Gene Wolfe Books

This book is really only for serious fans of Gene Wolfe. But if you fit that description, you should own this book. Lexicon Urthus is a brilliantly executed dictionary of Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun books. It includes not only definitions of all of the odd and wonderful words that Wolfe uses so well, but also entries for major characters and concepts of the series. Not only is the lexicon a good guide to Wolfe's world, but it is also a great treat to browse through at random. Even though I have read the New Sun books more than once, I still find new insights in Andre-Driussi's work.

This book is useful but is sometimes puzzling.

Some of the definitions are simply wrong, in fact some are so far off that you will wonder if Andre-Driussi perhaps is referring to a condensed, abridged, and slightly altered version of the series. Some very minor terms and characters mentioned in passing only once in the series are described here in some detail, while some important terms, places, and incidents integral to the storyline (such as the Torturer's Guild/Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence, to which Severian belonged) are not listed at all.

Many of the definitions are, well, stretched. This book would be less than half the current size if you threw out all of the example sentences. For instead of just giving the definition, pronunciation and etymology of the listed term, the entry in many cases also gives the full sentence (from the book) in which the word was used. This is not necessary, since the entry also pinpoints the book, chapter, and page in which the term was used in the first place. Takes up a lot of space.

Still, this book will save you from browsing through stacks of dictionaries looking for that obscure term.

The definition will not always identify what language the word is, but the careful reader can soon learn to tell if it's Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish (as most of the "foreign" words here are). Some terms are defined in detail; they contain many examples of the word (and sentences/book excerpts), with real historical anecdotes, mythological references, hypotheses, comments, and squiggly line drawings. Some entries are short and abrupt: "marge: margin. (IV, chapter 13, 86)". Sometimes there is no definition at all; all you get for the entry is the sentence the word is in, and the location of the word. I found that rather odd. In some entries, more emphasis is given to explaining the mythological or historical figure rather than the book character (Wolfe named a lot of his characters after saints and Biblical characters).

Naturally, this book is full of spoilers. If you aren't at least halfway though the New Sun series, be very careful using Lexicon Urthus!

This book has been useful to me, but it's also full of stick-um notes and corrections I had to add myself. It didn't quite do Wolfe's masterpiece justice.

LEXICON URTHUS is a dictionary prepared by Michael Andre-Driussi of the unusual words and names used by Gene Wolfe in his four-volume masterpiece The Book of the New Sun (and its coda THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN). Those who have read Wolfe's work know that he usually allows many of his archaic terms to be defined for the reader through context, but those wishing to know more about these words weird and wonderful can turn to this resource.

The book doesn't limit itself merely to terminology, however, but also contains the names of characters and places. Many characters in the Book of the New Sun are named after obscure saints of early Christianity or the Middle Ages or mythological figures, and Andre-Driussi shows why they have the names they do. For example, "Nilammon", the man mentioned in passing by the caretaker who shows Severian a picture of the moon ("Now there's trees enough on it to hide Nilammon") is named after a 4th century Egyptian saint who hid in his cell to escape a mob that wanted to proclaim him bishop.

Yet, Andre-Driussi sometimes goes astray. In the entry on Valeria, for example, he mentions several female saints, but doesn't mention who, I would say, is the most likely namesake of the character: Claudius' wife Valeria Messalina. The name of "Kim Lee Soong", the ancestor of the prisoners in the antechamber, is said to be Chinese, but clearly it is Korean. And occasionally Andre-Driussi makes pronouncements that are simply beyond reason, such as that Hethor is the same as Soong. The work is also clearly an amateur production, although Sirius Fiction has typeset and bound it quite nicely.

Educated readers will already recognise many of these etymologies, and LEXICON URTHUS is no substitute for the Oxford English Dictionary and a good saints dictionary. Still, the book is worth reading for any fan of The Book of the New Sun. Pity that it has long been out print, one hopes that rumours that it will become a print-on-demand title will come to be true.

The title delineates a role that Severian, whose memoirs these books
purport to be, must play. It is an office of duty. Being a torturer and
executioner, he is called upon to kill yet another woman, He refuses
one of these due to emotion, and has to leave.

The novel continues the story of Severian and leads him through new adventures which confront him with new perspectives and thoughts. This book is more than just a Sci fi novel, since it offers a critical view of the forces in the portrayed society and so different and similar at the same time from maybe ours. Among the themes dealt with by Severian are life, humanity etc. It is definately worth reading if you don't only look for a sequence of action events and a little more food for thought.

Ghost stories, in spite of their association with tales of terror (almost any scary tale told around a campfire is referred to as a "ghost story"), have lost much of their luster in the days since Poe and LeFanu. With the occasional exception of a work like Shirley Jackson's The Haunting or Stephen King's The Shining , few modern ghost and haunting stories are scary, and even fewer, frankly, are good. Peter Crowther, in his latest anthology, Taps and Sighs , has assembled a host of top-notch authors to reinvent the ghost story, and for the most part, he has succeeded.

Most of the authors in this anthology recognize that ghosts aren't that frightening in this day and age, so instead of an anthology of half-rate horror, this is actually a mixture of subtle horror and mythic fiction. Richard Christian Matheson and Michael Marshall Smith set the tone with the opening tales. Matheson's "City of Dreams" is a tale of horror, not because anything nasty happens to the protagonist, but because the best of intentions lead to true tragedy. And Smith's "Charms" is a touching (but not sentimental) tale of urban fantasy that could fit well among Charles de Lint's Newford tales.

Speaking of de Lint, he provides one of the two most pleasant surprises in the collection, as his "The Words that Remain," a twist on a classic urban legend, not only is sweet, but is a rare Newford tale that doesn't require the reader to be familiar with ten years of backstory. Setting the tale outside of Newford, and getting rid of the alternating first and third-person narration that had bogged down so many previous Newford tales has led to the most enjoyable de Lint story in ages.

The other surprise is Ray Garton's "The Homeless Couple," quite possibly the best piece of fiction Garton has ever written. Like de Lint, Garton's ending is utterly predictable, but the road he takes in getting there, and the parallel tragic lives of the protagonist (who morphs, over the course of 20 pages, from an unsympathetic archetype into a truly sympathetic hero). Garton, normally one of the best at telling novels of terror, makes a wonderful shift this time.

The actual tales of terror in this collection are no less impressive. The always-amazing Graham Joyce, in "Candia," provides his own nasty little tale of folks trapped in their own personal hells. Ian McDonald and Mark Morris take the same twist in two different, but equally horrific, directions. And Terry Lamsley's "His Very Own Spatchen" is a fun little tribute to the classic DC House of Mystery comics.

The cream of the horror crop is Gene Wolfe's "The Walking Sticks," a tale that presents as untrustworthy a narrator as in any Edgar Allan Poe tale. Wolfe's tale nicely mixes personal madness with ancient hauntings. Like Garton's story, expect to find this one reprinted in any number of "Year's Best" collections next year.

There are a few stumbling blocks. The McDonald and Morris stories, given their similarities, really should have been placed far apart, not next to each other. Ramsey Campbell's "Return Journey" is almost deliberately bad (the only horror being the reading experience itself), and Poppy Z. Brite's "Nailed," although completely readable, simply fails to break any new ground (a bit of a disappointment from such a consistently groundbreaking author). Still, Crowther (who contributes a very nice story with Tracy Knight) has assembled some great authors, and Taps and Sighs , added to his earlier Touch Wood and Dante's Disciples , establishes Crowther as one of today's top editors.

In Douglas E. Winter's introduction, he qoutes a poem about the sounds a ghost makes...tappin and sighing, hence the title. Like nearly all anthologies their are some good stories, some bad stories, some horrible stories and, gratefully, some top of the line stories. This collection is about 25% of each. The bad and horrible stories, however are outweighed by the good and great ones.

I found that I championed the more Twilight Zone/trick ending stories over the more experimental ones. An example of this is Thomas F. Monteleone's contribution, "The Prisoner's Tale, versus Graham Joyce's "Candia". Monteleone excellently delivers a straight ahead tale of one prisoner's chance at freedom. Joyce just delivers a confusing nonlateral tale of deja vu.

Poppy Z. Brite shows why she is a favorite among the horror sect in "Nailed". A revenge tale with some voodoo thrown in is precise and perfectly laid out and ended. In Ramsey Campbell's "Return Journey", we get a time travelling train that is convuluted and unclear.

Graham Masterton gives us a look at what happens to the past if you dare forget it in the terrific, "Spirits of the Age". ; scary as well as thought-provoking is Ray Garton's "The Homeless Couple" where a man who ignores cries for help from people in need in turns needs help. Ed Gorman's "Ghosts" is a tale of caution about reprucussions.

All in all a recommended collection of differring takes on ghost mythology.

Gene Wolfe's 'Sun Series' has been described as a 'Masterwork' and is considered by many to be one of the greatest pieces of (any genre of) literature written during the twentieth century. Many compare it to Ulysses or to the works of the great Russian writers of the nineteenth century. I though have my own doubts, but this is just my opinion.

Having read this second part of the two books of the "New Sun", or Volume 2 of the tetralogy (take your pick) I feel that I'm missing something that all those 'in the know' have seen in these books. I especially feel that whatever was going on in the last fifty pages of the book was so beyond my comprehension and convoluted that I could have skipped it without loosing much of my enjoyment of the story.

I'm not sure which left me more confused, the 'Play' of Dr. Talos (Hello! what the heck is this about?), the occurance at the River, or what occurred in the 'Stone City' on top of the roof of the wrecked house. The ambiguities and enigmas that saturate the end of the book lead me to feel like I don't have a clue or the author is having me by the 'short hairs'. What would be more than funny is if Wolfe wrote all this 'allegory' just to leave something for people to ponder, while he laughed himself silly?

I'll probably finish the 'New Sun' cycle but whether I follow it to the end is itself a paradox of mitigated visions that are seen as phantasms on the other side of an occluded window pane (or window of pain).

This is a book of stories chosen by a vote of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America association, in the mid-nineties. Apparently in a six month process they voted for their favorite stories, etc. Because writers are slow and can't think of their favorites it takes them six months? Bizarre. Anyway, doesn't really maker how long they took to do it. It was apparently produced had a Science Fiction Hall of fame volume, multiple, actually, as the novellas etc. go in other books of the series. These came out in the late sixties, but the fantasy name change inclusion for the SFWA was 1992 according to the book's intro.

Anyway, there is an earlier book with this title, and the same editors. I should quote the famous Tim of LibraryThing on the non-brightness of doing that.

The limitation they chose was the stories had to be post 1939, when Unknown Worlds, the fantasy magazine edited by John W. Campbell started, because it had logically worked out fantasy, or something. The other limitation is no longer stories, novellas, etc. 'May be a future volume with those' to paraphrase the intro. No sign of it 10 years later though, it seems, so you could probably make it one of those 1000/1 William Hill novelties if you wanted.

So, right from that you are pretty much likely to get a book that is inferior to the early volume. No Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, Poe, etc.

That certainly turns out to be the case, with a 3.60 average, compared to 3.66. It is still a good book, just not an excellent one, and no real Hall of Fame, with less standouts. You could call it The Modern Hall of Fame, perhaps, although calling the thirties or early forties modern doesn't sound too modern to me.

So if you have a choice and just want to get one of these Hall Of Fame books, get the earlier volume.

Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Trouble with Water - H. L. Gold
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Nothing in the Rules - L. Sprague de Camp
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Fruit of Knowledge - C. L. Moore
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius - Jorge Luís Borges
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Compleat Werewolf [Fergus O'Breen] - Anthony Boucher
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Small A55a55in - Ray Bradbury
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Our Fair City - Robert A. Heinlein
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : There Shall Be No Darkness - James Blish
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Loom of Darkness [Liane the Wayfarer] - Jack Vance
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles - Margaret St.Clair
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Silken-Swift - Theodore Sturgeon
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Golem - Avram Davidson
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Operation Afreet - Poul Anderson
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : That H3ll-Bound Train - Robert Bloch
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Bazaar of the Bizarre - Fritz Leiber
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Come Lady Death - Peter S. Beagle
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Drowned Giant - J. G. Ballard
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Narrow Valley - R. A. Lafferty
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : F@ith of Our Fathers - Philip K. Dick
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Ghost of a Model T - Clifford D. Simak
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Demoness - Tanith Lee
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Jeffty Is Five - Harlan Ellison
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Detective of Dreams - Gene Wolfe
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Unicorn Variations - Roger Zelazny
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Basileus - Robert Silverberg
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : The Jaguar Hunter - Lucius Shepard
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight - Ursula K. LeGuin
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Bears Discover Fire - Terry Bisson
Fantasy Hall of Fame SFWA : Tower of Babylon - Ted Chiang


Gnome sweetener.

4.5 out of 5


Mermaid ring-in doesn't quite make the seal of sobriety.

4 out of 5


"Why," he stammered, "you...you're the Queen of Air and Darkness."

3.5 out of 5


Vague geography tract.

2.5 out of 5


Count3respionage canine capers.

4 out of 5


Rugrat's gonna get me, maybe I should get it first?

4 out of 5


Stone loser.

3.5 out of 5


Whirlwind collection.

3 out of 5


Werewolf symphony.

4 out of 5


Witchy Lith.

3 out of 5


Eyes for greed, will consume you.

3 out of 5


Virgin deception test, unicorn required.

3 out of 5


"I am not a human being!"

3.5 out of 5


Witchwolf teamup success requires djinn psychology.

4 out of 5


Time-stop devil of a deal indecision.

4 out of 5


Wizard errands suck, so do commercial cr@psters.

4 out of 5


You like me? Great! Now you can be me!

4 out of 5


Shrinking from investigation.

3.5 out of 5


Ditch illusion psychic projection projectile fun.

3.5 out of 5


"Don't you see, Mr. Chien? You've learned something. The Leader is not the Leader; he is something else, but we can't tell what. Not yet. Mr. Chien, when all due respect, have you ever had your drinking water analyzed? I know it sounds paranoiac, but have you?"

3.5 out of 5


Dead drive ok with me if booze is good.

3 out of 5


Succubus. Sword. Swing. Simple. Ask her, stoopid.

4 out of 5


Parents eventual terminal lack of patience with kid with the brilliant new old stuff.

5 out of 5


Ex3cution not too well d___.

3 out of 5


Mythological species replacement with sasquatch chess master.

4 out of 5


Computing angel Cunningham countdown plan.

3.5 out of 5


Man decides sexy werejaguar is better than cr@ppy American cop show.

4 out of 5


Don't eat the salmon.

2.5 out of 5


Hibernatin's a big ol' waste of time.

4 out of 5


Built like a brick lighthouse tunnelway to heaven.

3.5 out of 5

The premise behind _Gene Wolfe's Book of Days_ is that each story in the book is written for a different holiday. There's a a story for Lincoln's Birthday, one for Halloween, even one for Armistice Day. The connection between story and holiday sometimes seem tenuous, but it's all in fun. The real treat here is yet another fabulous Gene Wolfe story collection.

If you're familiar with Wolfe you know that his fiction is occasionally opaque. Wolfe stories very often have multiple meanings that require multiple readings to fully understand. Stories like "Paul's Treehouse" fit this description. Two neighbors are sitting on their lawns. One neighbors son has built a treehouse very high in a tree and refuses to come down. Interspersed with this story is background about some unnamed unrest in the city. Suddenly National Guardsmen swarm the backyard. The son throws rocks at the Guardsmen. The End. Don't ask me for an explanation because I have no idea.

Fortunately, for those of us who are 'regular' readers, many of the stories are much simpler. Among the better pieces are "Forlesen", "The War Beneath the Tree", and "Melting". "The War..." has become one of Wolfe's more well-known pieces. A boy plays with his sentient toys on Christmas Eve. The toys watch packages being placed under the Christmas tree with apprehension. When everyone has gone to sleep, the new toys emerge. The old toys fight them and throw the new toys into the fire. The story ends on a chilling note that I'll let the reader discover for himself.

Gene Wolfe has never disappointed me. He is a writer of quality and passion. His intricate stories can amuse me for hours. He is a top-notch writer and I strongly encourage all fans of speculative fiction to read his works. Highly recommended.

I am a fan of Gene Wolfe and have been for some time. However, I have recently crossed a threshold where I am now reading books about Gene Wolfe's books, which I don't do for anyone else. This is an interesting, well written book that analyzes some of Wolfe's works. I was especially pleased by the fact that it talks about many works other than The New Sun. Not that I necessarily accept all of the theories, but I find it intersting to read the thoughts of someone who has spent way more time analyzing and thinking about the works than I have or will.

Earthquakes etc., are totally not our fault.


3.5 out of 5

Gene Wolfe creates a world that one easily can get lost in.
He is definitely one of the best writers out there today.

I'm not sure why this book gets some mixed reviews here because it is
really a very very good fantasy novel.

The story is engaging and the characters are likable and well developed.

It's the kind of book you'll stay up till 4am to finish and be sad that the author didn't keep writing more and more books.

Wolfe's Wizard Knight books are hard to read at times. They pull you from scene to scene with strange twists and the only character really fleshed out is Sir Able and his motivations aren't easily understood as they often aren't realistic. Like the first book, Sir Able is almost invincible. He falls off a ship and survives by breathing water. He falls off in midflight through the air and lands on a dragon. He galantly defeats foe after foe but stumbles at the most basics. He ... I think you get the idea (and possibly why it is often a frustrating read more than an enjoyable one). All this aside, the book is written well with many novel ideas (hence the 4 stars).

After ecstatically singing the praises of the preceding `The Knight', I'm inconsistently less enthusiastic about Part 2. Some of this is down to differing expectations: I had no/low hopes for the former but enjoyed it so much I had very high hopes for the latter.

`The Wizard' is not so much a separate book as the second half of the same one - something Wolfe intended. However, given the sheer number of pages it seemed fair enough to split the read. Moreover I was delighted with the way that Wolfe had evoked a legendary romantic knight in Book 1, and had hoped for an equally surprising achievement in creating a fabulous mythical wizard in Book 2. Now don't get me wrong: Wolfe is, as ever, clever and original in presenting a different perspective on Sir Able as a wizard - doubtless with his familiar interaction with various gods, Aelf and higher and lower worlds he would be perceived as such. The notion of a wizard actually being a minor deity (cf. Gandalf) is interesting, as are the strong Christlike parallels of limitations on power and miraculous healing. But Able as Wizard was nothing on Able as Knight.

There were still some impressive passages, but I was feeling a bit of hero fatigue, particularly in the first third to half of `The Wizard'. I get that Wolfe was showing how Able had inspired others to become like him: part of his nobility is that he is not jealous of other knights, and consciously leaves them to some battles he could fight better himself to give them a chance to prove themselves and gain greater glory. Again the Christian echoes along the lines of, "You shall do these and greater things." This is particularly powerful in the reformation of his former squire Svon`s nature, and demonstrates a far greater spiritual victory than a mere martial one. Wolfe has admirably run with the Crusade ideal of an almost priestly order of fighters, with Able's high moral code integral to his identity rather than a mere religious façade. But as a reader too many of the knights became almost indistinguishable in their motivations, words and deeds. Toug becomes `Young Able' - deliberately, sure, but less enjoyably.

In one sense it's odd to complain about getting more of the same of a book I relished. But I suppose much of what I loved about `The Knight' was the novelty of Wolfe's creation. He realises his ideas capably in `The Wizard', but they're at best developments and more often continuations of ideas we're now familiar with. It's a terrible thing to become bored with giants - something that didn't happen in Book 1.

Some different ideas develop later in the book, particularly around Arnthor, with Able facing the dilemma of serving an unjust king. And this is Wolfe, and there are a dozen other potent and enigmatic themes running around (such as Able's helmet letting him discern the essence of anyone he looks at yet, for example, he continues to revere Disiri). Maybe I should have left the break longer, I don't know, but the second book just didn't engage me nearly as much as the first. Book 1 had some confusing passages, sure, but I was arrested by more of the episodes.

Really a review for books 1 and 2.
OK, 4 stars aren't really fair, that is 4 stars relative to Wolfe's level, 5 stars for mere mortal writers.

This book, even with it's 7 levels of reality is still has far fewer levels than in other of Wolfe's works. The Long Sun, New Sun series are better. Here, the narrator is simpler, less nuanced. In the Long Sun, later facts would often change the whole meaning of earlier scenes. That happens a little such as who the Knight who turned to smoke was in an early scene in the first book -- I like that turn of meaning with new information in Wolfe's works, I like the narrators who are sort of lying or covering their behinds to you and there's less of that in this work.

Huff. Still, this is more than worth your while. It's a fun yarn, an adventure with lots of turns in it and an increasingly gripping page turner.

I'm reading the book to my young daughter -- yes, I edit the sex scenes (let's just say she thinks Gene writes in lots of hugs and "sleep overs" ) and damp down some of the violence. She really got attached to Able in the first book becoming another of Able's odd assortment of followers -- but cried foul when Able stepped out of the picture at the start of book 2 and the pace bogged down in the long cold slog to Utgard and thereafter. But, after about 100 pages, things start to pick right up again and it's worth going along. It is typical of Wolfe's genius to have the Giants call the huge men "Mice" rather than the small humans. That is typical of human nature -- we belittle our closest competitors, not the ones who aren't contenders with us.

As a morality tale, suitably edited, this book have a powerful effect for good on a kid. My daughter is somewhat shy and when she had to give a talk in front of some people, all I had to say is "Knights don't count their foes and speakers don't count their audience" and she was OK. Same for hiding something from her little sister: "a knight tells the truth" and the hidden item appeared. Even for myself, when your down and the code has too many bugs, I sometimes unsheathe my keyboard, cry "IPO, IPO!" and charge. I seriously doubt you'd get that from a Harry Potter book and Wolfe is a much writer (even though I'm a fan of both). Keep writing Sir Wolfe, honor demands it.

Gene Wolfe takes patience. His writing and by extension his stories, are subtle things, rarely spelling out what the reader needs to know but dancing around it instead, sketching the outlines of what he's trying to reveal and leaving it to the reader to fill in the blanks. A lot of writers do this and then have the characters explain it all at the right moments, so that the reader can feel accomplished by having put together the scenario before they were "supposed" to. Wolfe hardly does this, revelations come in asides and as seen from a distance. Often the characters don't understand what is being revealed and it's only because we have a different perspective that we don't even know what's going on. But we're not in the story.

SF has had a long history of being far more literary than most non-genre or even genre fans realize (it's had a willingness to experiment with form and subject matter to a sometimes fearless degree) and of those Wolfe is one of the few who can go toe to toe with the so-called literary heavyweights of the day. This omnibus here collects the second half of the Long Sun series and continues the story begun in the first half. Patera Silk has been appointed calde apparently by popular demand, armies are in the city, and matters are barely tottering on the edge of chaos. While Wolfe doesn't do anything vastly different here, the SF elements are scaled back for a more meditative sequence of events . . . having already sketched out the contours of this world, now he's giving everyone a chance to play in the boundaries of it.

Readers looking for big climaxes or stirring bombastic speeches are probably going to be disappointed, the story is pulled along in strings of tiny revelation and it's more the accumulation of events that gives the overall tale its weight. Wolfe never wastes anything, every seemingly random story some character tells, every tossed off detail, it all fits in somewhere and lends weight to the greater narrative. Constantly shifting location and yet maintaining and even, unhurried pace, he manages to capture the scope of great things happening and people trying to keep the world and the people they care about safe.

Silk remains of his best characters, an unmoving and sometimes unwilling pillar in the center of the action, calm and worried, decisive and gambling, he's all too human and the story wouldn't have half the emotional heft it does without him. This story, more than any other, is the sum of its parts, none of the pieces stand out but all of it interlocks to form the story itself, arcing and grand, wistful and epic. It won't dazzle unless you're paying attention but if you are, it becomes worth the effort.

And in the end it isn't about the mysteries of the Whorl, those become almost incidental to the tale itself, but the people who live in it and what they have to do to survive. Even if survival means stepping out entirely.

I loved the Book of the New Sun, and some of Wolfe's other works, so I tucked into this huge opus with glee. Over 1200 pages later and how do I feel - pretty darn irritated and quite keen to reclaim the many hours of my life that I seem to have wasted reading it. What is it all about - I don't know. Does anyone know? Not judging by the other reviews here. Wolfe has a skillful way of sucking you in with the promise of great revelations in the end - but in this series of books there are no revelations, no explanations. The main characters end up leaving the ship (The Whorl) - wow didn't see that coming, did you? Only 700-800 pages ago. No doubt erudite devotees of the author will come up with some profound deeper meaning locked away within it's pages - but what about the reader who wants to actually enjoy what he reads and feel rewarded at the end? I like the review lower down on this page by the guy who has read the entire series 6 times already - but still hasn't quite worked out how to describe what it's about. Says it all really.

I don't have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to praise this work. Once again, our irritating narrator is given to leaving out the important stuff and assuming you know what is obvious to him; much of these books tell bits and pieces of a story while huge, catastrophic events take place just out of view- sort of like real-life. I found that sometimes the parts that seemed very meaningful on the first read turn out to be just the 'bits', and the parts that seem most obnoxiously tedious are the most 'important' later. Pieces come together from previous books, and the settings' larger context seems to peek out of the fog on occasion; the end (as usual) leaves you hanging somewhere you don't really understand.

and you will be disappointed. A civil war begins, main hero steps up as leader of rebellion, a third side appears in civil war, and lot of stuff gets complicated and little solved, and mood is not even close to adventurous/mystery mood of book one.

I couldn't say that this series, 'Long Sun' really ends here, it seems that Short Sun is sequel, but I didn't read it yet.

When Wolfe has idea and inspiration, he is best. When not, he is worst.

After a first reading, I need some time to forget some of the major plot elements so that I can re-read this story later. It is quite fascinating, especially so if you view the society as an anthropologist would.

A lot of the confusion from this book stems from the fact that not one word written in it is trustworthy and it should be read with much more scrutiny then I put into it. As we cannot trust the writers of the biblical gospels to be impartial, we certainly cannot trust a young man with a revisionist take on history and a bad case of idolizing a man at the center of a cult of personality. The joy of reading Gene Wolfe comes from scratching hints, shades of meaning and the truth of events from a storyteller who does not want you to know the whole truth, and is probably outright lying (New Sun) or has absolutely no connection to reality (The Wizard)/is incapable of discerning truth from idealization and revision (New Sun, The Knight)/reality from fantasy (There are Doors)/objectivity from subjectivity (Long Sun) or is incapable of having factual knowledge whatsoever (Latro).

I'm really expecting this book to wow me the second time through, especially after analyzing Knight/Wizard and The Book of the New Sun a couple more times, allowing me to realize that the narrator is your worst enemy in trying to understand and enjoy a Gene Wolfe novel.