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Summary: Wolfe's Latest Great Work
Review: Gene Wolfe's latest narrator is not, appearances to the contrary, Odin or Ulysses. Just who he really _is_ remains a tantalizing mystery at the end of this first volume of Wolfe's Book of the Short Sun. Read New Sun and Long Sun before starting this trilogy; that's my advice, though others think it isn't essential (even if it isn't, why deny yourself the pleasure of reading more work by Gene Wolfe?). This new "series" (it's a novel, of course, in parts) is good work, possibly better than Long Sun--ON BLUE'S WATERS is some of Wolfe's finest writing since the first volume of THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. This (final?) trip to the Universe of the Increate and the Outsider (which is, of course, our own universe, seen through a mirror, brightly and darkly) promises to be a fitting capstone--taken together, the various Sun Books are surely among the most lovingly crafted and wisely conceived visions of man's place in the universe ever devised.
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Summary: New World, New Quest, New Narrator, Same Great Writing
Review: General for all books in "The Book of the Short Sun" ("On Blue's Waters", "In Green's Jungles", "Return to the Whorl"): This third series of books, which are a direct continuation of the books in "The Book of the Long Sun" and an semi-direct continuation of the books of "The Book of the New Sun" is similar in its writing style and tone. When you start to read "On Blue's Waters" you feel like you've been thrown into an alien world inhabited by non-alien people with an alien culture. That's what Gene Wolfe has created in these books. He has gone where few authors have dared to go: in the very distant future of Mankind; not a few decades or a few hundred years, but many thousands of years. Frank Herbert, in the "Dune" books, started nine thousand years or so into our future. In Gene Wolfe's books, we don't know how far into the future we've gone, but it's well beyond what Herbert did, as the sun is cooling.The characters in these books are highly developed, three-dimensional, and realistic. The story-line is extremely non-linear, with abrupt shifts in time and setting, along with dream sequences loaded with meaning. It takes a while to get accustomed to that style, and some readers might not like it, but it was worth it for me. The writing is highly descriptive, and one comes away with a feeling of having visited the places described and having known the characters. One strange note about the series as a whole is that its central character, Horn, gets semi-transformed into Patera Silk, the central character of "The Book of the Long Sun", as the story progresses (or does he?). This series of books also resurrects from "The Book of the Long Sun" one of the most entertaining supporting characters I've ever encountered, Oreb, the semi-intelligent, wise, and highly vocal bird who was the constant companion of Patera Silk and is now the companion of Horn, the new central character. For "On Blue's Waters": The story starts off twenty years or so after the end of "The Book of the Long Sun", with Horn (a character from the "The Book of the Long Sun") setting off on a quest to find Patera Silk, the hero and central character of "The Book of the Long Sun". It takes a while to get used to the very non-linear nature of the narrative. Horn has to find Pajarocu, a semi-legendary city that has a spaceship capable of returning to the Long Sun Whorl (an enormous, semi-evacuated orbiting spaceship), where he believes Patera Silk to be. While most of the characters in the book are human, there are also the inhumi, the race of intelligent but parasitic beings that evolved on Planet Blue's neighbor, Planet Green, and eventually spread to Blue, as well as the Neighbors or Vanished People, who were the original inhabitants of Blue before being nearly killed off by the inhumi. There might also be a race of superbeings who functioned as the gods of the Vanished People, but we're never sure of that. Overall, this is a strange, well-written, complex, and enchanting tale.
Rating:
Summary: New World, New Quest, New Narrator, Same Great Writing
Review: General for all books in "The Book of the Short Sun" ("On Blue's Waters", "In Green's Jungles", "Return to the Whorl"): This third series of books, which are a direct continuation of the books in "The Book of the Long Sun" and an semi-direct continuation of the books of "The Book of the New Sun" is similar in its writing style and tone. When you start to read "On Blue's Waters" you feel like you've been thrown into an alien world inhabited by non-alien people with an alien culture. That's what Gene Wolfe has created in these books. He has gone where few authors have dared to go: in the very distant future of Mankind; not a few decades or a few hundred years, but many thousands of years. Frank Herbert, in the "Dune" books, started nine thousand years or so into our future. In Gene Wolfe's books, we don't know how far into the future we've gone, but it's well beyond what Herbert did, as the sun is cooling. The characters in these books are highly developed, three-dimensional, and realistic. The story-line is extremely non-linear, with abrupt shifts in time and setting, along with dream sequences loaded with meaning. It takes a while to get accustomed to that style, and some readers might not like it, but it was worth it for me. The writing is highly descriptive, and one comes away with a feeling of having visited the places described and having known the characters. One strange note about the series as a whole is that its central character, Horn, gets semi-transformed into Patera Silk, the central character of "The Book of the Long Sun", as the story progresses (or does he?). This series of books also resurrects from "The Book of the Long Sun" one of the most entertaining supporting characters I've ever encountered, Oreb, the semi-intelligent, wise, and highly vocal bird who was the constant companion of Patera Silk and is now the companion of Horn, the new central character. For "On Blue's Waters": The story starts off twenty years or so after the end of "The Book of the Long Sun", with Horn (a character from the "The Book of the Long Sun") setting off on a quest to find Patera Silk, the hero and central character of "The Book of the Long Sun". It takes a while to get used to the very non-linear nature of the narrative. Horn has to find Pajarocu, a semi-legendary city that has a spaceship capable of returning to the Long Sun Whorl (an enormous, semi-evacuated orbiting spaceship), where he believes Patera Silk to be. While most of the characters in the book are human, there are also the inhumi, the race of intelligent but parasitic beings that evolved on Planet Blue's neighbor, Planet Green, and eventually spread to Blue, as well as the Neighbors or Vanished People, who were the original inhabitants of Blue before being nearly killed off by the inhumi. There might also be a race of superbeings who functioned as the gods of the Vanished People, but we're never sure of that. Overall, this is a strange, well-written, complex, and enchanting tale.
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Summary: Review of On Blue's Waters
Review: Honestley, I was a little bit hesitant to but this book, but for a good reason. I didn't want to risk being dissapointed because I thought that Wolfe could not possibly have outdone himself yet again with a tremendous story following the exploits of an astounding protaganist. I shouldn't have wasted my time worrying! Yet again Wolfe has triumphed and defended his title as my favorite author. Horn is every bit a work of art, just as Severian and Silk were before him. Blue is a world given flesh by its very real seeming characters, just as was Urth and the Whorl. READ DESPITE ALL COSTS TO A NORMALLY FUNCTIONING LIFE!!!
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Summary: Wolfe devours the reader
Review: I have never gone through 15 works by one author and still longed for so much more. The whole New Sun, Long Sun, and Short Sun series I've finished now, and the Fifth Head of Cerberus was tantalizing mind-game. Once you experience Wolfe, you will never read anything as coherent, labyrinthine, and elegant as his books. While the popular fantasy and SF authors continue to mulct money from the masses, Wolfe continues to earn a meager living, when he deserves much more. Wolfe is not for the mere SF reader: he is for the SF thinker.
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Summary: Simply embarrassing that more people don't read Wolfe
Review: I looked at my local Barnes and Noble. I drove to a Borders which was over 30 minutes away, betting that Borders would be better than B&N (typically, it is). I called the two local sci-fi specialty shops to see if they had it. None of the above had the new Wolfe book. It is terribly embarrassing. Orson Scott Card, who once was a fine writer and is now turning out drivel, has lots of shelf space. The Phanton Menace has lots of shelf. Even William Shatner, unconsciouly ironic in his latest, has space. What is going on? Is Wolfe too literate for people? IN any event, you simply cannot continue living if you haven't read Wolfe. Start with the Torturer series; it and Dune represent the two best achievements of the genre. Then read the Calde series -- the prose is not as rich as the Torturer series, but the plot is more compelling. And then go buy this book, and pray Wolfe continues to write.
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Summary: Worth reading twice
Review: I read this book the first time it came out, then I reread it when I receieved the second (In Green's Jungles)in the trilogy to refresh my memory. Written as if it were an actual journal, the narrator describes his journey and its purpose: an odyssey across the oceans of the planet Blue to reach a spaceship that will return to the Whorl (a generation starship) to retrieve a god-like man named Silk, who is believed to be capable of saving the narrator's city from self-destruction. There are also the the events currently happening to the character, who is the Solomonesque Rajan (a type of ruler)of a people far from his native land. Both stories escalate in tension. During his odyssey (and I use this word deliberately), the narrator encounters a number of wonderfully drawn characters. There is the blind and probably crazy robot Maytera Marble and her 'granddaughter' Mucor, who is capable of sending her spirit across the whorl of Blue. (Both are characters from the Long Sun series; it is best to read Long Sun first, but not necessary.) When leaving the rock, the hero is joined by Mucor's loyal hus named Babbie, an eightlegged creature of enormous intelligence. Later, he will also encounter a mermaid and her goddess Mother and an inhumu, a vampire-like creature from Blue's twin planet Green. Have you wondered why I haven't named the main narrator? That is because it is unclear exactly who he is. Ostensibly, it is Horn. Throughout, Horn describes physical changes that have occurred to him. He occasionally lapses into describing Horn in the third person. He also carries artifacts that at one time belonged to Silk, including a night chough and an azoth. It is likely that he is a least partially Silk, though that is unclear. Running out of paper, the narrator quickly describes the climax of both stories, which are more cliffhangers than legitimate endings. Throughout are references to his visit to the planet Green, which are tantalizingly vague but detailed enough to whet the appeptite for the next two books, and then there are the numerous references to his failure to find Silk. Yet if he is at least partially Silk as seems probable, then what happened on Green and did he reach the Whorl? Like nearly all Wolfe novels, it demands an enormous amount of patience and focus on the reader's part. It is initially disorienting because it is the rambling thoughts of the narrator and because it is difficult to know exactly who he is; it is definitely worth a second and perhaps even a third reading. It is not a novel for readers who want those nine billion page pale Tolkien imitations; it is not a beach novel. If your definition of speculative fiction encompasses only the innumerable Star Trek paperbacks (and those terrible crimes against the wallet: the hardback novels), then this novel is not for you. It is a difficult read, but for the patient and careful reader it offers the pleasure of discovery and thoughtful analysis as well as the wonderful style we have come to expect from Wolfe. Sadly, while it will no doubt be enjoyed by the many Wolfe fans and perhaps a few other adventurous souls, it will largely be ignored by both the critics and the majority of readers. This is shameful, for this is likely to be one of the greatest American novels of the last hundred years.
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Summary: Wolf is on top of his game
Review: In the continuation of Wolfe's classics, The Book of the Short Sun and The Book of the Long Sun, On Blue's Waters is a tour de force for Wolfe. His ability to describe the fantastic and the ugly with equal beauty make this book impossible to put down. The best part is that it's a trilogy. A must read for sci-fi/ fantasty buffs.
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Summary: Wolfe's latest masterpiece: mysterious, dark, and enigmatic
Review: In this latest work, the first volume of the Book of the Short Sun, Gene Wolfe plays a twisting narrative game in which appearances are never what they seem. Allusion to mythology and theology abound, and the reader is always challenged in finding how the Book of the Short Sun will relate to his previous works. Unlike the Book of the Long Sun's protagonist Patera Silk, the narrator here is no saint. In fact, it is very difficult for the reader to justify some of Horn's actions. But that is where Wolfe's superb characterization comes in, because Horn seems a real person, and he does bad things and makes faulty decisions. Numerous questions are raised, and left unanswered in this book, which is understandable because it is merely the first book of a three-volume series. I eagerly await the arrival of the next volume.
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Summary: I Can't Get Enough of the Urth/LongSun/ShortSun saga
Review: Many have compared this to Homer's Odyssey. On retrospect I would agree. This book continues Horn's story and adventures on the planet Blue. What I like about Wolfe is that from any point in time you not only go forward but backward. As he reveals Horn's future we continue to learn more and more about his past. What we thought we already read and understood in the Long Sun books is further explained, questioned and explored. Like peeling the layers of an onion Wolfe keeps us hooked looking towards the future and the past. I am currently reading In Green's Jungles and can't wait for Return to the Whorl. Once finished I'll probably go all the way back to the Book of the New Sun and reread all three series in order. You can never reread Wolfe enough. You will always find more nuggets.
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