Rating: 
Summary: No surprises here, mostly a disappointment
Review: If you're already a Gene Wolfe fan, you may like this series. If this is your first Gene Wolfe series, you may never read his work again after this series. I've read his "New Sun" books and enjoyed them very much because, while it's heavy reading - you really have to pay attention - there are some stunning surprises. Unfortunately, in the Book of the Long Sun, there are no surprises. You already know when you read the back cover of the books that the people are on a "generation starship". Figuring out who the "gods" are and the meaning of "Mainframe" isn't too difficult either. By the end of the fourth book, there really isn't anything special that is revealed that you couldn't figure out long before. Another major problem with this whole series is that seemingly trivial events are often covered in pain-staking detail, while more important things are glossed over entirely. At the end of this volume, the long-awaited visit to Mainframe is dealt with in less than a chapter. All in all, quite a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: A socerer's-apprentice of a book
Review: In this four-volume soap opera (begin anywhere, but you're committed to the end), Mr. Wolfe appears to have studied the techniques of the Great Masters, and studied well: his hard-science toys approach the best of Niven, his horror crawls up your spine like Lovecraft, his generation-ship echoes Clark. He seems to have chosen a poor master for his religeon work (Hubbard, perhaps?), his feminism could use a quick LeGuin refresher, and his politics ... well, perhaps he had to skip his Herbert class - but no one can be expected to master everything. His personal contribution, however, is only a rather incomplete paste-up of these studied touches into a not-quite connected narrative which never quite announces its point, nor ever seems to feel it's been reached.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, as usual
Review: Last (?) part of the series. Escape from this artificial planet and the chaos that reigns there. Intriguing to the end. Why is it the end, Please write another?
Rating: 
Summary: Not Wolfe's best, but still tricky and deep
Review: Many would say that The Book of the Long Sun is disappointing after reading the Book of the New Sun, but the BotLS is every bit as mysterious and twisting as any other major work by Wolfe.In _Exodus from the Long Sun_, Wolfe ties up the BotLS but still leaves behind numerous puzzles. Years after reading this for the first time, I have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion on Silk's love for the former prostitute Hyacinth, or the nature of Pas by the end of the novel. Much of what befell the colonists who left the Whorl is revealed in the Book of the Short Sun (two volumes already released, one to come), but there's so much that the reader just can't immediately get. My complaints about this volume of the BotLS is that the end is much too compressed. Wolfe set out to write a trilogy and ended up with four books, but writing five may have been worth it. The visit to Mainframe, a major event in the book, is but glossed over. Still, it was nice to have Horn give the reader several pages to summarize his views of the inhabitants of Viron.
Rating:
Summary: Not Wolfe's best, but still tricky and deep
Review: Many would say that The Book of the Long Sun is disappointing after reading the Book of the New Sun, but the BotLS is every bit as mysterious and twisting as any other major work by Wolfe. In _Exodus from the Long Sun_, Wolfe ties up the BotLS but still leaves behind numerous puzzles. Years after reading this for the first time, I have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion on Silk's love for the former prostitute Hyacinth, or the nature of Pas by the end of the novel. Much of what befell the colonists who left the Whorl is revealed in the Book of the Short Sun (two volumes already released, one to come), but there's so much that the reader just can't immediately get. My complaints about this volume of the BotLS is that the end is much too compressed. Wolfe set out to write a trilogy and ended up with four books, but writing five may have been worth it. The visit to Mainframe, a major event in the book, is but glossed over. Still, it was nice to have Horn give the reader several pages to summarize his views of the inhabitants of Viron.
Rating:
Summary: What in the "Whorl" is going on?
Review: The biggest letdown in my recent reading memory. None of the plotlines were brought together in any satisfying way - yet this was supposed to be the last in a series of four novels.Even Wolfe must feel the need for wrapping up all those loose ends since he's releasing yet another volume.
Rating:
Summary: A beautifully-drawn portrait of a beautiful man.
Review: Up until the very end, this story plunges headlong through plots, counter-plots, villains-turned-heroes, and mysteries revealed and explained. I found the very end of this book to be somewhat abrupt, as if Mr. Wolfe were trying to finish up before a time deadline or a word-limit. Nonetheless, I loved this roller-coaster of a story and will take the ride again in a few years all over again. For all related books, search under Gene Wolfe's name for all titles with the word "sun" in them.
Rating:
Summary: The end of a wild ride of reading!
Review: Up until the very end, this story plunges headlong through plots, counter-plots, villains-turned-heroes, and mysteries revealed and explained. I found the very end of this book to be somewhat abrupt, as if Mr. Wolfe were trying to finish up before a time deadline or a word-limit. Nonetheless, I loved this roller-coaster of a story and will take the ride again in a few years all over again. For all related books, search under Gene Wolfe's name for all titles with the word "sun" in them.
Rating:
Summary: A beautifully-drawn portrait of a beautiful man.
Review: We've all read "genetic superman" type books before, from Dune to Stranger in A Strange Land to The Stars My Destination, but Gene Wolfe (arguably the finest living writer in SF&F or any genre, including mainstream Lit) really achieves it here, with a portrait of a moral as well as physical and mental "superman" in Patera Silk. More overtly religious in tone than even Wolfe's masterpiece Saviour-of-the-Earth series "The Book of The New Sun", this is the story of a young pagan priest's coming of age, following his enlightenment by the Christian God, in the fantastical enVirons of a decrepit generation ship ruled by computer program "Gods" who don't want the passengers---who're unaware there's anything artificial about their Whorl--- to disembark once it reaches its destination. Besides the fascinating cast of characters, subtle plot twists and multilayered levels of meaning we've come to expect from Wolfe, this is mainly the story of A Beautiful Man. Patera Silk is a believable, moral man, gentle and peace-loving and Christian in nature without knowing Christ, who sees the best in all people and is STILL a genetic "superman", with unusual strength, stamina, reflexes and healing abilities and a facile mind. You ponder out the logical solutions to the many mysteries that await you in this book with him, often arriving at the same logical but WRONG conclusions that the vast body of misleading information leads you to, and love every minute of it! This series is not only highly entertaining and outre, as all Wolfe's work is, but also serves as a valid political commentary of the power structure of a typical human city and a beautifully-drawn portrait of a truly Beautiful Man, of which I haven't read many! My only negative about this fine series is the abrupt, unresolved ending (apparently to be continued in the Books of The Short Sun) and the revelation of a first person narrator, who is not the main character, near the end of the last author-omniscient third person narrative. Still, flawed Wolfe (and this means flawed in comparison to his perfect Book of The New Sun series) is better than 99 percent of all other writers in any genre. As always with Mr. Wolfe, read it and be enriched.
Rating: 
Summary: Book of the Long wind
Review: Wolfe has significantly lost his form in this series compared with the Book of the New Sun. He's trying for the same sense of phantasmagoria but fails. You can see him trying too hard. The world is unconvincing - I tried to suspend belief and just go with the flow but it was just too slow.
|
