(This review originally appeared on my own weblog, Where Worlds Collide)
While on holiday I finally finished the reading "Return to the Whorl", the final volume of Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the Short Sun" science-fiction trilogy. A deep, complex and literary work, it's one of those books I know I shall have to read a second (and possibly third) time to fully understand.
The "Short Sun" trilogy is a direct sequel to Wolfe's earlier "Book of the Long Sun" tetralogy. The Book of the Long Sun is set in a vast generation starship, The Whorl, three hundred years into it's vogage, and concerns the adventures of a novice priest, Silk. The story becomes more complex as Silk discovers more of the true nature of The Whorl, it's 'gods', and his own destiny.
The the first volume of the Book of the Short Sun, "On Blue's Waters" starts as the story of Horn, the supposed author of Book of the Long Sun, now living on the colony world of Blue. Civilisation on Blue is degenerating into anarchy, and what passes for the rulers of the city of New Viron see Silk as the only person that can save it from collapse. Horn's mission to return to The Whorl to find Silk.
As expected in a Gene Wolfe novel, nothing is as simple as it seems, and it grows more complex and adds layers as the story progresses. In the first volume, we learn that the narrator is now ruler of another town on the colony world, Gaon, and the story of Horn's journey towards The Whorl took place many years earlier, a device used in Wolfe's earlier "Book of the New Sun". But by the second volume, "In Greens Jungles", the 'present-day' story of the ruler of Gaon takes over the bulk of the narrative. And the indentity of the narrator becomes more uncertain.
Article comments
1 - Mac
So here's a question from someone who has read nothing of GW's:
Long Sun, Short Sun, New Sun - which should I start with?
2 - Mike
I would read them in publication order. Short Sun is difficult and should not be attempted until reading the other two series.