In Green's Jungles

Rating:
Summary: Fine -- but Lacking
Review: In Green's Jungles covers Horn's second stop on his way home to the Lizard. Contrary to its title, the novel only barely touches on events, many of them major, that took place on Green. Most of the story focuses on a war between two neighboring cities. I found In Green's Jungles more difficult to enjoy than volume 1, and was often annoyed at Wolfe's unnecessary convolution of simple events. Moreover, the war between the cities, as well as most of the characters involved, seemed inconsequential. This induces the suspicion that the whole book might have been written to stretch a two-book story to trilogy length. Even so, it was a pleasure to read, and I highly recommend the entire series to SF fans who enjoy Wolfe's unique and puzzling style.

Rating:
Summary: Fine -- but Lacking
Review: In Green's Jungles covers Horn's second stop on his way home to the Lizard. Contrary to its title, the novel only barely touches on events, many of them major, that took place on Green. Most of the story focuses on a war between two neighboring cities. I found In Green's Jungles more difficult to enjoy than volume 1, and was often annoyed at Wolfe's unnecessary convolution of simple events. Moreover, the war between the cities, as well as most of the characters involved, seemed inconsequential. This induces the suspicion that the whole book might have been written to stretch a two-book story to trilogy length. Even so, it was a pleasure to read, and I highly recommend the entire series to SF fans who enjoy Wolfe's unique and puzzling style.

Rating:
Summary: The Book of the Short Sun continues brilliantly
Review: IN GREEN'S JUNGLES is the second volume of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Short Sun, which is (to put it briefly) the story of Horn's return to the Whorl to bring Silk to Blue.

The narrator's identity is again a mystery. He believes himself to be Horn, but remembers things falsely and is constantly identified as Silk. Having escaped from Gaon, where the throne was forced upon him in virtual imprisonment, the narrator comes to the town of Blanko, whose citizens believe him a magician and seek his council in their war. Thus, he is drawn into yet another bloody conflict, underscoring the need of Silk on Blue, in order to save its colonists from their fighting (and their original sin).

Unlike ON BLUE'S WATERS, where the narrator reflected happily on the first leg of his voyage to the Long Sun Whorl, Horn's remembrances here, of terrifying Green, are told shakily. Horn's death on Green, spoken of in the first book, is but the last of a series of crushing experiences on that dangerous whorl, and Horn cannot face them outright.

Other surprises await the reader. Our narrator discovers that he can astrally project himself to other worlds in his dreams. This sort of mysticism evokes fond memories of THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN. And in a tear-inducingly beautiful passage, Wolfe's Christian allusions manifest themselves with an inadvertent Eucharist, which may be the most moving thing Wolfe has ever written.

More readable then ON BLUE'S WATERS due to its gripping plot machinations and surprising developments, IN GREEN'S JUNGLES continues the satisfying trend of the Book of the Short Sun.

Rating:
Summary: Just dreadful - Wolfe's revenge - skip this book
Review: Mr Wolfe hops from the future to the present to the past, and back without warning, dwells on trivial detail while he omits most all major events in the stories, mixes short stories and nightmare visions into the "plot", so the reader has no idea what might be really going on.

The writing in "Blue" as almost comprehesible and now this!

Where was the editor with the red pen?

This potboiler book does not seem to be important to the plot line of the series and can be easily skipped. It reads as it is notes or an undeveloped plot outline.

Spend your money on the "Return to the Whorl" and bypass this.

Rating:
Summary: Solid style; weak content.
Review: N.B.: This review assumes you have already read ON BLUE'S WATERS.

IN GREEN'S JUNGLES is, I imagine most people interested in this book would know, the second in the three part "Short Sun" trilogy. ON BLUE'S WATERS was a journal chronicled by a man whose identity is in doubt. Is he Horn? Silk? The Rajan? Perhaps even something or someone else? The book was largely the recollection of his journey, and its reasons, from New Viron to Pajarocu and ends with Horn, Sinew, Krait and a number of other colonists at the mercy of the inhumu who tricked the colonists into returning to a lander supposedly flying to the Long Sun Whorl. Parts of the journal are interspersed with daily concerns of the narrator who is now Rajan of Gaon. These daily summaries escalate towards war and then, when the war has been won, the Rajan escapes, convinced he will be executed. (This five-second summary for those who may not recall much of ON BLUE'S WATERS.)

IN GREEN'S JUNGLES follows a similar thread as ON BLUE'S WATERS; however, the majority of the book is a chronicle of the former Rajan's arrival at a small where he is greeted as a strego (a male witch) and continues with his subsequent guidance of that village (Blanko) in a war against a rival village (Soldo). He is given and accepts the name Incanto by the leader of the village, Inclito. Somehow, somewhere and possibly somewhen Incanto has gained the power to travel between whorls. Literally. I won't say more than that. While narrating, we learn that the inhumu have infiltrated humanity to a much greater extent than previously believed; we also learn, if we pay enough attention to the text, the secret the inhumu are so desperate to keep from humanity. That is, if Incanto speaks the truth to... well, enough said.

During the course of the adventure, Incanto travels with several others to Green and another familiar whorl where they may or may not die while acting as if they are corporeal ghosts and may or may not return alive to their point of origin. But Incanto's original and subsequent visists to Green are short and given short shrift. IN GREEN'S JUNGLES is not so much about Green as it is about another part of Blue. I found this disappointing, largely because the title led me to believe that we would have Wolfe's trademark descriptive power and intriguing characterizations on a whole new whorl, one that promises wonders and thrills and fears suited to Wolfe's unique talents.

Yet little of the novel is about that mysterious planet, and in fact, this feels like familiar material. We have seen war from Wolfe's viewpoint; we have seen Blue and this new novel contributes little new material to that rather dull planet. The surprises are not terribly surprising, and the novel contributes virtually nothing to the main mystery, namely exactly who is the narrator and how did he obtain the objects that mark him as a strego? Nor does the novel address the curious Neighbors except in old and familiar and timeworn ways. The inhumu are the most interesting race created in the last decade at least (clearly modeled on vampires, certainly, but the detail and the descriptive point of view lend a great deal of credibility and logic to an illogical species) but the secret -- if it really is the secret; and we may have to wait for RETURN TO THE WHORL for more detail -- is disappointingly dull and rather obvious.

This book has the feel of a novel written to connect two novels rather than as a necessary and significant element to the overall story. Forgive me the comparison, but IN GREEN'S JUNGLES left me with the same sense of disappointment as THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK -- in other words, it feels as if it nothing more than connective tissue with little interesting to say.

I doubt that this will dissuade Wolfe fans from reading IN GREEN'S JUNGLES or anxiously awaiting RETURN TO THE WHORL; I know I'm anxious, hoping that the final novel will demonstrate that all I have said above is a lie, and that the apparent familiarity of topic and dullness of plot are merely products of not knowing the full story.

Rating:
Summary: Short Sun Continues Brilliantly
Review: The Short Sun series is shaping up to be the best thing Wolfe has written since THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. This second volume continues the narration of the quest to recover Silk.

Lupine surprises and unanswered(?) questions abound, and to discuss the events relayed in this middle volume would be to spoil the joy of discovery for other readers--besides, until the final volume is published and we've reread the whole thing a few times, we probably won't fully know the story. Wolfe's work, like life and unlike so much fiction, grows richer with each return; like old friends, his novels reward attention and familliarity breeds delight rather than contempt (born out of boredom).

The manner in which the story is presented is, as in ON BLUE'S WATERS, complex even for Wolfe--multiple time frames and threads of narrative are blended expertly. The way Wolfe works his magic through the guise of a "rambling" and "unskilled" narrator is truly beautiful. One of the best things about this book is its extended use of a device employed with great skill in THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH: Wolfe transforms what might be an artifical narrative technique into a moving commmentary on that most fundamental of human activities, the telling of a story.

For, in the end, it isn't the brilliant prose or the narrative genius that makes this a great work. Rather, it is the moving, wise, and loving exploration of what it means to live and love, to feel the immense pain of consciousness and to do good and evil that justifies the elaborate machinery--to tell a lie beautifully is unfortunate, but to tell the truth with skill and beauty is to achieve greatness.

Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing and beautifully written
Review: This latest novel is the middle book in a trilogy called The Book of the Short Sun. The Book of the Short Sun is (we are told) narrated by Horn, who was born on the generation ship called the Long Sun Whorl, and who was a teenaged boy during the events of Wolfe's earlier tetralogy, The Book of the Long Sun. At the time of this new series, he has lived on the planet Blue for something over 20 years. He has a wife and three sons, and he is a papermaker. Blue is one of two twin planets, the other called Green, to which the generation ship brought many colonists from Earth. The first of the trilogy, On Blue's Waters, told the story of his quest for the city of Pajarocu, which had a still-functional lander (a "shuttle" capable of interplanetary flight), in which he hoped to return to the Long Sun Whorl and find his beloved teacher, Patera Silk, the hero of The Book of the Long Sun, who he hopes will restore order to the decaying society of his colony city, New Viron. At the end of that book, Horn and his estranged son Sinew were on the lander, ready to take off.

As the title of the new book hints, the lander did not make it to the Long Sun Whorl, but rather was diverted to Green. Green is the home of the blood-drinking, shape-changing, inhumi, creatures who seem to take on the characteristics of their prey. (Some inhumi have infested Blue, including a young male who Horn "adopts" in the first book, but they are more numerous on Green, and they seem to keep human slaves.) Both books are narrated after Horn returned to Blue from Green, however. And the Horn who returned seems oddly different. He has all Horn's memories, but some others as well, and he has changed physically. This was clear in On Blue's Waters, but is made much clearer in In Green's Jungles, and there are many hints as to what or who Horn might now be, though no answers are given. The story in both books is told on parallel tracks: one revealing ongoing "present time" events on Blue after Horn's return, and another consisting of a book that Horn is writing as we are reading it, more or less. Especially in the latest book, the narrative is thus intricately structured, and Wolfe uses this structure to considerable effect.

Horn has left the town of Gaon, where he was acting as Rajan, the ruler, during the first book, and he has come to a town called Blanko. His appearance, and his companion, the talking bird Oreb, cause people to regard him as a strego, or magician. He is taken in by the leading farmer of this city, who is trying to prepare for an invasion by a neighbouring city. Horn befriends this family, and eventually helps prepare their defence. At the same time he is continuing to write his account, which includes some stories of his terrible time on Green, where he is imprisoned by the inhumi, but with the apparent help of the previous natives of Blue, the Vanished People, he manages to escape only to lose both his real son, Sinew, and his adopted son, the inhumu Krait, and eventually, it seems, his life. But he is not dead. This story is intertwined with tales told by his host, Inclito, his host's mother, who recalls life in the Long Sun Whorl, and by Inclito's teenage daughter Mora and her friend Fava. All these strands weave together in a complex way, answering some questions but suggesting many more about the relationship between humans, inhumi, and the mysterious Vanished People, who may still be present in some form. Horn has developed a mysterious power of "dream travel", which takes the characters to Green on occasion, and even to the "Red Sun Whorl", which a reader of Wolfe's great earlier series will recognize as Urth at the time of The Book of the New Sun.

The story is mesmerizing. It is beautifully written in the comparatively simple style Wolfe adopted for The Book of the Long Sun. The mysteries are fascinating and seem significant. But it's hard to make a final judgment, because this is only the middle volume of the story. Nonetheless, I can say that I am eagerly awaiting the final volume. This trilogy has a chance to be magnificent. Wolfe's regular readers will not be disappointed by the story so far, and as for those who have yet to discover Wolfe, do yourself a favor and give his work a try.

Rating:
Summary: Superlative Wolfe
Review: This was the first Wolfe hardback I bought, and I wasn't disappointed at all. I had bought Robert Jordan's Winter's Heart the day before, sped read it, was thoroughly disgusted with it, and returned it, using the money to purchase this gem instead. I should've never veered from Wolfe. Wolfe delivers his mysteries upon mysteries and stories within stories. This is Wolfe: sharp, feral, brilliant, and sagacious. Bend time and space with Horn as he continues his quest for Silk (Ho Oreb!), plays Rajan, and pursues his risky relationships with the inhumi. Wolfe is not for the mere SF reader: he is for the SF thinker.

Rating:
Summary: New Sun, Long Sun and Short Sun
Review: This year my experience of our trip to Vancouver was enriched by the first two volumes of The Book of the Short Sun, the sequel to the Book of the Long Sun, which I had re-read in preparation. It's certainly a vivid story ' weeks later I can still picture myself sitting on the balcony in Strathcona looking out on the lake while at the same time visiting the steaming jungles on Green, and the rotting city of the Inhumu there. It's a pretty amazing effect to be in two places at once ' that's what happens when you are reading a good book. Put it down, check on your surroundings, take care of a little 'business,' then pick it up again ' and you are suddenly transported to another place and time: vividly, viscerally. You see it all in your mind's eye.

The 'long sun whorl' is the interior of a hollowed out asteroid hundreds of miles long, converted to the generational starcrosser, Whorl. Inside, Wolfe creates a mysterious and evocative world in four volumes, centered on the city of Viron, nearby Lake Limna and the many tunnels that run through the shiprock below, populated by an attractive cast of characters led by Patera Silk, augur of the Sun Street manteion, who was recently enlightened with a spiritual epiphany by one of the minor gods, the Outsider, opening a floodgate of theophanies of all sorts. The Gods, who have been absent for more than a generation (occupied in Mainframe), unexpectedly begin appearing in the Sacred Windows all over the city, communicating with and possessing key people from all walks of life, thieves, priests and whores, while civil war breaks out between the establishment forces of the Ayuntmiento, (both bios and chems) versus Silk's friend General Mint and her loyalists and troops, many of them children and commoners. Finally, the Gods make it known that the Whorl has reached its destination.

The Book of the Long Sun is a tour-de-force, a truly great extended novel of eerie beauty and wonder, and while totally different in narrative style (first person vs. third) the Homeric Book of the Short Sun is an admirable extension of it. After 300 years, the Whorl has reached its destination, and landers take hundreds of colonists at a time to either of the two planets in this star system. The fortunates land on the earth-like planet Blue, while the unlucky end up on Green, likely to die quickly in its jungles or be enslaved by the vampiric Inhumu.
This is the story of Horn, just a boy in the first series, who is now a man with grown children of his own, who leaves his wife and sons on Lizard Island in search of his mentor, the legendary Silk. Like much travel writing the story jumps back in forth in time, from the present (his surrounding time and place as he is writing) to the past events he is trying to recount.

The story is amazing. I called it Homeric, because it is clearly inspired by The Odyssey, yet it is just as clearly Wolfe's own, populated by familiar characters like Mucor and her 'grandmother' the blind chem Maytera Marble (who is also inhabited and inspired by her 'sib' the late bio sybil Maytera Rose), but also by dozens of new, vividly-drawn people, neighbors, gods, animals and inhumu across a multi-hued palate of the worlds Blue, Green, and (in the third book) Horn's Return to the Whorl. Wolfe is even able to tie everything back to giant red sun of the dying Urth in The Book of the New Sun, because the ancient metropolis of Nessus is shown to be the origin of the Whorl. It is a lot to think about. Devour these books and, like the fearsome alzabo of old Urth (who mimics the voice of its prey after devouring it), you will hear Wolfe's voice and see his worlds for a long time to come.

Rating:
Summary: New Sun, Long Sun and Short Sun
Review: This year my experience of our trip to Vancouver was enriched by the first two volumes of The Book of the Short Sun, the sequel to the Book of the Long Sun, which I had re-read in preparation. It�s certainly a vivid story � weeks later I can still picture myself sitting on the balcony in Strathcona looking out on the lake while at the same time visiting the steaming jungles on Green, and the rotting city of the Inhumu there. It�s a pretty amazing effect to be in two places at once � that�s what happens when you are reading a good book. Put it down, check on your surroundings, take care of a little �business,� then pick it up again � and you are suddenly transported to another place and time: vividly, viscerally. You see it all in your mind�s eye.

The �long sun whorl� is the interior of a hollowed out asteroid hundreds of miles long, converted to the generational starcrosser, Whorl. Inside, Wolfe creates a mysterious and evocative world in four volumes, centered on the city of Viron, nearby Lake Limna and the many tunnels that run through the shiprock below, populated by an attractive cast of characters led by Patera Silk, augur of the Sun Street manteion, who was recently enlightened with a spiritual epiphany by one of the minor gods, the Outsider, opening a floodgate of theophanies of all sorts. The Gods, who have been absent for more than a generation (occupied in Mainframe), unexpectedly begin appearing in the Sacred Windows all over the city, communicating with and possessing key people from all walks of life, thieves, priests and whores, while civil war breaks out between the establishment forces of the Ayuntmiento, (both bios and chems) versus Silk�s friend General Mint and her loyalists and troops, many of them children and commoners. Finally, the Gods make it known that the Whorl has reached its destination.

The Book of the Long Sun is a tour-de-force, a truly great extended novel of eerie beauty and wonder, and while totally different in narrative style (first person vs. third) the Homeric Book of the Short Sun is an admirable extension of it. After 300 years, the Whorl has reached its destination, and landers take hundreds of colonists at a time to either of the two planets in this star system. The fortunates land on the earth-like planet Blue, while the unlucky end up on Green, likely to die quickly in its jungles or be enslaved by the vampiric Inhumu.
This is the story of Horn, just a boy in the first series, who is now a man with grown children of his own, who leaves his wife and sons on Lizard Island in search of his mentor, the legendary Silk. Like much travel writing the story jumps back in forth in time, from the present (his surrounding time and place as he is writing) to the past events he is trying to recount.

The story is amazing. I called it Homeric, because it is clearly inspired by The Odyssey, yet it is just as clearly Wolfe�s own, populated by familiar characters like Mucor and her �grandmother� the blind chem Maytera Marble (who is also inhabited and inspired by her �sib� the late bio sybil Maytera Rose), but also by dozens of new, vividly-drawn people, neighbors, gods, animals and inhumu across a multi-hued palate of the worlds Blue, Green, and (in the third book) Horn�s Return to the Whorl. Wolfe is even able to tie everything back to giant red sun of the dying Urth in The Book of the New Sun, because the ancient metropolis of Nessus is shown to be the origin of the Whorl. It is a lot to think about. Devour these books and, like the fearsome alzabo of old Urth (who mimics the voice of its prey after devouring it), you will hear Wolfe�s voice and see his worlds for a long time to come.