of Horn-Silk's persona is revealed (sort of), as is the mystery of the shapeshifting inhumi, who feed like vampires on the human population. As the narrator observes: 'The inhumi are evil creatures, granted. How could they be otherwise?'
As God is to us, we are to the inhumi; which is to say, it is only the relationship and understanding of one to the other that elevates the lesser above the status of the animals.
As such, we behave towards God in the same way the inhumi behave towards us, with a mixture of reverence and betrayal.
But Wolfe wouldn't be Wolfe without creating a new mystery just as he was clarifying some old ones.
There is one incredibly important scene in this book which is left open to a few interpretations so radically different that the entire theosophy of the story - the importance of which can't be overstated - hangs in the balance while you try to figure it out.
I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't say anything definitive (not that I could!) but to me the answer lies between not just Silk and his wife Hyacinth, but between the one-eyed giant Pig also, a superb new character who speaks with an intentionally difficult to interpret Scotch dialect.
You also need to consider the Old Testament creed of 'An eye for eye...', the view of human justice which Jesus superseded in the New Testament with his advice to 'turn the other cheek'.
I did have one or two grumbles.
The first half of the book did include one or two scenes which to my mind dragged on unnecessarily, then the second half did the opposite and rushed through some scenes which could have done with more attention.
Most disappointingly, the much-heralded scene which connected the world of Severian with the whorl of Silk felt like a let-down to me, offering little to the Solar Cycle as a whole.
But I still loved the book and its confused hero(es). As the narrator says of him, he "was the sort of leader we weave legends about but seldom get - or deserve, I might add."
Read
August 8, 2019Great writing at times, but at the end of the day I think Wolfe really only had one great opus in him -Book of the New Sun. On some level he himself must have been aware of it. This winding, confusing epic represents his inability to let it go.
August 31, 2012
The grande finale of Gene Wolfe's 12-volume "Solar Cycle", begun over 20 years ago with the "New Sun" quartet/quintet. Nearly all questions are answered about Horn and his altered appearance, his search for the messianic leader Calde Silk back on their mutual home spaceship, and plenty of other lingering plot threads. While all of the books in this series are touching, none may be more so than this one. We see Horn's interactions with a wide range of people and creatures, in an array of environments and situations - some amazingly exotic, others soothingly familiar. Trying to explain it all in a succinct way is impossible. All I can suggest is that you start with The Shadow of the Torturer. See if you can get used to Gene Wolfe's minimalist style. If you can give yourself over to him and meet him halfway as a reader, this entire series will offer you something like you've never read before.
August 13, 2016
Completion of the Book of the Short Sun trilogy. Patera Horn finally finishes his quest for Silk, and to no one's surprise he wasn't as far away as he thought. Or maybe he was. I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. The "deep secret" of the inhumi is revealed, though it wasn't much of a secret if you were paying attention. The weakest point was the last few chapters, penned by Horn's children instead of Horn himself. A strange and unnecessary shift, especially since the final scene did not include any of them, so how could they have possibly been able to retell it? On the plus side, the holes left by the previous books are satisfactorily filled, and connections with the original Book of the New Sun trilogy are established. Astral projection to Blue, Green, the long sun whorl, and the red sun whorl ensues.
June 12, 2016
I'll need time to recollect everything and put my finger on many things this novel offers, but I'll just say that the ending for whatever reason evoked a feeling of completion few novels do.
March 4, 2024
At last, I finished this magnum opus. And what a ride it has been. 12 books of literature gold. Layers on layers of complexity. Although my true love will forever be the first four books, the new sun tetralogy, the book of the short and long sun do not disappoint.
The conclusion the tale of Silk and Horn is epic in proportion. As with Wolfe's tales it contains many a conversations. Some more confusing then others. For me personally it was sometimes hard to get through them, especially Remora and Pig. Although well written characters, I don't feel like the confusion really added too the overall story.
As with many of Wolfe's work, the role of woman is often to serve men. A beautiful plaything to toy with in between.
I would also have loved to read a bit more about Green. A lot is implied and I would have liked him exploring that planet more.
All in all a nice finish to this series. Prepare for intense reading. Intellectual and highly inventive.
The conclusion the tale of Silk and Horn is epic in proportion. As with Wolfe's tales it contains many a conversations. Some more confusing then others. For me personally it was sometimes hard to get through them, especially Remora and Pig. Although well written characters, I don't feel like the confusion really added too the overall story.
As with many of Wolfe's work, the role of woman is often to serve men. A beautiful plaything to toy with in between.
I would also have loved to read a bit more about Green. A lot is implied and I would have liked him exploring that planet more.
All in all a nice finish to this series. Prepare for intense reading. Intellectual and highly inventive.
May 24, 2019
Finale entry in the Book of the Short Sun, final Solar Cycle novel, and wonderful conclusion to a twenty year project by the master. We get most (though not all) of the loose ends which have developed over the course of the first two Short Sun novels tied up. At the beginning of the novel our narrator, whose identity in this book is in serious doubt until the very end, has won two wars for two city-states of Blue (Gaon and Blanko). The leadership ability that he has shown certainly recalls the great, genetically-engineered charisma of Silk from the Long Sun books, whom he has been assigned to track down in the Long Sun Whorl. Our narrator is imprisoned in the city of Dorp for trumped-up reasons, along with one of his sons and his adopted inhuma daughter. He has to use all the trickery at his disposal, including another twin son roaming around town, his own newfound ability to spirit-project to other planets, and his connections with the mysterious former inhabitants of Blue, in order to overthrow the corrupt rule of the judges of Dorp. The scene where one of the Neighbors is deposed in the courtroom of Dorp, which is later transported to the Red Sun Whorl of Severian, is pretty funny, possibly corny but in an enjoyable way.
In the parallel "flashback" story line, the narrator (Horn, who has been reconstituted by the Neighbors in the body of a dying man on the Long Sun Whorl), begins traveling toward his home city of Viron. The Long Sun Whorl has been damaged, I believe during the fighting which began in the Long Sun books, and the Long Sun itself winks out for extended periods. It's also visited by the Fliers, members of Crew who bring the will of Mainframe, and Godlings, giants with claws on their heads. It seems that Pas, the principal god of the Whorl, is trying to drive all the humans down from the Long Sun Whorl onto the world of Blue, but later Silk speaks with one of the godlings who says the opposite. The narrator makes the acquaintance of a blind, genetically engineered giant, who takes the name of Pig. Pig is trying to travel from one end of the Whorl to the other in order to have his eyesight restored at the advanced medical facilities near the engine compartment.
The narrator and Pig have some interesting adventures, encountering a nice couple named Hound and Tansy. Eventually it is more or less confirmed (what had been strongly suggested in the past two books) that the old man in whom Horn was revived by the Neighbors actually was Silk. Silk's spirit has ascended to Mainframe, a sort of digital Valhalla for the gods, who are actually digital scans of the emperor and his cohort back on Urth. We learn the details of Scylla's rebellion against Pas, and that she has been stowing away in the consciousness of beloved pet Oreb since the first Long Sun book.
During his travels in Viron and to the Pole, Horn/Silk is able to recover an eye for Maytera Marble, meet his own father, and retrieve Hyacinth's azoth. The political situation in New Viron is such that Silk's return could prove extremely destabilizing, hence it is useful to the city rulers when a band of Gaonese from Blue come to conscript Silk to be their ruler. (This is where the book ties in with On Blue's Waters.) Silk/Horn agrees with them, on condition that they take him and Pig to the medical facilities at the end of the Whorl. He gives up one of his eyes to Pig, who sets off on his jolly Scottish way back toward the other end of the Whorl, and returns to Blue with the Gaonese.
On Blue, in the "current day" storyline, Horn/Silk enjoys victory over the Dorp judges and returns to New Viron. More political instability and violence lurks in his adopted hometown (Marrow is dead, Gyrfalcon rules), which is more or less the running theme of all the episodes on Blue. He cleverly plays the political game and makes it back to his wife Nettle on their island. She believes it's him until she learns that she's been traveling with an inhuma, specifically Jahlee, who drained their eldest son almost to death, and gave birth to his adopted son Krait. As she dies Jahlee reveals the great secret of the inhumi, which is more or less what I'd inferred from the previous two books: the inhumi only derive their minds from the humans they feed upon. This secret being out leads the inhumi to viciously attack Horn's son's wedding, which results in the death of the New Viron tyrant, which is very suspicious. Did Horn/Silk arrange for Gyrfalcon to attend his son's wedding to make peace, or to set him up to be assassinated (which he is by Marrow's friend or lover)? It's left unclear. The priest of the wedding reveals a prophetic passage to the narrator, to the effect that Hyacinth is still alive (maybe as Seawrack? or Scylla?), and he accepts that he is Silk. Some people choose to return to the Whorl: Silk, Nettle, Seawrack, and Maytera Marble. Horn's sons get set up as the new papermakers and wish the travelers a safe flight.
One thing I left out is the interlude with Severian, which is pretty interesting, although maybe it feels tacked on. He has to have Severian say that he can't include the Long Sunners in his own book because no one would believe it. We get some clarity on the political/theological situation back on Urth. The goddess Abaia is related to the sea goddess on Blue -- maybe it's a network of aliens or altered humans.
The only thing that annoys me a little about reading this book is that I immediately wanted to start reading the entire Solar Cycle again. I first read the New Sun books in 2002, the Long Sun books in 2004, and the first Short Sun book in 2005. I reread New Sun in 2012, but now I really want to read it again. Really one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy epics you could imagine. I miss old Gene.
In the parallel "flashback" story line, the narrator (Horn, who has been reconstituted by the Neighbors in the body of a dying man on the Long Sun Whorl), begins traveling toward his home city of Viron. The Long Sun Whorl has been damaged, I believe during the fighting which began in the Long Sun books, and the Long Sun itself winks out for extended periods. It's also visited by the Fliers, members of Crew who bring the will of Mainframe, and Godlings, giants with claws on their heads. It seems that Pas, the principal god of the Whorl, is trying to drive all the humans down from the Long Sun Whorl onto the world of Blue, but later Silk speaks with one of the godlings who says the opposite. The narrator makes the acquaintance of a blind, genetically engineered giant, who takes the name of Pig. Pig is trying to travel from one end of the Whorl to the other in order to have his eyesight restored at the advanced medical facilities near the engine compartment.
The narrator and Pig have some interesting adventures, encountering a nice couple named Hound and Tansy. Eventually it is more or less confirmed (what had been strongly suggested in the past two books) that the old man in whom Horn was revived by the Neighbors actually was Silk. Silk's spirit has ascended to Mainframe, a sort of digital Valhalla for the gods, who are actually digital scans of the emperor and his cohort back on Urth. We learn the details of Scylla's rebellion against Pas, and that she has been stowing away in the consciousness of beloved pet Oreb since the first Long Sun book.
During his travels in Viron and to the Pole, Horn/Silk is able to recover an eye for Maytera Marble, meet his own father, and retrieve Hyacinth's azoth. The political situation in New Viron is such that Silk's return could prove extremely destabilizing, hence it is useful to the city rulers when a band of Gaonese from Blue come to conscript Silk to be their ruler. (This is where the book ties in with On Blue's Waters.) Silk/Horn agrees with them, on condition that they take him and Pig to the medical facilities at the end of the Whorl. He gives up one of his eyes to Pig, who sets off on his jolly Scottish way back toward the other end of the Whorl, and returns to Blue with the Gaonese.
On Blue, in the "current day" storyline, Horn/Silk enjoys victory over the Dorp judges and returns to New Viron. More political instability and violence lurks in his adopted hometown (Marrow is dead, Gyrfalcon rules), which is more or less the running theme of all the episodes on Blue. He cleverly plays the political game and makes it back to his wife Nettle on their island. She believes it's him until she learns that she's been traveling with an inhuma, specifically Jahlee, who drained their eldest son almost to death, and gave birth to his adopted son Krait. As she dies Jahlee reveals the great secret of the inhumi, which is more or less what I'd inferred from the previous two books: the inhumi only derive their minds from the humans they feed upon. This secret being out leads the inhumi to viciously attack Horn's son's wedding, which results in the death of the New Viron tyrant, which is very suspicious. Did Horn/Silk arrange for Gyrfalcon to attend his son's wedding to make peace, or to set him up to be assassinated (which he is by Marrow's friend or lover)? It's left unclear. The priest of the wedding reveals a prophetic passage to the narrator, to the effect that Hyacinth is still alive (maybe as Seawrack? or Scylla?), and he accepts that he is Silk. Some people choose to return to the Whorl: Silk, Nettle, Seawrack, and Maytera Marble. Horn's sons get set up as the new papermakers and wish the travelers a safe flight.
One thing I left out is the interlude with Severian, which is pretty interesting, although maybe it feels tacked on. He has to have Severian say that he can't include the Long Sunners in his own book because no one would believe it. We get some clarity on the political/theological situation back on Urth. The goddess Abaia is related to the sea goddess on Blue -- maybe it's a network of aliens or altered humans.
The only thing that annoys me a little about reading this book is that I immediately wanted to start reading the entire Solar Cycle again. I first read the New Sun books in 2002, the Long Sun books in 2004, and the first Short Sun book in 2005. I reread New Sun in 2012, but now I really want to read it again. Really one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy epics you could imagine. I miss old Gene.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2019
I am certain of only one thing after reading these 3 books ( well, the whole Solar Cycle is told in 12 books ): that I need to read them all again for 4 reasons:
1- they are absolutely pleasurable to read
2- they offer literary puzzles that make it worth a second read
3- As Tad Williams says, and I loosely paraphrase him "Gene Wolfe seems to get there and describe what he sees" because his stories are so vivid that it is hard to think about them as fiction.
4- I recall my literature teachers back in high school and their defenses of the joys of literature. I cannot think of any other finer example than all these 3/12 books.
1- they are absolutely pleasurable to read
2- they offer literary puzzles that make it worth a second read
3- As Tad Williams says, and I loosely paraphrase him "Gene Wolfe seems to get there and describe what he sees" because his stories are so vivid that it is hard to think about them as fiction.
4- I recall my literature teachers back in high school and their defenses of the joys of literature. I cannot think of any other finer example than all these 3/12 books.
July 3, 2021
All 12 books of this one DONE. Although I think it's certainly flawed at times (there's SO much dialogue in here, much of it expository- he clearly got better at managing that later in his career and didn't do it as much earlier in his career), the book is just doing something that kind of transcends any sort of nitpicky criticism I can muster. I'll probably still be reading fan theories and whatnot until I inevitably reread the entire series in 2027 or whatever.
I'll probably read Peace, and maybe some short stories, and that's it for me and Wolfe for 2021, I think.
I'll probably read Peace, and maybe some short stories, and that's it for me and Wolfe for 2021, I think.
March 10, 2024
It is like finishing a feast. I am over-full, tired, and a part of me greedily wants to go back for seconds. Another part of me fears that I will never eat at a table filled with so many new and wonderful flavours ever again. But I am pleased with having been here for this.
July 22, 2007
Well, here I am, finally at the end of the epic "Sun Cycle" (i.e. The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and the Book of the Short Sun, a neat 12 books long). It is epic, and I'm happy to say that in the Book of the Short Sun (of which this is the last volume) includes trips to all three whorls: the Short Sun, the Long Sun, and the Red Sun.
I liked it, and this last book proved very exciting. Of course, it would be almost meaningless if you hadn't read the previous 11 books first. And, it might be plausibly argued that the excitement of this book isn't quite worth some of the less exciting places in the others. I disagree, however.
I didn't really appreciate the subtlety of these books properly until reading these books. It was there all along, but I missed some of it then. It wasn't until Harry Potter was thrust on me directly after finishing this book that I really appreciated Wolfe's tricks and turns, subtlety, inference, and unreliable narrators.
Potential spoilers below: don't read this if you haven't read all these books... be careful, and don't say you haven't been warned.
Mostly, I'm just really unhappy with what happened to Silk. I don't think that the Silk we knew in Book of the Long Sun would have joined up as an aspect of Pas. I agree he would have passed the caldéship to Mint, and from Mint to Bison, and retired from public life, but he never wanted to become God, let alone a false god to draw people away from the real religion he realized was out there.
I was very upset when I finished reading the Long Sun because I was certain that Silk had died, but I was also extremely pleased. Silk had died, but it was the most tragically heartbreaking death, and end, to the whole series I could ask for. Silk, the truly good, wandering off to his death through a minefield in search of his love, a gold-digging whore? Perfect. But Silk should never have survived that, and I didn't want him to.
Even after seeing what it enables in the Book of the Short Sun, I would trade those books back to Wolfe just to get him to leave Silk dead or alive in our imaginations, where he truly belongs.
I liked it, and this last book proved very exciting. Of course, it would be almost meaningless if you hadn't read the previous 11 books first. And, it might be plausibly argued that the excitement of this book isn't quite worth some of the less exciting places in the others. I disagree, however.
I didn't really appreciate the subtlety of these books properly until reading these books. It was there all along, but I missed some of it then. It wasn't until Harry Potter was thrust on me directly after finishing this book that I really appreciated Wolfe's tricks and turns, subtlety, inference, and unreliable narrators.
Potential spoilers below: don't read this if you haven't read all these books... be careful, and don't say you haven't been warned.
Mostly, I'm just really unhappy with what happened to Silk. I don't think that the Silk we knew in Book of the Long Sun would have joined up as an aspect of Pas. I agree he would have passed the caldéship to Mint, and from Mint to Bison, and retired from public life, but he never wanted to become God, let alone a false god to draw people away from the real religion he realized was out there.
I was very upset when I finished reading the Long Sun because I was certain that Silk had died, but I was also extremely pleased. Silk had died, but it was the most tragically heartbreaking death, and end, to the whole series I could ask for. Silk, the truly good, wandering off to his death through a minefield in search of his love, a gold-digging whore? Perfect. But Silk should never have survived that, and I didn't want him to.
Even after seeing what it enables in the Book of the Short Sun, I would trade those books back to Wolfe just to get him to leave Silk dead or alive in our imaginations, where he truly belongs.
September 29, 2013
The Final Volume of the Book of the Short Sun.
This follow-up to On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles continues the saga of the man who calls himself Horn, and his quest to find the political and spiritual leader, Patera Silk, and bring him back to settle political unrest in his hometown.
As in the previous two books, Wolfe uses an unreliable narrator, who speaks of things happening in multiple places and times, and whose perspective on events seems to frequently shift and disagree with that of other characters. Philosophical themes include musings on identity, religion, and the various sorts of bonds that there are between people...
Although it's not absolutely that a reader be familiar with Wolfe's works The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the New Sun to read this (though it wouldn't hurt, either), I would say that one absolutely has to have read the two previous books in this particular series for the story to make any sense whatsoever.
Having read them, I enjoyed this conclusion very much - a few story arcs I wish could have been drawn together in a more dramatic and satisfying way - but, on the other hand, it fits with the style to not wrap everything up into a neat package
This follow-up to On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles continues the saga of the man who calls himself Horn, and his quest to find the political and spiritual leader, Patera Silk, and bring him back to settle political unrest in his hometown.
As in the previous two books, Wolfe uses an unreliable narrator, who speaks of things happening in multiple places and times, and whose perspective on events seems to frequently shift and disagree with that of other characters. Philosophical themes include musings on identity, religion, and the various sorts of bonds that there are between people...
Although it's not absolutely that a reader be familiar with Wolfe's works The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the New Sun to read this (though it wouldn't hurt, either), I would say that one absolutely has to have read the two previous books in this particular series for the story to make any sense whatsoever.
Having read them, I enjoyed this conclusion very much - a few story arcs I wish could have been drawn together in a more dramatic and satisfying way - but, on the other hand, it fits with the style to not wrap everything up into a neat package
February 24, 2013
Wolfe's Sun series culminating in this one isn't just a set of very good books to read, it constitutes one of the masterpieces of our age, and perhaps longer than that. There are many many layers here and just who the narrator is becomes unclear. Return to the Whorl is a story of return to self. That's about as much as I can say without giving crucial things away. Each of these books take place on blue with the story of what took place on Green, the Whorl and the Red sun learned increasingly from someone's memory or dream. So many things become subtle clear only on reflection. The secret of the inhumu is reveled 100 times, but to what effect? And just what was that beast with 3 horns? Eh?
I'd like Wolfe to go back and edit a couple of technical points. In the hollowed out Whorl, Wolfe completely forgets the importance of plate tectonics. The whorl would quickly become just a flat mud puddle without some way of recycling the sediment that flowed into the lake after a rain. That's the fate that plate tectonnics saves us form on Earth. We'd need some similar recycling on the Whorl. Maybe a job for those Godlings. Also, what really happens to an airship on a spinning world? There is no gravity, just inertia.
Anyhow. Way better than a "good read", a great read.
I'd like Wolfe to go back and edit a couple of technical points. In the hollowed out Whorl, Wolfe completely forgets the importance of plate tectonics. The whorl would quickly become just a flat mud puddle without some way of recycling the sediment that flowed into the lake after a rain. That's the fate that plate tectonnics saves us form on Earth. We'd need some similar recycling on the Whorl. Maybe a job for those Godlings. Also, what really happens to an airship on a spinning world? There is no gravity, just inertia.
Anyhow. Way better than a "good read", a great read.
January 23, 2015
It is hard for me to explain why I've taken so long to read this book. I embarked on re-reading The Book of the Long Sun when I also started a long journey of my own, and without intending it I incorporated The Book of the Short Sun into that journey. There is a big change coming for me soon and I wanted to finish the reading before that; but still, it should not have taken me years. Finishing it only makes me want to read it all again.
I will take some of Wolfe with me on my new journey. I have The Book of the New Sun on audio, already loaded onto my little player. The other two will go into boxes and into storage, and give me something to come back to. Perhaps I'll have more perspective and new insights for another reading.
Silk, Horn .. the most amazing characters. Here is the quote that sums it up well: "he loved everybody, and until you meet somebody like him, you will never know how scary that was."
I will take some of Wolfe with me on my new journey. I have The Book of the New Sun on audio, already loaded onto my little player. The other two will go into boxes and into storage, and give me something to come back to. Perhaps I'll have more perspective and new insights for another reading.
Silk, Horn .. the most amazing characters. Here is the quote that sums it up well: "he loved everybody, and until you meet somebody like him, you will never know how scary that was."
December 28, 2024
The structure of The Book of the Long Sun and The Book of the Short Sun is as follows: (1) something inexplicable happens; then (2) characters play a game of twenty questions revealing slowly, interspersed with many digressions, what just transpired pages before. Overall, a great series--nothing else like it.
September 16, 2012
To review it would imply I understood it, but I am still mulling it around.
In short, though, no other author can simultaneously baffle and amaze me as can Gene Wolfe when he's at the top of his game, and the "Sun" novels are an astonishing achievement in genre literature.
In short, though, no other author can simultaneously baffle and amaze me as can Gene Wolfe when he's at the top of his game, and the "Sun" novels are an astonishing achievement in genre literature.
March 3, 2024
The narrative of Gene Wolfe's Book Of The Short Sun has been tricksy thus far - the questions "who is writing this? when? and why?" floating around as the story switches between the quest of paper-maker Horn for his lost mentor Silk, and the later exploits of a man who believes he's the former but resembles the latter, and is trying to write down his unreliable memories of Horn's adventures.
In Return To The Whorl, most questions are answered, but not before the narrative has broken down entirely - "Horn" continues to write in the present day as he seeks to return home, but his story is broken up by third-person flashbacks, and other characters take a turn at the metaphorical wheel. And even when "Horn" is writing the speed of events is overtaking him, and the chronology of his retelling fractures - not to mention the fact that he's acquired the ability to transport his soul, and the souls of everyone around him, to an ancient world rotting in the shadow of a dying sun, where he finds himself a visitor to a certain guild of torturers...
Summarised thus, Return To The Whorl sounds like a book, and a series, at great risk of disappearing up its own arse in a cloud of self-conscious difficulty with a fuligin lining of fan service. In fact it's for the most part a thoughtful, often sad and sometimes very beautiful end to Wolfe's work, both the 3-volume Short Sun series, the 7-book saga about the life and legacy of Patera Silk, and ultimately the complete "Solar Cycle". The connective plot tissue between New Sun and Short/Long Sun remains fairly flimsy - despite a couple of cute retcons there's nothing here that recasts the earlier work in a new light. But thematically the twelve books really are a unit - an exploration of humanity's relationship with the divine and with its own capacity for evil, of individuals' efforts to do or be good, and of the question "how are we to live?"
(If there's one part of New Sun which the wider Solar Cycle would make me re-evaluate, it's Severian's experiences as Autarch - the longer series is full of characters whose personal growth is expressed in their attempts to rule others as well as themselves, when those duties are, almost invariably, forced upon them.)
Whether you prefer to investigate these questions via a gothic science-fantasy epic, a fast-paced story about the politics of a generation ship, or a cryptic planetary romance will sway your choice of New, Long or Short Sun. Though Short Sun doesn't stand on its own and makes few claims to - so the choice is really a binary: Severian or Silk?
Silk is all over Return To The Whorl, even if he's deeply unwilling to identify himself. After this many books, his tone is unmistakeable - kindly, patient, a little pedantic, always challenging people to be better than they are, tormented to the point of self-destruction by the fact that they aren't. As the title suggests, it's a book of returns - to the setting of the Long Sun series, to many of its cast, to Horn's home town of New Viron and ultimately to the point where the solar cycle began.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book has an elegiac tone - what peril there is tends to be quickly skipped by, and the bulk of the story is spent in conversation. The revelations we get - the identity of the narrator, the link between Horn and the inhuma Jahlee, and the whole closely-guarded "secret" of the inhumi - are satisfying for how they are handled, not because they were hard to intuit from the previous books.
But even they aren't the point. There's a lot of complexity in Book Of The Short Sun, and this volume especially is genuinely tangled in its approach to narrative. Efforts to 'decode' it, though fascinating, miss out on what for me is the point of Return To The Whorl and its sub-series as a whole. This is the most emotional Wolfe book I've read, a story about family and found family, heroes and leaders, and the ways in which love, disappointment and forgiveness plays out among all of them. Its density and intricacy are delightful, but it's the quieter, more human aspects that make Book Of The Short Sun one of Wolfe's finest.
In Return To The Whorl, most questions are answered, but not before the narrative has broken down entirely - "Horn" continues to write in the present day as he seeks to return home, but his story is broken up by third-person flashbacks, and other characters take a turn at the metaphorical wheel. And even when "Horn" is writing the speed of events is overtaking him, and the chronology of his retelling fractures - not to mention the fact that he's acquired the ability to transport his soul, and the souls of everyone around him, to an ancient world rotting in the shadow of a dying sun, where he finds himself a visitor to a certain guild of torturers...
Summarised thus, Return To The Whorl sounds like a book, and a series, at great risk of disappearing up its own arse in a cloud of self-conscious difficulty with a fuligin lining of fan service. In fact it's for the most part a thoughtful, often sad and sometimes very beautiful end to Wolfe's work, both the 3-volume Short Sun series, the 7-book saga about the life and legacy of Patera Silk, and ultimately the complete "Solar Cycle". The connective plot tissue between New Sun and Short/Long Sun remains fairly flimsy - despite a couple of cute retcons there's nothing here that recasts the earlier work in a new light. But thematically the twelve books really are a unit - an exploration of humanity's relationship with the divine and with its own capacity for evil, of individuals' efforts to do or be good, and of the question "how are we to live?"
(If there's one part of New Sun which the wider Solar Cycle would make me re-evaluate, it's Severian's experiences as Autarch - the longer series is full of characters whose personal growth is expressed in their attempts to rule others as well as themselves, when those duties are, almost invariably, forced upon them.)
Whether you prefer to investigate these questions via a gothic science-fantasy epic, a fast-paced story about the politics of a generation ship, or a cryptic planetary romance will sway your choice of New, Long or Short Sun. Though Short Sun doesn't stand on its own and makes few claims to - so the choice is really a binary: Severian or Silk?
Silk is all over Return To The Whorl, even if he's deeply unwilling to identify himself. After this many books, his tone is unmistakeable - kindly, patient, a little pedantic, always challenging people to be better than they are, tormented to the point of self-destruction by the fact that they aren't. As the title suggests, it's a book of returns - to the setting of the Long Sun series, to many of its cast, to Horn's home town of New Viron and ultimately to the point where the solar cycle began.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book has an elegiac tone - what peril there is tends to be quickly skipped by, and the bulk of the story is spent in conversation. The revelations we get - the identity of the narrator, the link between Horn and the inhuma Jahlee, and the whole closely-guarded "secret" of the inhumi - are satisfying for how they are handled, not because they were hard to intuit from the previous books.
But even they aren't the point. There's a lot of complexity in Book Of The Short Sun, and this volume especially is genuinely tangled in its approach to narrative. Efforts to 'decode' it, though fascinating, miss out on what for me is the point of Return To The Whorl and its sub-series as a whole. This is the most emotional Wolfe book I've read, a story about family and found family, heroes and leaders, and the ways in which love, disappointment and forgiveness plays out among all of them. Its density and intricacy are delightful, but it's the quieter, more human aspects that make Book Of The Short Sun one of Wolfe's finest.
May 13, 2023
Been reading a lot of Wolfe the last half year or so, he's quickly become one of my favorite authors now that I've gotten used to his style.
This is kind of a review for not only this book but for the Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun, so beware spoilers if you've somehow read this without the previous books. I'm still digesting this, it definitely leaned more into fantasy even more then the Long Sun. Not sure about the Inhuma and how they work, or for that matter the planets Blue and Green. I think it's telling that some of my favorite parts of the book was when Horn was back on Whorl. At times it felt like he never really developed Blue and Green as well as the Whorl was, so everything taking place there suffered. Maybe that's on purpose, as it was almost solely the work of Horn without Nettle's help?
Also I felt for as much as Nettle was mentioned, she was short changed. I heard this mentioned to be bit of a take on the Odyssey, but in that you had much more of an idea of what was happening with Penelope, in this , other than longing for her, you really don't know much of anything about Nettle, we don't even get other peoples opinions or thoughts about her. Surely Hoof and Hide must have had something more to say about her?
But perhaps that is a result of Horn's obstinancy. The reader is very quickly convinced that Horn, after dying on Green, was somehow able to transfer his conciousness into Silk's body. Yet Horn ignores and refutes all evidence to the contrary, continually saying he is searching for him when he must know he cannot find him.
But that's the fun in Gene Wolfes work, thinking about why he does certain things in the way he does them and what he may want the reader to get out of it. I'm sure in the future I'll give the series a reread and much more will be clearer to me.
One thing that's been puzzling me is the occasional misnaming of people that began in the Book of the Long Sun. Several times Marble is misnamed as Mint, I'm assuming on purpose, once when Silk was waiting to board the Airship and another time when they are in the tunnels near the very end. It seems like it becomes more prevalent in the book of the Short Sun , although specific examples elude me at the moment. Is it about identity? You have the 3 sibyls to begin with, representing the maiden the mother and the crone, i assume, is it that all 3 of them contain elements of the others? And Horn ends up inhabiting Silks body, and becomes more and more like him as well. Fun things to think about. Probably going to take a brief pause before starting nay new Wolfe.
This is kind of a review for not only this book but for the Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun, so beware spoilers if you've somehow read this without the previous books. I'm still digesting this, it definitely leaned more into fantasy even more then the Long Sun. Not sure about the Inhuma and how they work, or for that matter the planets Blue and Green. I think it's telling that some of my favorite parts of the book was when Horn was back on Whorl. At times it felt like he never really developed Blue and Green as well as the Whorl was, so everything taking place there suffered. Maybe that's on purpose, as it was almost solely the work of Horn without Nettle's help?
Also I felt for as much as Nettle was mentioned, she was short changed. I heard this mentioned to be bit of a take on the Odyssey, but in that you had much more of an idea of what was happening with Penelope, in this , other than longing for her, you really don't know much of anything about Nettle, we don't even get other peoples opinions or thoughts about her. Surely Hoof and Hide must have had something more to say about her?
But perhaps that is a result of Horn's obstinancy. The reader is very quickly convinced that Horn, after dying on Green, was somehow able to transfer his conciousness into Silk's body. Yet Horn ignores and refutes all evidence to the contrary, continually saying he is searching for him when he must know he cannot find him.
But that's the fun in Gene Wolfes work, thinking about why he does certain things in the way he does them and what he may want the reader to get out of it. I'm sure in the future I'll give the series a reread and much more will be clearer to me.
One thing that's been puzzling me is the occasional misnaming of people that began in the Book of the Long Sun. Several times Marble is misnamed as Mint, I'm assuming on purpose, once when Silk was waiting to board the Airship and another time when they are in the tunnels near the very end. It seems like it becomes more prevalent in the book of the Short Sun , although specific examples elude me at the moment. Is it about identity? You have the 3 sibyls to begin with, representing the maiden the mother and the crone, i assume, is it that all 3 of them contain elements of the others? And Horn ends up inhabiting Silks body, and becomes more and more like him as well. Fun things to think about. Probably going to take a brief pause before starting nay new Wolfe.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2024
I completed this book almost a month ago but I have struggled to write a coherent review.
To try to limit the meaning of this book within the borders of a “review” feels reductive. TO spend paragraphs detailing the plot feels mechanical. This review must aim to capture the essence of the book - but how do I do that exactly? Can I capture the essence of the Illiad or the Odyssey? I doubt that. I can try and I can fail - that is a course of action that Silk would approve of.
This is a book about pain. Pain courses through the pages of this book like a river, gurgling just out of sight , leading you on with its promise.
This is a book about the how we view ourselves vs how the world views us - about how there can sometimes be a certainty that we are worth nothing , when , in actual fact our survival is a necessity.
This is a book about despair , and humanity and how, every human , if they live long enough will reach a breaking point, a sense of being out of sync with the purpose they felt they must embody. Give in to that despair and you have set a self fulfilling prophecy in motion.
This is a book about what it means to be human - at the edges of space and time, at the end of everything.
Gene Wolfe is one of the greatest authors in the world because his science fiction is a thinly veiled excuse to write about humanity and how , human beings never change, no matter how far into the future they may go. HIs books are relevant because being human is painful and technology allows us to suspend human feelings and replace human activity and experience for a brief period of time. This shared pain can be forgotten - and we can cease to be human. Wolfe’s books are an antidote to that sense of helplessness that the modern world sometimes engenders within us.
As we reach our thirties - through some strange and rather unsavoury alchemy we are rudely reminded of our mortality- and of course the mortality of everyone else in our lives. Memento Mori is a stoic exercise but a brutal one - everyone we know and everything we live will pass away. How do you bear that knowledge?
Over the course of three books, Silk/ Horn is forced to reckon with this very fact - to stare at his own failures and his own mortality within the mirror and reawaken to some form of sanity. I broke down in tears when I finished this book - it held up a mirror to my life and my pain. If you allow it to do the same for you, it will hold up a mirror to you as well.
To try to limit the meaning of this book within the borders of a “review” feels reductive. TO spend paragraphs detailing the plot feels mechanical. This review must aim to capture the essence of the book - but how do I do that exactly? Can I capture the essence of the Illiad or the Odyssey? I doubt that. I can try and I can fail - that is a course of action that Silk would approve of.
This is a book about pain. Pain courses through the pages of this book like a river, gurgling just out of sight , leading you on with its promise.
This is a book about the how we view ourselves vs how the world views us - about how there can sometimes be a certainty that we are worth nothing , when , in actual fact our survival is a necessity.
This is a book about despair , and humanity and how, every human , if they live long enough will reach a breaking point, a sense of being out of sync with the purpose they felt they must embody. Give in to that despair and you have set a self fulfilling prophecy in motion.
This is a book about what it means to be human - at the edges of space and time, at the end of everything.
Gene Wolfe is one of the greatest authors in the world because his science fiction is a thinly veiled excuse to write about humanity and how , human beings never change, no matter how far into the future they may go. HIs books are relevant because being human is painful and technology allows us to suspend human feelings and replace human activity and experience for a brief period of time. This shared pain can be forgotten - and we can cease to be human. Wolfe’s books are an antidote to that sense of helplessness that the modern world sometimes engenders within us.
As we reach our thirties - through some strange and rather unsavoury alchemy we are rudely reminded of our mortality- and of course the mortality of everyone else in our lives. Memento Mori is a stoic exercise but a brutal one - everyone we know and everything we live will pass away. How do you bear that knowledge?
Over the course of three books, Silk/ Horn is forced to reckon with this very fact - to stare at his own failures and his own mortality within the mirror and reawaken to some form of sanity. I broke down in tears when I finished this book - it held up a mirror to my life and my pain. If you allow it to do the same for you, it will hold up a mirror to you as well.
April 13, 2020
Gene Wolfe is widely regarded as one of the best SF/Fantasy writers of the 20th century. His books are typically difficult, mystical, and feature unreliable narrators. The first series in The Solar Cycle is The Book of the New Sun, and this is a fantastic series. It sets up the atmosphere and background of the story so well, and the characters and plot are some of the best in SF/Fantasy. It is rightly regarded as one of the greatest series in the genre.
The second series in The Solar Cycle is The Book of the Long Sun, which, while it has many of the same elements as The Book of the New Sun and is set in the same universe, possibly taking place slightly before the first series, the third and fourth books suffer from serious pacing and structural problems. In Return to the Whorl, the final book of The Book of the Short Sun, Gene Wolfe has one of the characters say "I have a mania for recording conversations." This is one of the main causes of the pacing problem. For long stretches of those two books, the characters are simply sitting down and talking. And the horrible thing is that their dialogue is so natural, in the way that people get off topic, don't say what they mean, and are sometimes too polite which makes their sentences even wordier.
I greatly enjoyed the first two books of The Book of the Short Sun. I even enjoyed large sections of Return to the Whorl, especially how it begins to tie back to the first series in interesting ways. However, Wolfe's predilection for recording inane conversation runs rampant on multiple occasions, often for 20-40 pages at a time.
If you can purge yourself of the worship that most people give Wolfe, acknowledge his many flaws as a writer, I think The Solar Cycle as a whole is still worth reading from beginning to end, and I feel that Return to the Whorl is a fitting ending to it. For readers who do not have the patience, The Book of the New Sun remains the strongest section and is also a good place to stop.
The second series in The Solar Cycle is The Book of the Long Sun, which, while it has many of the same elements as The Book of the New Sun and is set in the same universe, possibly taking place slightly before the first series, the third and fourth books suffer from serious pacing and structural problems. In Return to the Whorl, the final book of The Book of the Short Sun, Gene Wolfe has one of the characters say "I have a mania for recording conversations." This is one of the main causes of the pacing problem. For long stretches of those two books, the characters are simply sitting down and talking. And the horrible thing is that their dialogue is so natural, in the way that people get off topic, don't say what they mean, and are sometimes too polite which makes their sentences even wordier.
I greatly enjoyed the first two books of The Book of the Short Sun. I even enjoyed large sections of Return to the Whorl, especially how it begins to tie back to the first series in interesting ways. However, Wolfe's predilection for recording inane conversation runs rampant on multiple occasions, often for 20-40 pages at a time.
If you can purge yourself of the worship that most people give Wolfe, acknowledge his many flaws as a writer, I think The Solar Cycle as a whole is still worth reading from beginning to end, and I feel that Return to the Whorl is a fitting ending to it. For readers who do not have the patience, The Book of the New Sun remains the strongest section and is also a good place to stop.
January 31, 2020
This is the final series of Wolfe's Solar Cycle. The overarching theme of the series is the colonization of the planets Blue and Green, and the challenges the colonists face transitioning from the Long Sun Whorl (their generation ship, and the subject of the second series of the Solar Cycle). Disparate peoples inhabited the Long Sun Whorl, and came in waves to the new planets. The darker sides of humanity are on display as the waves meet, and an emissary is sent to find a savior who can bring out the good in humanity. My favorite thing about this final book is that it actually closed the loop (vaguely) in connecting this series to the Book of the New Sun.
The action centers around this emissary, who serves as the narrator for most of the series. Like the majority of Wolfe's narrators, he is not exactly reliable. He is an entertaining character, though flawed, and reasonably self-aware of these flaws, though also somewhat narcissistic and confident in how he handles everything. The total number of trials he overcomes in this series is a bit absurd, but it holds to the style that Wolfe introduced in the Book of the New Sun. The writing is strong throughout the book. The storytelling drags a little bit, but caught me up so that I kept going to find out how it resolved. I feel this way about most of Wolfe's books. The story is engaging, the writing is grandly ponderous, and requires more attention from me as a reader than a lot of the entertainment fantasy I read. I think it is important to read through some of where scifi/fantasy came from, and Wolfe was a ground-breaking writer for the genre; may light perpetual shine upon him.
The action centers around this emissary, who serves as the narrator for most of the series. Like the majority of Wolfe's narrators, he is not exactly reliable. He is an entertaining character, though flawed, and reasonably self-aware of these flaws, though also somewhat narcissistic and confident in how he handles everything. The total number of trials he overcomes in this series is a bit absurd, but it holds to the style that Wolfe introduced in the Book of the New Sun. The writing is strong throughout the book. The storytelling drags a little bit, but caught me up so that I kept going to find out how it resolved. I feel this way about most of Wolfe's books. The story is engaging, the writing is grandly ponderous, and requires more attention from me as a reader than a lot of the entertainment fantasy I read. I think it is important to read through some of where scifi/fantasy came from, and Wolfe was a ground-breaking writer for the genre; may light perpetual shine upon him.
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