From archive (archive) Xref: sssab.se rec.arts.sf-lovers:9690 rec.arts.books:2919 Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Subject: ENDANGERED SPECIES by Gene Wolfe Message-ID: <4841@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> Date: 26 Apr 90 16:28:46 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 38 ENDANGERED SPECIES by Gene Wolfe Tor, 1990 (1989c), ISBN 0-812-50718-5, $4.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper This collection of thirty-four stories by one of the leading literary science fiction authors of today is billed on the cover as "one of the most important collections of the decade" (FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION) and "the best single-author collection you will see this year" (ANALOG). For a change, the blurbs are not just hype. First of all, this is a much larger collection than one usually sees-- almost twice the usual number of stories. The result is that we can see a much wider range of Wolfe's talent than a normal-length collection would show us. Secondly, though all the stories have been previously published elsewhere, they are not what you would call readily available. For example, "Our Friend by Charles Dickens" appeared in ROOMS OF PARADISE edited by Lee Harding. Try finding that at your local Waldenbooks--or even Forbidden Planet! Notable stories include the aforementioned "Our Neighbor by David Copperfield," an excellent story to give your friend who loves Dickens's style. "In the House of Gingerbread" is a wonderful twist and re-twist on the classic children's story; "The War Beneath the Tree" also takes an interesting turn at the end. Unfortunately, even such a literary work as this is not free of typos; in "The God and His Man" the sword is named either "Maser" or "Master," depending on what sentence you're in. These stories cover the range of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. My only quibble is the omission of "Slaves of Silver," Wolfe's foray into Sherlockiana, but that's a minor objection. If you're interested in seeing where science fiction concepts meet mainstream literary values, buy this book. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun May 3 19:29:11 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic2!mcsun!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: GENE WOLFE'S BOOK OF DAYS by Gene Wolfe Message-ID: <1992May1.195801.22345@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 1 May 92 19:58:01 GMT Article-I.D.: raven.1992May1.195801.22345 Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network Lines: 50 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu GENE WOLFE'S BOOK OF DAYS by Gene Wolfe A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper You're probably asking why I'm bothering to review a seven-year-old book now, especially in a British edition. Well, first of all, some people who are reading this may actually live in Britain, but also, if I managed to find this, you might too. Clearly I'm going to recommend this book (else why would I be reviewing it?). It's an intriguing idea--eighteen stories, each for a particular holiday. Though this edition is British, there was an American edition in 1981, which would explain the choice of some purely American holidays: Lincoln's Birthday, Arbor Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, .... It's odd, in fact, that Independence Day is missing--I wonder if it was in the original edition and omitted in this one. And the Memorial Day story is about World War II, not the Civil War. I should explain to the majority of United States readers as well as those elsewhere that Arbor Day is a holiday celebrating trees (no, not by cutting them down, like at Christmas, but by planting them). It's very popular in the Midwest, especially in the schools--I can remember every year in school in Illinois buying a small sapling for a nickel (if I recall correctly--certainly no more than a dime) and taking it home to plant it in the yard. Two or three of the five actually survived until we moved-- they may still be there. However, it could be that the Midwest borrowed it from Israel. (Gene Wolfe lives in either Illinois or Indiana, so that would explain his use of Arbor Day.) Now that I have finished the Midwest cultural lesson, I can return to the book at hand. What makes this collection even more unusual is that Wolfe did not start out to write a story for each holiday. The copyright dates indicate that they were written over a span of several years, but this merely underscores the importance holidays have in our lives. Even when the holiday is not mentioned in the story, it is the same underlying motivation for both. Wolfe's stories would be good even without the holiday theme, but it serves to focus our attention on the fact that holidays were not just invented by greeting card companies (well, not all holidays anyway) and that they have a meaning and, to the extent they show us that meaning, a purpose. And this is what makes this collection worth seeking out. %B Gene Wolfe's Book of Days %A Gene Wolfe %C London %D 1985 %I Arrow %O paperback, UKL2.25 [1981 copyright] %G ISBN 0-09-939230-5 %P 246pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From archive (archive) From: donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Subject: Re: Wolfe Date: 8 Feb 88 08:10:32 GMT A selection of comments on Gene Wolfe's novel FREE LIVE FREE: I hated it. -- ltsmith@MITRE.ARPA (LT Sheri Smith USN) ... I frankly am still not sure I liked it. -- chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) [A]fter _Operation_Ares_, ... probably his poorest book. -- djk@vail.columbia.edu (David Kurlander) I didn't like Free Live Free as well as Wolfe's other books... -- geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) I guess I must be a minority of one -- I absolutely loved FREE LIVE FREE. If you didn't like FREE LIVE FREE, you surely will abhor PEACE, which was the book that convinced me Wolfe was my favorite writer back when I first found a copy in the Los Altos Public Library in 1977. These novels contain Wolfe's best and funniest writing, and some of his most interesting characters. Neither book is science fiction, although I have seen various reviewers trying to paint FREE into this corner. These novels have more in common with books like Crowley's LITTLE, BIG than with NEW SUN, perhaps, but I hardly find this disappointing; an author is not a product, nor even a brand name, and I take it as a sign of originality that an author can be perceived as 'abandoning his loyal readers' in search of new ones. I hate spoiling books, but since FREE LIVE FREE seems to have generated such wide misunderstanding, I'll drop two pointers. What is Candy's favorite movie? (Hint: it's mentioned in the first few pages.) Try to imagine FREE as a liberal remake of this movie, and perhaps the novel will make some sense to you. The other thing you can do for yourself is to re-read the excellent novella 'The Eyeflash Miracles' in the DOCTOR DEATH collection -- I like to think of it as a study for FREE. Wolfe loves to leave clues like this in his stories. Here are some more, free of charge: To understand PEACE, you must understand the title; the 'study' for PEACE is the story 'The Changeling', in the BOOK OF DAYS. The key to THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, however, is the protagonist's name (no, it's not 'Number Five'). It took me at least a couple readings of each novel (sometimes many more!) before I appreciated Wolfe's cleverness... Of course none of you has any special obligation to enjoy a book you don't understand, but it's frustrating to me to see so quickly dismissed a book that I thought was beautiful and deep and funny and magical, and I wonder how I can communicate my feeling to you if you couldn't extract it from the author's own words. The worst cut was comparing FREE to OPERATION ARES, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@cs.utah.edu 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 utah-cs!donn From archive (archive) From: donn@CS.UTAH.EDU (Donn Seeley) Subject: Two new books by Gene Wolfe Date: 27 Nov 87 11:49:47 GMT THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN. Gene Wolfe. Tor: NYC. 372 pp. hc., c1987. EMPIRES OF FOLIAGE AND FLOWER. Gene Wolfe. Cheap Street: Route 2, Box 293, New Castle VA 24127. 80 pp. hc. signed slipcased, c1987. I finally got to meet Gene Wolfe this summer at Readercon. It was a curious experience -- Wolfe looks, talks and acts so completely unlike what you might expect from his writing that at first glance you might imagine the real Wolfe to be a Salinger-style hermit and that this man has stolen his name and reputation. There's a lot of Texas in his deep drawl; his face seems very bland and middle-American, except for his eyes. Nothing to suggest the florid Gothic manner of THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS or the NEW SUN books... In person I found him amiable and intimidating at the same time -- he doesn't mind chatting with fans and enjoys telling anecdotes, but I also got the feeling that there were thoughts passing through his mind that didn't show on the surface. It's occurred to me since then that much of Wolfe's writing is concerned with deceptive appearances: Dr. Marsch's green eyes, the magical gem borne by the executioner, the rebel Wat. Wolfe is so good at these tricks that I'd almost suspect him of being responsible for the subsequent Philip K Dick mass illusion complete with fire alarm... but that's another story. So now I have all my NEW SUN hardcovers signed except one. Just my luck -- a couple months after I drag a shopping bag full of signed books back from Boston, a new one comes out. Yes, it's THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN, a full-blown sequel to THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. I was one of those few readers who thought he was satisfied with the wrap-up in THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH, in which Severian claims to have told all he knows, and if you didn't understand, you must have missed something. Thus in my view a sequel to NEW SUN would be an inevitable anticlimax, since its subject matter is (literally) foreordained. On the other hand (there's always another hand when you need one), I've always had a warm feeling for the characters in NEW SUN and as long as sequel disease isn't setting in, I'm quite willing to say hello to them again. How does Wolfe avoid sequelitis? THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN throws you off balance right at the opening page, because Severian is no longer on Urth. At the end of CITADEL, Severian is starting his reign as Autarch; URTH skips this entire period in his life and tosses you adrift in space and time, as Severian is on his way to the universe of Yesod to make his case for Urth before the court. The voyage isn't as straightforward as you might think -- the agents of Abaia have one last desperate chance to stop the New Sun, by killing Severian on board the ship... Wolfe never pauses long enough to let you get your bearings, and by the end of the book it's clear that calling the book a sequel can be very misleading. We do get to meet some familiar characters, albeit very quickly -- another surprise entrance before Valeria, some more banter with Typhon and Piaton, a curious encounter with a grown-up Eata, the first visit of Famulimus, Barbatus and Ossipago; and we do meet some folks we never saw in the earlier books but heard about, like the Autarch Ymar, and the Conciliator; but it's the new characters who steal the show. I think I'll let Severian introduce them himself, rather than spoil some of the surprises for you, but it's fair to say that the new characters are just as memorable as the old, if not more so... (Of course everything is equally memorable to Severian!) When I started reading URTH, I was afraid that Wolfe's explanations might spoil THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN for me. After all, I had spent no small amount of time and effort erecting an edifice of imaginary playing cards and I had every reason to expect that Wolfe might take a playful puff at it. As it turned out, it wasn't so much that Wolfe knocked my theories down as that he made the data much more complicated. The broader hints about the metaphysics of Urth and its universe and its meta-universe are enticing and still incomplete. The religious implications are also puzzling; people are going to ask about Wolfe as they did about Tolkien: how can Wolfe, as a Christian, fit his work into an orthodox Christian framework? I'm not sure it's supposed to fit (and I'm ill equipped to speculate, as a non-Christian), but it's a curious problem, especially when you consider the difficulties of accommodating technology in Heaven. In any case I now have the very strong feeling that I need to re-read the entire work from back to front, as Famulimus would see it, in order to capture all the (new) implications... '... In ancient days, in a land far off, there stood two empires, divided by mountains. One dressed its soldiers in yellow, the other in green. For a hundred generations they struggled. I see that the man with you knows the tale.' 'And after a hundred generations,' I said, 'an eremite came along them and counseled the emperor of the yellow army to dress his men in green, and the master of the green army that he should clothe it in yellow. But the battle continued as before. In my sabretache, I have a book called THE WONDERS OF URTH AND SKY, and the story is told there.' 'That is the wisest of all the books of men,' the Cumaean said. ... Cheap Street has taken this tale and made a charming little book out of it. It has a flowered Japanese paper jacket, yellow endpapers and green pages (or is that green endpapers and yellow pages?), text printed in several colors, and a number of lovely illustrations by Judy King-Rieniets. The catch is that it's a highly limited edition, and the collectors' (cheap) version is $95... I think I finally realized that I'm not a collector when I received this book. It's really a gorgeous item and I don't mind having paid for it, but I felt guilty about letting my fingers touch the pages, and in turn I feel mildly annoyed that I let myself be intimidated. I'm a reader at heart; a book to me is the words, not the investment. Still, EMPIRES is a lovely example of the publishing art at its best (even in this edition, which is NOT the fancy one), and I enjoy looking at it. Oh, you were curious about the contents too? It's a novelette that tells two stories at once, Severian's story about the warring empires and a story about a little girl who is taken to see these empires by the wizard Thyme. (Yes, there's a wizard Sage too -- if puns make you ill, you'd better avoid Wolfe.) It's not all told in a dry fairy-tale manner; there's dialogue and action and characters who step off the page. It's a fun little piece and I hope it gets published in a magazine so that more than two hundred readers get to enjoy it. One thing is bothering the hell out of me, though -- I swear that I know where the yellow and green empires fable comes from, but I can't place it. Ambrose Bierce comes to mind as the author, but that could just be a result of the style of the fable. Does anyone out there have a clue? Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@cs.utah.edu 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 utah-cs!donn From archive (archive) From: obrien@AEROSPACE.AERO.ORG Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA Subject: Re: Urth of the New Sun Date: 24 Nov 87 16:17:50 GMT I haven't seen many mentions of this yet, so here's a mini-review. I'm biased, I admit it. I'm one of those insufferable *****'s who thinks "The Book of the New Sun" is the best thing the field's seen in the last ten years or more. In some ways I found the new offering a disappointment. To a large extent it merely seems to be a confirmation of the tenuous conclusions one could draw from "The Book of the New Sun" if one worked hard enough at it. It also does not weave as rich a tapestry, but this may be because it is only a third the length of the earlier work. If one considers it a short story following a novel, it does quite well. There is room for the pleasant speculation that is so much a part of the earlier work. One possibility: Do we meet Jason in the new book? For those who love Wolfe's use of language, that is here, in full. And it does serve to explain one or two incidents in the earlier books that were, to me, almost completely incomprehensible (such as the very mysterious run-in with Apu-Punchau in the stone city). Although it is not of the same length or complexity as the earlier book/books, it is certainly a worthy successor. For me, it passed the final test: after reading it, I haven't been able to read anything since. Everything else seems tepid and shallow in comparison. Recommended, but only for those who have read "The Book of the New Sun". -- -------- Mike O'Brien obrien@aerospace.aero.org {sdcrdcf,trwrb}aero!obrien From: kjm@xyzzy.UUCP (Not That One!) Subject: Re: Urth of the New Sun Date: 27 Nov 87 06:15:23 GMT In article <34602@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >It is the fifth. It starts a new cycle in the New Sun series. Tor hardcover, >also a Gollancz Hardcover in the UK. > >And if you want to be technical about it, the fifth book is really "Castle >of the Otter" which is a small non-fiction book that explains the background >and etymology of Urth. Wonderful book, if you can find it. Fortunately there >is a Science Fiction Book Club edition. > >chuq _The Urth of the New Sun_ is here, and it's a knockout. This is the long-awaited sequel to _The Book of the New Sun_, Gene Wolfe's monumental four-volume novel about the life under the dying sun of the cradle of mankind, Wolfe's masterpiece. _Urth_ begins immediately after _The Book_ ends: Severian the Torturer, Autarch of Urth, Examplar of Man, has boarded the ship that will take him far from Urth to face judgement to determine whether he will bring a White Fountain to rejuvinate the Sun. The ship is enormous, possessing sufficient mass to generate a gravitational field about 1/8th that of Urth. Severian spends some time wandering about it, exploring this world, while various factions attempt to assassinate him. He spends a fair amount of time falling great heights without suffering serious injury and evading hostile forces trying to prevent his success. After he arrives at the planet of judgement, in the universe of Yesod, he discovers both how important and unimportant he is in the eyes of God; eventually, he is returned to Urth, but things have changed. The latter half of the novel entails his encounters on Urth, in a variety of identities and locales, until his final arrival at his true berth. I really don't want to go into any detail in a general review; however, I will mention that the beautiful prose, oblique story-telling, intricate time-travel, grand philisophical insights, and general brilliance of _The Book_ are all here, although fewer of them than in the original, which was, after all, much longer. A great deal of _Urth_ is concerned with making more plain the unravelling of mysteries established in the first; since I was confident in my understanding of most all of that work, they came as no surprise. However, I will state that _Urth_ was completely unlike my expectations of it, and disappointed me not in the least. From what I understand, there will be no further volumes detailing the life of Severian; this was intended as the coda to the concerto of _The Book_, and after its final (uplifted) note, we must deduce the rest of Severian's life ourselves--and with him, the life of Man. Yes, _Castle_ is a _New Sun_ book (actually, I believe it was published fourth, between _Sword and Citadel_ and s very worth getting from the SFBC. Besides interesting insights into _The Book_, it also has memorable bits about being a convention guest and plans to put MX missles on wooden sailing ships in the Pacific. -- Kevin J. Maroney ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!kjm Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am that river. From rec.arts.sf.written Tue Mar 23 21:12:43 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!walter!quasar From: quasar@flash.bellcore.com (Laurence R. Brothers) Subject: Gene Wolfe: Nightside the Long Sun Message-ID: Sender: news@walter.bellcore.com Nntp-Posting-Host: wind.bellcore.com Organization: Bellcore Date: 23 Mar 93 10:09:53 Lines: 38 I just purchased and read the latest Gene Wolfe opus "Nightside the Long Sun". The cover blurb babbles about it being more in the "Book of the New Sun" world. It may well be in the same universe (well, the same multiverse :-), but don't worry about it succumbing to sequelitis.... In this book at least, the only real identification with the former series was Wolfe's gimmick of using dislocated modifications of usages from other languages for the names of culturally signicant concepts, places, and things. This time, though there are multiple sources, the primary source for the local culture seems to be a sort of modification of Spanish usages. The book really has nothing whatsoever to do with the "Book of the New Sun" world, plot, or characters, so far as I can tell. Without giving anything away, let me just say that I liked it a lot; it's the best book of the year so far as I'm concerned. I should also add that I read it in about 3 hours. If I can find any flaw at all in Wolfe's style over the course of his career, it's that some of his writing is difficult to read; its intricacy can make it a little tough on the reader. I still haven't figured out some of the stories in "The Isle of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories", much as I like the title. However, I found "Nightside the Long Sun" completely lucid and pellucid.... A true pleasure to read. One caveat: even more so than the books in the "Book of the New Sun", this book is really just an episode in a larger multi-book novel. Don't expect a full resolution of the plot by the end. On the other hand, don't avoid the book for that reason; it's not as if it ends on a cliffhanger. -- Laurence R. Brothers (quasar@bellcore.com) Bellcore -- Computer Graphics and Interactive Media "Mundus Vult Decipi" -- James Branch Cabell From rec.arts.sf.written Sun Jan 17 15:37:24 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!cs.yale.edu!!rabin From: rabin@CS.Yale.Edu (Dan Rabin) Subject: Tiny reviews of Gene Wolfe novels (was REQUEST: Gene Wolfe recommendation) In-Reply-To: bible@iastate.edu's message of Fri, 15 Jan 1993 18: 17:14 GMT Message-ID: Sender: news@cs.yale.edu (Usenet News) Nntp-Posting-Host: nuthatch.systemsz.cs.yale.edu Reply-To: rabin-dan@cs.yale.edu Organization: Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-2158 References: <1993Jan15.111604.2904@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1993 20:01:39 GMT Lines: 69 Everybody seems to be recommending _The Book of the New Sun_ as *the* series of novels by Gene Wolfe to read first. Yes, they are the best, and _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ is almost as good, but what about Wolfe's other novels? Here follow some short reviews of them, ordered from most recommended to least. I omit the _Soldier_ series, which other posts have addressed. I also omit _Peace_, which I have not yet read, and _Operation Ares_, which I have not yet obtained. _There Are Doors_ The reader has a problem here. The narrative is in the third person, restricted to the point of view of the protagonist, who is obsessively in love with a woman from an alternate universe. He goes there to seek her. Or does he? We have reason to doubt... OK, I've told you too much already. It is characteristic of Wolfe that an abstract problem like the foregoing provides enough tension to hang a novel on. Of course, the alternate world itself is surreal and frightening. And of course there are surprises and brilliant ideas galore, and of course the book grabs your mind and firmly twists it. _Pandora, by Holly Hollander_ This book is a refreshingly light murder mystery set in the present day in the far suburbs of Chicago (where, incidentally, Gene Wolfe resides). The narrator is a teen-age girl who seems to have personal relationships with most of the suspects. Thus all of Wolfe's authorial personality has to be expressed through the limited voice of a young person of a different generation and sex from the actual author. It doesn't work all of the time, but it's lots of fun to read. And short, too. _Castleview_ Illinois, again. A small town. All Hell breaks loose. Literally. Once again, Wolfe concerns himself with points of contact between two worlds. The small-town characters (and even their pets) become elevated to a heroic plane--again, quite literally. There is no lack of action and excitement. There *is* a lack of much indication of what the **** is going on, but if you've gotten this far down the list, you expect this from Wolfe. _Free Live Free_ A very odd book indeed. Four down-and-out mutual strangers are thrown together in house that is then demolished. The old man disappears--what was his secret? Escapades ensue, ranging from comic to suspense-thriller fare. There are many chapters of these, and then there is a conclusion, which doesn't quite justify the journey and is drawn from yet a different genre. I hope these reviews prove useful to somebody. I'm writing this out of a sense of duty, because I found it difficult to make up my own mind two years ago to explore Wolfe's works beyond _The Book of the New Sun_ and _The Urth of the New Sun_. There seems to be something compelling about certain created universes that makes me reluctant to read other works by the same author. Perhaps I fear that to do so would reveal that these worlds, which seem so real, are actually artifices. How do other readers feel about, for example, * J.R.R. Tolkien's non-Middle-Earth works? (_Leaf by Niggle_, _Farmer Giles of Ham_, _Smith of Wootton Major_). * Frank Herbert's non-Dune books? (admittedly, there are other reasons to regret having read _The God Makers_) -- Dan Rabin (rabin-dan@cs.yale.edu) From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Apr 6 17:43:18 1994 Path: lysator-ifm-isy.liu.se!lysator.liu.se!news.kth.se!sunic!pipex!bnr.co.uk!corpgate!news.utdallas.edu!rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com!aur.alcatel.com!news From: ansible@cix.compulink.co.uk (David Langford) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Gene Wolfe review: Nightside the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 01:18:53 GMT Organization: not specified Lines: 173 Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: aursag.aur.alcatel.com %A Gene Wolfe %T Nightside the Long Sun %I New English Library %C London %D 1993 %G 0-450-59405-X %P 333pp %S The Book of the Long Sun (alias Starcrosser's Planetfall) %V Book 1 %O hardback UKP 15.99 %A Gene Wolfe %T Lake of the Long Sun %I Tor %C New York %D Jan 1994 %G 0-312-85494-3 %P 352pp %S The Book of the Long Sun (alias Starcrosser's Planetfall) %V Book 2 %O hardback $22.95 reviewed by Dave Langford [A version of this review appeared in the British SF Association's magazine VECTOR.] One problem with reviewing Gene Wolfe is that often there's so little to say that isn't trespassing -- peeling away at least some of his veils of sneakiness and indirection. Another is that with only the first two books of a new series to hand, critics can confidently expect a gleefully grinning Wolfe to pull the rug from under any too-rash understanding of what's going on.... As far as I can see, it is not actually stated anywhere in _Nightside_'s text that the setting, the `whorl', is a vast generation starship modelled like a cylindrical space colony (or like Clarke's Rama), with its artificial `long sun' running down the central axis. Part of this emerges in the blurb -- which after all has to tell us _something_ -- and the picture will soon be evident to any sf reader used to picking up on clues like the skylands visible overhead when the sun is shaded, or the scavenged building material called shiprock. And does `whorl' hint at cloud patterns shaped by Coriolis force down the long axial vista? Pay attention! (I made that tiny speculation before reading _Lake_, which explicitly gives another though not incompatible origin for the name.) This new sequence _The Book of the Long Sun_ is set `in the world of _The Book of the New Sun_' ... but remotely and not near the period we know. The whorl's launch is ancient history in the _Book_, its presumably slower-than-light technology long superseded by the mirrors and ships of the Hierodules. As though in passing, _Lake_ drops the name of the autarch who once ruled many worlds and ordered the launch of this `starcrosser': we have met him in _The Sword of the Lictor_ and _The Urth of the New Sun_, after which his mere name adds a whiff of gigantic vanity and hubris to the star-voyage. That allusion apart, it is not necessary to have read the four or five books of the _Book_. Now, three centuries on, the whorl's launch is forgotten history in this new series too ... a venerable sf tradition since Heinlein's _Universe_ (though here longer and variously reliable memories are owned by certain AIs and robots -- called `chemical' beings or `chems', for all that they appear to be metallic and nuclear-powered). Equipment is dying with age. Dwindling stocks of old-technology slug-guns, `floater' hovercars and videophones coexist with swords, pack animals, labour-intensive farming. The gods -- whose nature is best indicated by the fact of their heaven being called Mainframe -- appear only very rarely at the windows of the electronic altars. The whorl is already old. Perhaps necessarily, the setting doesn't at first seem as deep and wondrous as Urth in the _Book_. But this is Wolfe, and things are subtler than the easy sf summation above. When the new books' hero Patera Silk, teacher and priest, is touched by a god, it is not one of the nine chief gods of Mainframe who gives him enlightenment and purpose, but the shadowy (though known and accepted) Outsider. There is mystery here, and probably Mystery ... we are given to understand that the Outsider is the only god whose dominion and creation extend outside the whorl; and that once, incarnated, he may have driven merchants from a temple. Is it significant that for a little while before violence intervenes in the final chapter of _Lake_, Silk finds himself heading for acclaim in his home city and about to enter it on a donkey? Silk is a new and likeable variant of the Wolfe hero, seen from outside in third-person rather than first-person narrative (cf. Severian, Latro) for a change. He's truly devout and even celibate despite some severe temptations so far ... yet ready to turn his hand to burglary _ad majorem deorum gloriam_ when his church and school are sold off to pay taxes. Silk's bravura attempt to steal them back forms the centrepiece of _Nightside_. The whorl's nightside refers to its criminal underworld as well as the darkness under the long sun's revolving shade, and there's some nice thieves' cant to go with this: as expected from this author, the more esoteric terms like `dimber' (meaning approximately `nifty') can be traced to authentic English historical slang. In the cant, to burgle a residence is -- precisely but euphemistically -- to `solve' it. So we shortly find the young, bright, resourceful and entirely inexperienced Silk solving a crime-lord's mansion which is surrounded by high, spiked walls and guarded by a monstrous, tracked killer robot (`talus'), oversized lynxes and birds, novel weapons, etc. People have banged on so much about Wolfe's elusiveness, his games of indirection, that it's worth noting how frequent, well-crafted and straightforward are the passages of high adventure or suspense. Our hero is also capable of solving problems in the detective sense, like Father Brown. (Little ratiocinative treats keep recurring in this author's work: remember the lochage in _The Shadow of the Torturer_ who deduces Severian to be no impostor but a genuine torturer, without hearing him speak or looking up from his desk?) Later in _Nightside_ Silk unravels a murder in a brothel, uses knowledge painfully gleaned from his earlier adventures to tackle a case of almost literal demonic possession, conducts a ritual cleansing and exorcism, and is rewarded by a numinous encounter with one of the lesser Mainframe goddesses. All these strange activities appear to be having a catalytic effect on Silk's home city of Viron, one of very many city-states in the whorl, whose democratic Charter has long been suspended along with the office of president or `calde' [acute accent on the e]. Instead, a bunch of evidently corrupt councillors (the Ayuntamiento) has held on to power for a period which seems not merely illegal but impossible. There are whispers in the streets, and by the end of _Nightside_ the words _Silk for Calde_ are appearing scrawled on walls.... _Lake of the Long Sun_ illuminates much of what has gone before, with the new light casting longer and darker shadows. Further theophanies occur. This time Silk's journey to the underworld is literal: searching for the secret meeting-place of the Ayuntamiento, he finds himself ensnared and lost in endless tunnels within the skin of the whorl, down where it's colder and closer to space. Here we find the chem soldiers who were placed to defend each city against the others, most `asleep', those on guard worrying that after three centuries the defence plans may no longer suffice: more wheels within wheels. The underworld also contain humans in biological stasis. Devotees of the _Book_ will wonder if it's important that Silk, already lame like Severian, helps call a `dead' woman from the deeps of time as Severian did.... Other mysteries and wonders abound, including a window through which Silk at last sees stars and one brief dazzling glimpse of what must surely be, for him and all the whorl's passengers, the New Sun. There are confrontations with members of the Ayuntamiento. We have seemingly come to the brink of revolution and war, with portions of Viron's above-ground human army -- prodded in some cases by the electronic goddess who most favours Silk -- hailing him as leader. The next book is to be called _Calde of the Long Sun_. I haven't even mentioned the still unexplained case of apparent vampirism, the secular rationale for possession by gods, the too-obvious-to-see system of naming which is demurely revealed in a glossary at the beginning of _Lake_, the talking night-chough, the thief, whore and other-city spy who variously befriend Silk, the highly-charged dreams and prophecies, the flying men who glide watchfully far above the action (and the subplot about hawking for one with an eagle), the submarine in Lake Limna, the careful delineation of the three females who run the church school with Silk (one human, one chem, one half-and-half), the ultra-black joke when one of those `corrupt' councillors proves to be _literally_ so, the inevitable discovery that the tokens used as coins in the whorl are not coins, and much more. These books read so very smoothly that one feels a distinct jolt on looking back to realize how thoroughly crammed they are with colourful invention and incident. Wolfe's prose remains fine and precise. There's a temptation to remark that it contains fewer of the deep notes, the magical resonances and ironies that throb through the original _Book_ ... but many of those moments of the _Book_ went unrecognized or half-understood until the entire work was available for rereading as a whole. _The Book of the Long Sun_ remains maddeningly incomplete. So far: vintage Wolfe, indeed. His hand has not lost its cunning. Be sure to buy the whole series. [Ends] David Langford ansible@cix.compulink.co.uk Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees) Subject: Gene Wolfe: CASTLEVIEW Message-ID: <33kcv8$g9d@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 23:22:11 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 77 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:603 rec.arts.sf.written:70441 Castleview by Gene Wolfe A book review by Gareth Rees Copyright (c) 1994 by Gareth Rees The word goes around, among the critics, that the Gene Knight stands by the road to "Castleview", challenging all who would pass to single combat. And here the critics come, one by one, their standards flying, their warhorses a-glitter with bejewelled armour, their pens (mightier than the sword) unsheathed. But they are no match for the Gene Knight, who sends them packing soon enough with a quick one-two (and through and though). So in the absence of a Gawain, amateur reviewers like myself must tread carefully around these parts, for "Castleview" is a chaos of a book, a cornucopia over-full with wondrous things, packed beyond its covers with characters and events and jokes and sly references to other texts that all demand an explanation but admit of none. In short, it makes no sense. But the Gene Knight is having none of that. "Of course it makes sense, it's just that you're not as clever as I am," he says. Which is true. So let's peer over his shoulder and see what we can see. The last living descendant of King Arthur lives, all unawares, in the small mid-western town of Castleview, one hundred miles from Chicago. Castleview is so called because on a clear night, if the magic is right, you can see the turrets of a medieval castle. The castle belongs to the sorceress Vivian Morgan, who has followed Arthur's heirs to America, and Morgan is not the only one to have come to Castleview, for fairy folk, the Sidhe, giants, ghosts, vampires and sasquatch all make an appearance in this novel. Car salesman Will Shields arrives at Castleview with his wife Ann and daughter Mercedes, and as if this unremarkable family is just what they have been waiting for, with terrifying and violent swiftness the magical creatures that throng around the town put their plan (I say 'plan', but these are fairy folk, and whatever it is that motivates them, what rhyme or reason their actions may possess, remain hidden to mortals like me) into effect. Among them are the sinister Archdeacon Fee, the charming Doctor von Madadh, Long Jim, who was supposed to have died in a car crash ten years before and who may or may not be a giant, and Vivian Morgan herself, still seductive after 1,500 years. The redoubtable people of Castleview do their best to fight, but the supernatural forces will not be gainsaid, and pretty soon the good guys are dead, or hospitalised, or lured to Morgan's castle for a last great battle. And at the end someone who may or may not be an Avatar for Galahad dies to save the others. The style of the novel is a remarkable tour-de-force (though we have been led to expect nothing less from Wolfe), for while the circumstances of "Castleview" might seem perfect for an atmosphere of supernatural horror, Wolfe goes completely the other way. Even as the magical forces invade the lives of the characters, running them out of their homes, king them, driving them to suicide and kidnapping their children, yet the style and dialogue are upbeat and playful. Even when the armies of Good and Evil (or so we suppose them to be) are drawn up for their last battle, Shields and von Madadh can't resist exchanging quips. The book is marvellously witty and humorous; the direst and strangest things happen as though they were not at all out of the ordinary; Wolfe cannot spot a reader's assumption or expectation without failing to fulfil it. "Castleview" happens at such an energetic, helter-skelter pace (the entire novel covers less than 24 hours) that you could read it and never notice that anything is amiss. But turn the last page and start to think about it, and the nagging questions remain. What exactly is it that Morgan has been hanging around Castleview for? What motivates the fairies? Who is the enigmatic King Geimhreadh supposed to be? What is Odin doing in a book with King Arthur? And what is it all about? Someone tell me, please. %A Wolfe, Gene %T Castleview %I New English Library %C London UK %D 1992 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Sep 11 08:17:52 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!news1.best.com!sgigate.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: cash@worm.convex.com (Peter Cash) Subject: FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS (Wolfe) Message-ID: <42kur1$qfc@icarus.convex.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Peter Cash Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: The Instrumentality Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 16:26:49 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 81 THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, by Gene Wolfe A book review by Peter Cash Spoiler warning: The following discussion of THE FIFTH HEAD of CERBERUS contains spoilers. THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS is copyright in 1972, but has apparently been out of print for some time; the Orb edition was published in 1994. This book deserves a place not only among science fiction/fantasy masterpieces, but among the best literary works written in English during this century. This book is composed of three novellas. The novellas are related--but how they are related, and how _much_ they are related is not easy to judge. FIFTH HEAD is ambiguous, complex, and puzzling; it will leave you wondering what _really_ went on long after you have finished it. Don't let me mislead you--this isn't a book that will leave you unsatisfied with its loose ends and unresolved puzzles; instead, it will leave you feeling that you have read something far richer than you are accustomed to. The impression FIFTH HEAD left on me was that it was simply so complex, so multi-layered, that I couldn't hope to ever understand all of it. I'll be thinking about it for a long time. The first novella, itself called "The Fifth Head of Cerberus," tells the story of a young man's coming of age in a rather sinister--and completely odd family. The young man--who is never named, but narrates the story in the first person--has a very peculiar relationship with his father: they are very, very much alike. Eventually, the son ostensibly kills his father, is sent to prison, and after some years in prison is released to resume his father's career as pimp in the family house on Saltimbanque street. I say "ostensibly," for the killing scene is written so elliptically that it's hard to tell what really happened. Did the "father" kill the "son," and take _his_ place? (If so, why?) Did the mysterious anthropologist Prof. Marsch--who is apparently a shape-changing alien--take over one of the other's roles, and kill the remaining one? I don't know. And whatever happened to the father's "normal" son, David? And what was the connection between Marsch and the aunt? The middle novella--"A Story," by John V. Marsch--doesn't seem to have any direct connection with the other two, except it gives us some hints about the nature of the shape-changers and about how the twin planets St. Anne and St. Croix on which all three novelettes take place became colonized. It's told in third person, mostly from the viewpoint of what is either a human or a shape-changer (everyone seems rather confused about who they are--a theme never far from the surface in any of the three novellas) named Sandwalker. In the end, Sandwalker may--or may not--change places with his twin brother. The main connection between the second novella and the other two seems to be in the title--it's attributed to the anthropologist, Prof. Marsch. But then again, things are not necessarily what they seem in the universe of Wolfe. The third novella--"V.R.T" is partly a cleverly disguised first-person narrative. Usually, it's difficult for an author to mystify his audience with a first-person account the way Gene Wolfe likes to mystify us; since the narrator usually knows too much, tension is hard to maintain. (Unless you resort to making him an amnesiac, as Wolfe does in his SOLDIER series.) In this case, Wolfe has an anonymous "officer" go through the recordings and papeers pertaining to the interrogation of Prof. Marsch, who it seems has been placed in Kafkaesque arrest after the murder on Saltimbanque street (but he is not charged with murder). Some of the records are first-person memoirs which may--or may not--indicate that while on the planet St. Anne, the real Prof. Marsch died and had his place taken by one "V.R.T." -- allegedly a shape-changer. Again, connections to the other two novellas are indirect, and quite mysterious. There is some indication that the officer's slave may be one of a clone of the narrator in the first novella. As you can see, the questions are many. I would welcome net discussion on all the things I missed! (A net correspondent has already pointed out to me that it is possible to deduce the name of the family in the first novella, and has provided me with some clues--but I have not yet figured it out. %A Wolfe, Gene %T THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS %I An Orb Book, Tom Doherty & Associates Inc. %C New York, N.Y. %D 1994 %G ISBN 0-312-89020-6 %P 252 pp. -- | Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. | Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |cash@convex.com Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review - Soldier of the Mist/Soldier of Arete Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 31 Dec 1996 19:38:46 GMT Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, Uni of Sydney, Australia Lines: 49 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Keywords: author= Danny Yee Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1187 Soldier of the Mist/Soldier of Arete by: Gene Wolfe Review Copyright (c) 1996 Danny Yee Latro, a barbarian serving in Xerxes' army, suffers a head injury at the battle of Plataia and is afflicted with recurrent amnesia, leaving him unable to remember the past each morning. In return he is given the ability to see and talk with gods and spirits. This is the premise of Gene Wolfe's _Solider of the Mist_, which purports to be Latro's diar, written in archaic Latin. Gathering an odd collection of companions -- a faithful slave-girl, an Ethiopian, a necromancer of ambiguous sexuality, Amazons, prophets, and poets -- Latro visits Thebes, Corinth, Athens, and Sparta, takes part in the siege of Sestos, and explores Thrace before a culmination at Delphi and a departure for Italy. Some of Wolfe's fantasy meanders too much for my liking, with a continual flux of new characters and plot elements and a lack of overall cohesion. In _Soldier of the Mist_ the familiarity of the setting prevents this being disorientating; it is also consistent with the premise. The fantastic and magical elements are skillfully managed, with suspension of disbelief never in doubt, and the result is an unusual and effective blend of fantasy and history -- one more convincing in its feel for the period than many straight historical novels. %T Soldier of the Mist %Y Soldier of the Mist %A Gene Wolfe %I Futura %C London %D 1987 %O paperback %G ISBN 0-7088-8225-0 %P xiv,335pp %K fantasy, historical fiction, Greece %T Soldier of Arete %Y Soldier of the Mist %A Gene Wolfe %I Tom Doherty %C New York %D 1989 %O paperback %G ISBN 0-812-51155-7 %P x,354pp %K fantasy, historical fiction, Greece 31 December 1996 http://www.anatomy.su.oz.au/danny/book-reviews/ Path: news.ifm.liu.se!tfl450.tfl.hk-r.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!netnews.com!ai-lab!news.media.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: pj@willowsoft.compulink.co.uk (Paul S Jenkins) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Wolfe's _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 15 Sep 1998 15:43:20 -0400 Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Lines: 83 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: pj@willowsoft.compulink.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2107 _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ by Gene Wolfe Review Copyright (c) 1998 Paul S. Jenkins Maybe I'm not a sophisticated reader. I enjoy books that operate on several levels, and in my opinion that's what can make a novel great -- something for everyone: a good story, tackling important issues, with subtle nuances to delight those readers who catch them, and plenty of interest at the surface for those who don't. Any book whose deeper subtleties leave little to engage the less sophisticated reader goes down a notch or two on my scale. Such a book, I'm sorry to say, is _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_. Gene Wolfe is often cited as a stylist of literary SF. Seeing a secondhand British paperback edition in a street market I therefore snapped it up. _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ is the first Wolfe I've read, and though I'd have to agree about the use of the term 'stylist' -- the three linked novellas that make up this book are superbly written -- I had a hard time with the novel as a whole. There are obvious parallels with colonialism, slavery, subjugation of indigenous races, etc, but the direction of the three narratives remains unclear. The first, eponymous novella, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" is the first- person narrative of a boy on the human-colony planet Sainte Croix. He and his brother live with their father, a brothel-keeper, who performs repeated 'narco-therapeutic' experiments on the boy, evidently trying to force knowledge into him for some purpose. The brothers are looked after by a sentient robot known as Mr. Million, who, it turns out, is an expert- system based on their grandfather. Eventually the boy discovers why so many of the Sainte Croix inhabitants have similar facial features, and he decides to take matters into his own hands. The novella is written in a mildly archaic, Victorian narrative style: nothing jars, and it's plainly the work of a master. The plot is simple and intriguing, but the use of a naive narrator means we never get a clear picture of what's happening. The second novella is entitled "'A STORY,' by John V. Marsch." Dr. Marsch has already appeared in the first novella, but that's almost the only link with this piece of 'fiction' set on the sisterworld of Sainte Anne, where the shadow children or 'aboriginals' dwell. Sandwalker dreams he is his twin brother Eastwind, from whom he was separated at birth. He sets out to see a priest, and while searching for a wild animal to hunt as a gift for the holy man he chances upon the shadow children, a strange tribe of old-but-young people. Drawn by their mind-songs, Sandwalker joins them but they are soon captured by marshmen. The shadow children tell Sandwalker of the origins of human life on the planet. The story ends in an unsatisfactory _deus ex machina_ denouement. Obscure, though stylishly written, this story draws parallels with the Australian aborigines and their songlines. The third and last novella, entitled "V.R.T.," is a curiously framed story, told by Dr. Marsch of his fieldwork in the company of a youth (V.R.T.), interspersed with his journal of incarceration. The frame device is the narrative of the prison governor who is holding Marsch on suspicion of being an abo -- a native of Sainte Anne. The governor is reading Marsch's journal, but the pages have become muddled, and we get wild and random jumps between the doctor's explorations of Sainte Anne and his subsequent imprisonment. It seems that the authorities of Sainte Croix cannot decide whether Marsch is a human from Earth as he claims, or a renegade native of Sainte Anne. It's an interesting but directionless story, which remains unresolved. At the end we're not really any the wiser. I've an unread copy of _Nightside the Long Sun_. Having finished _Cerberus_ I find I'm reluctant to read more of Wolfe. The many-layered obscurity of _Cerberus_ is fascinating, but nonetheless frustrating, and though I feel the novel may well repay a second reading, I'm fighting shy of it. %A Wolfe, Gene %T The Fifth Head of Cerberus %I Quartet %C London %D 1975 (copyright 1972) %G ISBN 0 704 31176 3 %P 192 pp. %O paperback (price of reviewed edition unknown, but Amazon.com %O lists the US edition as available) Paul S. Jenkins | More reviews at: Portsmouth UK | http://www.cix.co.uk/~willowsoft/revup/ Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: On Blue's Waters by Gene Wolfe Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 08 Nov 1999 14:36:50 -0500 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 124 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2495 On Blue's Waters by Gene Wolfe Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Recommended Under the heading "Simply embarrassing that more people don't read Wolfe", an amazon.com reviewer wrote: 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. .... What is going on? Is Wolfe too literate for people? When I mentioned on the net that I was reading On Blue's Waters as my first Wolfe novel, I was told, "this is *not* the Gene Wolfe book to start with" because "It is the fifth volume in a seven-volume series, and quite a lot of the emotional and intellectual interest of _OBW_ depends on prior knowledge of the characters and situations as depicted in _The Book of the Long Sun_." A couple messages later we discover "Gah, why is _Lake of the Long Sun_ out of print?" Well, there you go. As it turned out, things weren't nearly so bad as I had been told and you can safely read this without having to have read The Book of the Long Sun first, though I'm sure that would help. One of the blurbs on the cover called Wolfe a "modern-day Homer." That's probably a good choice for the cover of this novel, because it is indeed a bit Homeric. On Blue's Waters is a rough parallel to The Odyssey. The Protagonist Horn finds himself sailing the seas on a quest to bring back the legendary personage of Silk to be the leader of the humans on the newly settled world Blue. Along the way he runs into various magical creatures on islands and such, as well as other interesting creatures, both human and not. Silk was apparently the topic of the previous Book of the Long Sun and references to events in that series abound. However, because this book is basically the retelling of a legend, albeit by one of the participants, the idea that there is a lot of "common knowledge" that we don't know completely isn't out of line. Indeed, I found that it added a certain something to the book, especially since Wolfe is careful to backfill all the material we really need to know. I just considered the events in Book of the Long Sun a type of hazy and heroic Elder Days and that worked well for me. As I said, this story is the retelling of a legend. Horn, who had previously chronicled Silk's story as the Book of the Long Sun, already spread widely throughout Blue (the Illiad?), now sets out to tell his own tale. Since he's writing after his adventures, we know he survives them, and in a sort of foreshadowing technique Wolfe drops numerous glimpses of what will happen throughout the text. As with not knowing what happened in the previous four books, this actually improved rather than degraded the story as I would have thought. It's clear that Wolfe knows a whole heckuva lot more about writing than I do. This book is literate without being highbrow, intelligent without being boring, and is a generally solid read. Based on comments from Wolfe fans, I was expecting mucho density, but instead I found something that was very readable while still displaying a great deal of craft. The main problem I had with it was the relative lack of any type of epic importance to the quest to go with the writing style. This quest to find Silk and various other things is presented as important to the future of the planet, but I wasn't convinced. Nor was the planet itself a particularly interesting place of discovery as you might expect from a straightahead colonization story. Actually, I pretty much was of the opinion that Blue would be better off getting put out of its misery, since the whole place was moderately depressing, IMO. Wolfe is from Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago that is just about the last place I would expect a serious writer to live. While I said suburb of Chicago, Barrington is really a suburb of Schaumburg, the major edge city of the northwest 'burbs. It's a very upscale town, but is very disconnected from the city and generally lacking in the same sort of character as other similarly upscale areas. For example, the North Shore is made up of older railroad suburbs full of stately Victorian era homes and people who make regular train trips into the city to see the opera and such. Barrington is full of mostly newer homes, having just enough of a cutesy downtown to make people feel like they've got more culture than the surrounding towns. And full of people who are much more likely to stay in the 'burbs than visit the city. The kind of people who told my one friend that they would never live in a "used house" when he bought his 100 year old home in Elmhurst. I kept trying to find some way that my concept of living in Barrington would be reflected in Wolfe's novel, but I didn't. Maybe you will. And incidentally, if you hate seemingly pointless asides like that one, you'll despise this novel. Wolfe is always going off on tangents. And now for a couple minor SPOILERS: . . . . . . . Wolfe borrowed from several other authors that I noticed, so I'm guessing that there were many I didn't catch. He used the borrowed elements to very good effect. For example, the inhumi travel between Green and Blue when the two planets are in conjunction, very similar to the "threadfall" from McCaffrey's Pern books. The rape of Seawrack was reminiscent of Thomas Covanent's rape of Lena in Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane. The white gold ring she gives Horn after this incident was just too blatant to ignore. %A Wolfe, Gene %T On Blue's Waters %I Tor %D 1999-10 %G ISBN 0-312-86614-3 %P 381 pp. %O hardcover, US$24.95 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/ Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: "Aaron M. Renn" Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Subject: Review: Strange Travelers by Gene Wolfe Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 19 Feb 2000 13:54:11 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 48 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 950986453 2944 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2600 Strange Travelers by Gene Wolfe Review Copyright 2000 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Recommended This is a solid collection of Gene Wolfe short stories. They are a diverse lot, having only excellence in common. I'll admit that I'm really not a big fan of short fiction, but the recent collections I've read are starting to convert me. My readings of Wolfe consist of only this collection and the recent "On Blue's Waters," so I obviously don't have a lot of experience upon which to judge things. However, I'm starting to get the impression that Wolfe has a certain shall we say motif that is common to much of his work. This consists of a high tech setting, perhaps during or after some type of societal fall, but one in which the characters do not fully comprehend the true nature of things such that the technology appears almost magical. This could be because the character is a child, or is living in a post-tech future, or because the technology is so advanced that there is no need for humans to really try to know it. There also seems to be a certain similarity in his lead characters, especially those who narrate their own tales, though I've not really pinned this down exactly. I don't suggest that these similarities are bad, or make his stories seem like clones because they don't. I'm just speculating on things based on what I've read to date and I needed something to say in this review besides "It's great!" One interesting thing to note is that Wolfe does not give cutesy intros to any of these stories. They stand alone and unadorned, which I liked a lot. The only real downside of this book is the high hardcover price. This is not something so good that I feel it must be purchased in hardcover, or indeed at all. So don't be afraid to wait for the paperback if money is a constraint. %A Wolfe, Gene %T Strange Travelers %I Tor %D 2000-01 %G ISBN 0-312-87227-5 %P 383 pp. %O hardcover, US$25.95 Reviewed on 2000-02-13 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/