New Sun, Long Sun?

[Brian G Turner]

It seems that the whole Book of the New Sun is the starter for a larger series - but how do the books of the Long Sun fit into it? Do they follow directly - or some distant point in time? Or are they prologues?

In fact, are any of Gene Wolfe's works considered as prologues for Book of the New Sun?

 

[GOLLUM]

It seems that the whole Book of the New Sun is the starter for a larger series - but how do the books of the Long Sun fit into it? Do they follow directly - or some distant point in time? Or are they prologues?

In fact, are any of Gene Wolfe's works considered as prologues for Book of the New Sun?

HMMM..don't know how I missed this question..

Brian, Urth of The New Sun picks up several years after the Book Of The New Sun quartet and is much more SF than Fantasy per se from what I can gather. I have access to this book but am yet to read it. It revolves around the same main character Severian who was introduced to us in the original Sun quartet.

The Book of the Long Sun is Wolfe's next quartet, made up of Nightside the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun, Calde of the Long Sun, and Exodus From the Long Sun. however it introduces a new main character and story in Patera Silk and no I've not read it but I gather it's more SF than the previuos Sun books. Apparently the story here is designed to mirror and yet also contrast with the story of Severian in the orginal Sun books and hence the choice of titles of New Sun vs. Long Sun is no coincidence albeit they are 2 seperate stroy arcs in one sense at least eventhough obvious parallells are supposedly drawn by Wolfe b/w the 2 series.

Following this Wolfe has more recently completed his Book Of The Short Sun, which is a direct sequel to the previous series Book Of The Long Sun and is a trilogy consisting of On Blue Waters, In Green's Jungles and Return To The Whorl.

From what I can gather this marks the end of the Sun books but with Wolfe you never know. Hope this helps Brian...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Thanks for the info - much appreciated.

 

[Theorycraft]

Hmm,
As an avid Wolfe-r I have to admit I find his whole writing style very engrossing. I think it may be because my background in Classical Studies and Medieval Studies, so I am almost more to the rich history that he develops than to the actual progression of the characters in it.

The Earth of the Long Sun tetralogy has completely different characters than the previous series, and focusses on Patera Silk (Silk being a religious title, kind of similar to a pontifex in Rome under the Republic - authorized to carry out sacrifices, etc.) This one is definetely more sci-fi than fantasy, but in a unique way, a theme that carries throughout Gene Wolfe's literature.

Basically - what would a scientifically advanced society look like years in the future. Let's say that you colonized another planet, but you didn't know how to actually create the technology that you used, you could only use it until it wore out. Then imagine massive periods of time passed, so that this entire world is littered with technologies of different times and places, some still very usable, and this was incorporated seamlessly into the technological advances that this society was able to come up on its own.

These ideas are not new - they have been explored to some extent in the much more accessible Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, and the extremely fluffy Pern universe by Anne McCaffery. What makes Wolfe special is his literary elegance and philosophical sophistication - when you delve deeper, there really is more there!

I too had trouble getting interested in him originally - started reading Shadow in my first year at Uni, and didn't get past the duel... however I picked the book up on whim about a year later, and simply devoured it - read the whole of the New Sun in about 3 days, spent 2 more on Long Sun, and have recently ordered the sequel, as well as a couple of books that explore and explain Wolfe's universe and philosophy more fully.

Hope that helps!

 

[GOLLUM]

Hi there Theorycraft, nice to see another student of the classic SFF Genre...

So which of the Sun series is your fav??

I take it you've read some of his other works like Peace, Five Heads of Cerberus and Latro In The Mist to name but a few?

 

[Theorycraft]

Funny, you should mention - I currently have Peace and Cerberus on order from amazon.ca. hehehe I also really quite enjoyed Latro in the Mists.
The way that Wolfe constantly explores heritage/memory and how these are tied to identity really fascinates me. Severian - orphan, parentage unknown, memory suspect in certain situations. Silk - orphan, access to a divinememeory or special knowledge not privy to others. Latro - short term memory loss, etc, etc.
It seems that Wolfe is a big fan of Augustine - he really seems to hold to the idea (from Confessions) that memory is crucial to identity and understanding your world. Similarly, Wolfe also places tremendous importance on his characters' interactions with books and literature.

I think that's why I find The Book of the New Sun so much more palatable than a work like Dhalgren, which may also be dense and intellectual, but that gets lost in its own post-modern style, leaving the reader questioning whether or not there are actually depths beneath the incoherence of the protagonist's worldview.

What are your favorites?

 

[GOLLUM]

Hi there again, those are interesting observations you make on Wolfe, especially his philosophical influence by Augustine. I agree about Delaney's Dhalgren, I found it a difficult book to get a handle on.

As far as my favs go in order of a top 3:

Book Of The New Sun.
Five Heads Of Cerberus.
Latro In The Mist.

 

[Wok the One Eyed]

been reading the long sun since christmas, coming to the end now i guess. i found it hard to get into, and didnt like the use of thieves cant at all and the italicazation of certain people's speech.

i'm barely grasping the plot. i like many of the protaganists tho. wolfe is one of the few people i read whom i break off from reading to muse on a line or concept that has just

 

[GOLLUM]

Well there's certainly a substantial subtext running through pretty much all of Gene's work. The nice thing is that you can read him and therefore enjoy his books on several different levels.

Gene's books aren't always that easy to get into and they're often quite demanding and dense reads but if you persevere you certainly are richly rewarded.

If I want to read something light, Wolfe definitely isn't whom I would go to first.

Cheers...

 

[Bikewer]

Some may have missed that all the action on the "long Sun" takes place on a starship; a so-called "generation ship". This vessel has been in space for so long that almost no one realizes that they are, in fact, on a space ship any longer.

This is a plot device that's been used before, but Wolfe has built a fascinating society on the generation ship.

 

[Jojo999]

Based on the recommendations here, I read 4 book New Sun series and Urth of the New Sun, which brings the series to conclusion. Overall, a great series IMO, in fact one of the best SF series I have ever read. However, the ending of Urth of the New Sun kind of fell off a cliff leaving the reader hanging.

I then read the whole Long Sun series. The story was interesting but there is only so much you can do when much of the book occurs in and around one town on the ship. I don't think the writing nor character of Silk were as good nor as well developed as Serverian in New Sun. By the last book, the story was dragging and I was kind of happy when I finished.

Many things I didn't understand about Long Sun including: was there supposed to be any relationship between the world of this generation space ship and that of the new sun? It doesn't appear that there was. For me, it would have been helpful if there were some sort of prequel about the construction of this generation ship, who built it, why it was built, how it was built, what was put in it, how big it was (it sounds like it was an asteroid in actuality), how it was navigated, how they knew where they were going, etc.

I am now into the first book of Short Sun.

The one thing I really dislike about Gene Wolfe books is how every single one has the inside cover and the back cover loaded with quote after quote about how wonderful he is, how he is the second coming, etc. Very boorish. I suppose this is the publisher's fault though.

 

[GOLLUM]

The one thing I really dislike about Gene Wolfe books is how every single one has the inside cover and the back cover loaded with quote after quote about how wonderful he is, how he is the second coming, etc. Very boorish. I suppose this is the publisher's fault though.

Well it's certainly advertising hype except in Gene's case IMO well justified.

I agree New Sun is the crown Jewell of ALL the Sun books and that the entire first story arc as you say is excellent. The remaining Sun books are still very good but not as brilliant as the earlier ones BUT overall the entire Sun sequence is still a high watermark in SFF literature.

If you want to try some of Gene's more stand-alone efforts I would recommend Latro in the Mist (now 3 books), Fifth Head Of Cerberus and Peace (early work) and his story collection Storeys from the Old Hotel AND the recent Best Of GW retrospective.

By then you would have gotten a good cross section of his abilities. I've got all his published work and he is one of my all time favourite authors.

Also w.r.t. some of those questions you were asking you may want to check out the helpful second edn of Lexicon Urthus, a kind of reference book for the Sun sequence.

 

[Jojo999]

Also w.r.t. some of those questions you were asking you may want to check out the helpful second edn of Lexicon Urthus, a kind of reference book for the Sun sequence.

I did a search on Lexicon Urthus and found it on Google books here:

Lexicon Urthus: A Dictionary for the ... - Google Books

Agreed that this resource would have been most helpful when I was reading the books.