The Book of the Short Sun

Has anybody read these? Made up of 3 books, In Green's Jungles, On Blue's Waters, and Return to the Whorl, it picks up from where the Book of the Long Sun left off and shows the colonisation of Green and Blue by people from the Whorl, describes whether Patera Silk died or not, and what aliens the colonists found waiting for them.

I thought this was a great series, written in about 3 different time strands, and linking up with Book of the New Sun too, it's a must if you want to find out more about that universe

I didn't like this series as much the earlier two--the Book of the New Sun, and the Book of the Long Sun. In parts, it read as though Wolfe was being too clever, and deliberately obscuring the story for no good reason other than to annoy his readers.

I loved the first two volumes, but couldn't finish the final volume because of the incredibly irritating speech patterns of one of the characters... Bucky this, bucky that. Very disappointing...

HMM..well I concede the earlier volumes were the stronger ones..... but as most posters seem to be suggesting overall Gene is indeed a brilliant writer and one of the greats of SF IMHO anyway.

Having all of Gene's published novels and most of his story collections I intend to post some brief reviews heading into 2010...so these recent posts have helped remind me of that.

Cheers...

Be interested to see your thoughts on him. I find some of his novels brilliant, some merely good... but I hate his short fiction.

HMMM... that's interesting to note, I quite like his short fiction BUT I do agree his greatest strength without doubt is his novels, no argument there and several of them are quite brilliant as you say and most of the others still a cut above the average.

I'm looking forward to completing those Wolfe novels I've got in my TBR pile.

I finished On Blue's Waters last night and thought it was very good. Not quite New Sun good, but among his best. Just a warning to anyone who wants to read the Kindle version - it is a complete mess! They scanned it and no-one proof read it. There are errors on almost every page.

On to In Green's Jungles.

Just finished In Green's Jungles and I liked it a lot. Not quite as much as On Blue's Waters. But, to be fair, this book I think more than any other Gene book deserves a reread. In parts, I wasn't even quite sure what I read, especially when it came to what planet they were on and how they got there. Which to me is what made the book so good. On to Return to the Whorl.

Finally finished Return to the Whorl. It took me a while to finish it because I kept putting it on the back burner, not because I did not like it. I thought it was very good, although the middle section dragged a bit. The ending was fantastic.

Having now read all of the Sun books I would rank them, as most probably do, New, Short and Long. When I do a reread some day I'm not sure I can go through all four Long Sun books again.

Up next will be either Cerberus or the last Soldier novel. I read the first Cerberus novella a few years ago and really liked it, but will read it again.

T77 said:

Finally finished Return to the Whorl. It took me a while to finish it because I kept putting it on the back burner, not because I did not like it. I thought it was very good, although the middle section dragged a bit. The ending was fantastic.

Having now read all of the Sun books I would rank them, as most probably do, New, Short and Long. When I do a reread some day I'm not sure I can go through all four Long Sun books again.

Up next will be either Cerberus or the last Soldier novel. I read the first Cerberus novella a few years ago and really liked it, but will read it again.

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You can figure out when he is Horn and when he is Silk. The big first person goodbye at the end of OBW is a huge clue - he says goodbye sitting under a big tree, then he turns to think how much more positive he should have been. At that point, the reminiscing as Horn is mostly told in the third person ... because Horn went to ride a beast with three horns.

Did you see how the narrator's staff functioned as an inhumi? did you see the red haired woman all drunken and left in the alley after Jahlee fed on her, making our narrator confuse her with chenille for an instant? so many wonderful things going on in these books, and so much depth to the back story (the relationship between the vanished gods and the vanished people, the lianas on Green, how Severian's crypt on Urth seems to be the crypt of Typhon, etc).

Greatest series ever written, in my opinion, and even better when you re-read them and figure out what is going on.

I think you are right. I've only read it once. Add to that that I read late at night when I am tired and my comprehension is probably lower. So, I am probably missing a lot. There are many times I reread certain parts to try and figure out what was going on. The New Sun is on audiobook now so that will aid in getting time to reread the series.

I have finished the Long Sun tetralogy and I think that the third volume might put readers stopping reading it because I actually stopped reading it last year and I've only resumed reading this year and honestly I had to reread many chapters but at the end it was impossible for me not to start Exodus From The Long Sun, although I am not sure if I really loved Calde Of The Long Sun at least as much as the first two books in the series.

I found "Exodus From The Long Sun" a bit less complex and demanding but still not a straightforward reading ( in a sense that Gene Wolfe's "straightforward" is not the average simple read at all ). I usually take a week to read Wolfe's books ( except some of his recent works which I did in 2 or 3 days ) but each of these last two took almost a month to be finished. So, after my struggle, and intellectually exhausted, I should have stopped right? But no, I am reading On Blue's Waters and I am starting to dig it somehow after completing some 100 pages.

Stephen Palmer said:

I loved the first two volumes, but couldn't finish the final volume because of the incredibly irritating speech patterns of one of the characters... Bucky this, bucky that. Very disappointing...

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The Pig character right? Completely agreed.