On Blue's Waters

The Book of the Short Sun #1

by Gene Wolfe

On Blue's Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun.

Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk. The story continues in In Green's Jungles and Return to the Whorl.

"By any standard, Wolfe's beautifully composed, meditative, thrilling, and tricky-beyond-belief 'science fantasy' is a work of the highest art."-- The Washington Post Book World

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Speculative Fiction, Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 1999

About the author

Gene Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He was a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.’ Wolfe joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as Connie Willis, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013.

While attending Texas A&M University Wolfe published his first speculative fiction in The Commentator, a student literary journal. Wolfe dropped out during his junior year, and was drafted to fight in the Korean War. After returning to the United States he earned a degree from the University of Houston and became an industrial engineer. He edited the journal Plant Engineering for many years before retiring to write full-time, but his most famous professional engineering achievement is a contribution to the machine used to make Pringles potato crisps. He lived in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

A frequent Hugo nominee without a win, Wolfe has nevertheless picked up several Nebula and Locus Awards, among others, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He is also a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/genewolfe

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

October 2023 re-read:

Upped to 4 stars.

Not much to add to my review below aside from a few general thoughts:

I am certain that the Book of the New Sun will always be considered Wolfe’s greatest work, and I think, for the time being at least, my own favourite of his works may still be the Wizard Knight duology, but I believe that the Short Sun series may have some of the best prose, and most moving scenes, of any of his works. I think this series represents Wolfe working at the height of his powers and when combined with the Long Sun series may represent the most complete, and arguably the greatest, story he told.

I’ve never seen Wolfe as much of a stylist, and might even say that I often find that his prose - especially dialogue in the mouths of certain characters- can be somewhat stilted and unnatural; in the Short Sun books, however, I occasionally find myself stopping to savour a particularly evocative scene or piece of almost poetic prose.


***

2019 re-read review

3.5 stars

It has proven sadly appropriate that this was my year of (re)reading Gene Wolfe with the passing of the master this month (April 14, 2019). Rest well Gene and know that your mark on the world of letters was significant and lasting.

_On Blue’s Waters_ is the first book in the final segment of what has been called the ‘Solar Cycle’, the sometimes loosely and sometimes closely related Books of the New Sun, Long Sun, and Short Sun. The Short Sun series is more or less a direct continuation from the Books of the Long Sun and we will be revisiting some old friends as we see how the refugees from the generation starship of the Long Sun Whorl are doing in their new homes on the sister worlds of Blue and Green. Our narrator and protagonist is Horn, the young boy (now a grown man) from the Long Sun whorl who idolized Silk and who was, as we eventually discover, one of the authors (within the world of the book) of the Book of the Long Sun itself along with his wife Nettle.

All is not well on Blue, the world on which Horn’s lander arrived many years prior to the start of the story and on which the city of New Viron has been founded. The city itself is collapsing into chaos and lawlessness without the presence of a strong leader, exacerbated by the cyclical conjunctions with their sister planet Green. Green, you see, is the home of the inhumi, the shapeshifting vampire-like aliens that we only glimpsed briefly in the Long Sun and of whom we get a much closer view this time around. During conjunction hordes of inhumi are able to cross the void and come to Blue in order to feed upon the newly settled people from the whorl. New Viron, and most of the cities founded on Blue, are falling apart due to pressures both from without and from within. As a result a group of the leading citizens of New Viron come to Horn as one of the writers of the story of Silk, a work which has gained a nearly religious significance by now, in the hopes that he will take up the quest to find Silk himself, presumably still living in the Long Sun Whorl, and bring him back to Blue to lead his people again and (of course) solve all of their problems. Horn is a victim of his own success as his hagiography of Silk has perpetuated the image of the saintly hero in the minds of people across Blue and they now believe Silk is so great that only he can be their saviour once again. Who better to bring him back than his former protégé and admirer, the very man who co-wrote his biography?

I think it is safe to say this is a rather confusing book, even for Gene Wolfe. There are certainly many mysteries and allusions throughout the text about which the reader is left guessing (if he or she even notices them germinating in the background), but at an even more basic level the story itself can give the reader a real sense of confusion. We start with Horn recounting the day he was approached by the leaders of New Viron to set out on his quest, and while we learn a little bit about his life on Blue since leaving the lander many years ago (and both marrying his childhood sweetheart Nettle and having three sons with her) the story soons shifts perspective and we find ourselves in a completely different time and place, one which is not fully explained, and we witness the ‘present’ events of Horn setting out from New Viron as ocurring in the past. In addition we get veiled references to still other events that appear to be in the past of this new ‘present’, but that seem to occur in the future of what we had initially taken to be the ‘now’ of Horn’s quest. Confused? Well, add to that the fact that the narrator himself may not always be exactly the same person we think he is at first, though there is no indication of exactly what has happened aside from the obvious shifts in time and place. It can be a real mind-fuck. In the end we see three main parts of the narrative:

1. Horn setting out on his journey across the waters of Blue in the hopes of boarding a lander ostensibly going back to the Long Sun Whorl with the aim of finding Silk and convincing him to come back to Blue.

2. Someone called the ‘Rajan of Gaon’, presumably Horn himself, recounting not only his trials as the leader of the city of Gaon as it finds itself in the midst of the chaos of conjunction with Green and a war with their nearby neighbours from the city of Han but also his remembered trip outlined in part 1 and,

3. Allusions by the Rajan to events not yet fully recounted or explained that occur after Horn has boarded the lander, but before he becomes the Rajan of Gaon, which seem to include references to both the Long Sun Whorl and the deadly planet Green, home of the inhumi.

As we attempt to sort out these various entangled strings in the narrative the very voice of of the narrator seems to evince a confusion as to his own identity as slips are made or references to others, and even himself, become confused and confounded. It can be a real exercise in close reading as we try and unravel the mystery of who this speaker is and guess at what has happened to him.

Horn himself is not always a particularly sympathetic character. While he obviously tries to emulate his hero Silk and be the best man he can he fails quite often to live up to his own ideals (but then don't we all?) He has a particularly acrimonious relationship with his eldest son Sinew, one whose roots aren’t immediately obvious and which does not paint the father in the best light. He also stumbles often in his faithfulness to his ‘true love’ and wife Nettle numerous times throughout the text, most notably with the siren Seawrack who becomes attached to him early in his voyage, and his harem of wives as the Rajan of Gaon. He’s certainly not an evil character, but he definitely displays a lot of, um, let’s say moral complexity.

Horn’s journey across the waters of Blue (section 1) are something of a reverse Odyssey as our hero travels away from hearth and home instead of towards it, though still encountering trials and encounters that threaten to pull him off course from his destination of the mysterious town of Pajaracou and their lander aimed at the Long Sun Whorl. Horn even encounters a literal siren and her sea goddess mother, not to mention our old friends Maytera Marble and Mucor seen in the guise of hermit witches, and his new companion the (semi?)intelligent hus (something like a wild boar) Babbie. In the Rajan of Gaon sections the narrator displays a distinctly Silk-like concern for meting out justice and instilling a sense of goodness in the people who have apparently forced him to be their leader. Most tantalizing of all, however, are the hints and allusions dropped to mysterious events on Green and the Long Sun Whorl for which we currently have no context, but that point to a period of crisis for the narrator.

This one really is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…at least it seemed so to me from what I remember of my first read and even knowing much of what is to come doesn’t always make this volume a heck of a lot clearer. You definitely don’t want to read this volume (or series) without first having tackeld the Books of the Long Sun, but even with this behind you be prepared for more confusion than answers (at first at least). It's definitely an intriguing (if sometimes frustrating) return to that world.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book in the final leg of Wolfe's defining work, the Solar Cycle odyssey, comprising no less than twelve books in total.

And "odyssey" is the operative word here, because there is little question that Homer's epic poem forms the template for this narrative as Horn, the principle narrator of the preceding Book of the Long Sun, sets off to find the missing hero of that work, Patera Silk.

Horn travels across the water's of the planet Blue, encountering along the way a Circean witch, a cyclops, and a sultry siren amongst others, while his faithful wife, Nettle, waits with Penelope-like patience for his return.

As usual with Wolfe there are legions of unanswered questions, some of which I expect to be answered in the concluding two books of the series, while others will probably remain unanswered - categorically at least - by the end of the trilogy.

The principle mysteries established here include the true nature of the vampire-like Inhumi; the history and motives of the native, ethereal Neighbors; and the true identity of the protagonist, which appears to vacillate.

My favourite character, Oreb the talking night chough, is back from the last series ("Fish heads!"), and Wolfe conjures up a full new cast of creatures and marvels to populate his strange worlds. The planet Blue is hostile yet habitable, while the planet Green, the focus for part two, is hinted to be something close to hell.

The writing is both as smooth and as sharp as the two items the heroes are named after, the plotting stealthy and syncopated in the patented Wolfe style, demanding a second read before the pieces can be puzzled apart and made any sense of.

I can't wait for the next one!

[Tom Ewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

ADDENDUM: Bumped it up a star on a re-read. The emotional throughline of Horn and Sinew's relationship is one of the most moving things in any Gene Wolfe book, probably in any SFF book I've read - Wolfe's typical narratorial tricks used for sad and human ends. Maybe I feel this way as a Dad myself, hopefully a better one than Horn.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

Rating a Gene Wolfe book on first read is a mug's game, but nevertheless - my Solar Cycle read-through has finally reached the virgin territory of the Short Sun trilogy, which follows directly on from the Long Sun books. Inasmuch as anything by Wolfe does anything directly, that is.

We're back in the first person, with this book being an account of the journey of Horn, an apparently minor character from the previous novels, across his home world of Blue in search of a working space shuttle he's been told about so he can find Silk, the now-missing hero of The Book Of The Long Sun. When the narrative opens, Horn is a family man in his late 30s, something of an ostentatious wife guy (though with a son who hates him), who accepts the quest he's offered out of a sense of duty and unfinished business.

But - Wolfe being Wolfe- the narrator of this narrative begins as a somewhat reluctant ruler of a town nothing like the one Horn started out from, who informs us at once that his quest failed, while constantly interrupting his past story with notes on the present situation, in which his efforts to govern wisely are winning the town prosperity but increasing friction with its neighbours. Meanwhile, the Horn he's writing about is not quite the paragon he wants to be - his motives for abandoning his family are suspect, he's only too happy to shack up with a mermaid, and his supposedly murderously hateful son appears to be nothing of the sort. Wolfe's narrators are always unreliable, but this one is constantly aware of it, berating himself for deceiving his readers. And the unreliability is more than textual - people keep calling the narrator by a different name, and he seems to have grown taller...

Wolfe is up to his usual tricks, in other words - playing, in part, on the reader's happiness at seeing names and faces from the previous novels to weave in his misdirection. Not just characters, either. The move back into first person narrative brings The Book Of The New Sun to mind, and there are parts where Horn's adventures (including his worst action in the book) seem like strong echoes of Severian's. The setting is also familiar, though here the resemblance to previous work was strong enough that Wolfe had to clarify in interviews that, no, this was nothing to do with the Fifth Head Of Cerberus. You can see why readers went there, though - Blue is part of a twin planet system with its neighbour, Green, and the two races native to the system share definite similarities with the Annese and the Shadow People from that novel.

(Plenty of Wolfe-heads think this similarity is itself misdirection, and Blue and Green have an entirely different secret. From a brief post-reading skim of conversation around the book it looks like On Blue's Waters, and the Short Sun books in general, have attracted just as much enthusiastic code-breaking as the rest. For me, I don't think it entirely matters - the basic ideas in Fifth Head were extremely strong, and can easily stand revisiting and reusing.)

Once you're used to the parallel narratives, past and present, On Blue's Waters is a reasonably straightforward story - there's a lot of things referred to which I expect will happen in the 'past' narrative of books 2 and 3, and it's clear at the end that whatever transformation the narrator has undergone is still developing. Who he remains unclear - even more unclear is what he is. The Severian who sits down to write The Book Of The New Sun still has a distance to go in his moral development, but his role as would-be saviour is settled. Silk in The Book Of The Long Sun is a patriarch, prophet or saint, and while the book is written by people who believe that of him, it's still apparent that he is at least a good, intelligent man who is doing his best.

What is Horn, then? In some ways the worst of the three, riddled with selfishness, self-doubt and self-pity, and not always a pleasure to follow. But in the book's most mysterious and maybe crucial sequence, he's a (literal) everyman, made to stand in for all of humanity, and he seems at least to act well. Whether that's true or not is for the final two books to show me.

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've all of the volumes of Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun," but none of the "Book of the Long Sun," which I believe is really intended to be read before this book (and its sequels).
I did intend on sometime getting around to the Long Sun. However, this one was on a birthday wishlist, so it got bumped up! And - it is an excellent book.
The story is science-fantasy - in a far future, humanity has left the artificial world known as the Whorl, and has recolonized two planets, Green and Blue. On the earthlike Blue,
humanity faces both social disorder and the threat of the vampire-like inhumi, invading from Green. The narrator, a man named Horn, is recruited by some powerful individuals to seek out the missing religious(?) leader Silk, and return him to a place where he may galvanize society as a figurehead. A complex and adventurous journey ensues, but the really interesting aspect of the novel is its structure. It's in the form of a memoir written by Horn. He is not a professional writer, and as he sets down his story, in a rather meandering, prone-to-tangents style, we learn, simultaneously, what happened to him in the past, and what is currently happening to him. It's a book of clues and gradual
revelations... and a story of character.
Highly recommended.

[Richard S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe doesn't write science fiction, he creates works of great literary art containing some, but not primarily, science fiction (with some fantasy) themes, of a level of intricacy and interest beyond anything found in virtually all contemporary fiction. On Blue's Waters is no exception.

I'm going to give a thematic rundown, as I think the best way to describe the book is by doing so, as the plot, while it can be described, is so subservient to the style it's a bit misleading to focus on it. Unfortunately the overarching effect is unique (although it's a bit like Possoa), so it's very difficult to capture it in words (like Joyce's Ulysses). If you read the first chapter three times most of these themes are captured (although some of the later ones are introduced with jarring effect):

1) The corrupt text: OBW is a book about it's own acknowledged corruption and imperfections. (This is hard to explain without reading the book since it's so unusual.) The author is commenting constantly on his inability to convey the story.

2) Book as artifact: The prior text, Long Sun, is a book in its own right, the new text is written by just one of the two prior authors. The existence of the prior text within the book is an important part of it. Lack of clarity in the prior book is a component of the new book. Since we discover at the end of Long Sun its provenance, certain ambiguous passages are left that way, and the author (who was the half author of Long Sun) explains the ambiguity.

3) Text as diary: the book is about writing the book. The paper, the ink, the quills.

4) The book as physical substance: The author manufactures paper, and it has value. The quills are from the bird in Long Sun. He describes in details how the ink is made.

5) Text as observed text: the text has commentary from later readers in response to statements in the text, both as corrections to the text and as responses to the text. Very jarring but it puts the book in a third time period.

6) Dual narratives: the story of the past and the current story, as reflective of one another. There's an Odyssey-like story and an Iliad-like story going on at the same time.

7) Unclear middle: the story in between is continually hinted at but never fully described, it is murky and full of secrets. This is the world of "Green" contrasted with "Blue".

8) Probably the most difficult thing to grapple with is a bad-acting, unsympathetic protagonist, but Wolfe goes in headlong. He's not an antihero, he's a bad person. This becomes a battle between truth telling and its consequences. The author battles between the horrific things he's done and telling the truth. This comes as a huge shock and really places the book outside the box of most literature and all other science fiction.

9) The writer aware of his potential future reader. The writer uncertain he will be read. The writer unsure why he is writing (writing with unclear purpose). Writing for its own sake. The book is about its own writing.

Other than these largely textual themes which would drive a deconstructualist to madness, Wolfe creates a world of incredible richness, a wide variety of fascinating characters, although he tends towards the unique rather than traditional tropes. Many of the characters from "Long Sun" are present again (and it's hard to imagine reading this without having read Long Sun before). His creative imagination with creatures and world building is unequalled. This is the most "science fiction/fantasy" part and it is beautifully done.

OBW is very different from Long Sun though as it is written in a diary format, and the themes are textual rather "world-revealing". It has moments of beauty and horror, but still maintains insistence on authenticity of motive and believability. People have authentic usually bad motivations. There is not a shred of romanticism. Also this is the text "within itself", it is not an allegory and the themes are the eternal ones.

In the end, after the great New Sun and Long Sun books, it's hard to believe that Wolfe cannot only write with distinctly high quality, but write something very different thematically and stylistically. These books really dwarf anything else in modern literature in their rich complexity. Never a dull moment or passage. Great art.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book! Fish heads?


Gene Wolfe plays with narrative like a clown making a balloon animal. Twisting into itself, it becomes a beast.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I have re-read most of this. Not all, but most. There are many things I ought to have written less about, and a few about which I should have written more" (380). Boy, you can say that again.

On Blue's Waters, the first in the Short Sun trilogy, is about as direct a sequel to the Book of the Long Sun as you can get, except for the fact that the Long Sun's mostly appealing protagonist, Silk, is nowhere to be found. Instead, this book is narrated (and written) by Horn, the minor character in the Long Sun trilogy who, we found out at the end of that trilogy, was the coauthor of that work. The setup in On Blue's Waters is that Horn has been tasked, by the leaders of the town of New Viron on the planet Blue, with journeying to the fabled town of Pajarocu, a distant place where a spaceship is said to be preparing to return to the Whorl. The leaders of New Viron want Horn to return to the Whorl and bring back Silk whose leadership, they believe, is desperately needed on this new world. Horn is chosen because of all the people who made the journey to Blue, he is ostensibly the one who knew Silk best, and might have the best chance of persuading Silk to leave the Whorl.

What follows is 300 pages of Horn traveling, by boat, to the town of Pajarocu. Along the way he visits with Maytera Marble and Mucor, whom he knew in the Whorl, is joined by Mucor's tame hus, Babbie, and Seawrack, a young woman who lived in the sea with one of the old gods of Blue. Later, when Horn suffers an accident, he is left with no choice but to form an alliance with Krait, one of the vampirelike inhumi who come from Green, the companion planet of Blue.

Interspersed with this tale, which Horn is writing many years after the fact, are diary-style entries in which Horn writes about his current role as the leader of Gaon, a town on Blue that seems to have a lot in common with nineteenth-century India. In these entries, Horn intimates that his mission to the Whorl was a failure.

* * *

I'm not alone in believing that Severin, the protagonist of the Book of the New Sun, is Gene Wolfe's greatest character. Silk, the aforementioned protagonist of the Book of the Long Sun, is less compelling but he grew on me after a while. Horn, on the other hand, has yet to win me over. He shares one of Severin's and Silk's most prominent characteristics, which is a feeling of personal inadequacy and a sense of being a bad man, despite wanting to be good. This characteristic recurs in Wolfe's main characters as a religious (more specifically, a Christian) motif. The leading men in these three series are saviors of a sort.

Having read only this first book in the Short Sun trilogy, I suppose it's too early for me to make any proclamations on Horn's position in Wolfe's pantheon of quasi-Christian Sons, but so far I am not impressed. Whereas Severin's and, moreso, Silk's claims of personal inadequacy are counterbalanced by authentic attempts to be better men, I don't see that in Horn. Thus, every time he talks about being a bad man, I tended to agree with him. Evidence: He has abandoned his wife and young children to take a perilous journey, he seriously hates his eldest teenage son, Sinew, he cheats on his wife with Seawrack within days of leaving (to say nothing of his harem of concubines in Gaon), and, in one instance, he beats and rapes Seawrack. This last, most horrible event in the book is excused in the most cowardly manner: Horn tells us of his feelings of guilt, but then writes that Seawrack blames herself, because of her siren song, which apparently compelled Horn to act as he did. He claims that he still blames himself, but by providing Seawrack's pardon he allows us, his readers, to infer that he really wasn't to blame. Which is bullshit. What makes this even more infuriating, though, is that when Horn talks of being a bad man, there is an undercurrent of humility that I find to be misplaced, for I don't believe he's being merely humble when he says he's a bad man. By the end of On Blue's Waters, he has not shown me that he is anything other than an inadequate protagonist.

Furthermore, in reference to the quotation with which I started this review, this is a book that suffers from the same irritating progression that Wolfe used (in a slightly less-irritating fashion) in the Book of the Long Sun. Namely, providing endless amounts of detail while leading up to the book's climax, only to turn the climax into a sort of anticlimax by skipping over the very thing for which we, the readers, have been waiting. In this case, we spend the entire book with Horn on his stupid boat (shades of Le Guin's superior A Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore , not to mention Homer's Odyssey , of course), searching for Pajarocu and learning every last detail of his frankly not very interesting conversations with Seawrack and Krait, and then, when Pajarocu is nearly in sight, Horn switches gears and focuses on his diary entries about Gaon's war with Han. With just 30 pages left, Horn uses less than half of that to summarize their arrival in Pajarocu and his discovery that the ship is actually controlled by inhumi who use it to send humans to Green as slaves/food.

I realize this is the first of a trilogy, and that the second book focuses on Horn's time on Green, but I still found this method of ending the book to be borderline obnoxious. I'm sure I wouldn't feel this strongly if the rest of the book had been really good but, like I said, I didn't particularly enjoy Horn as my guide.

* * *

All that said, I am nonetheless looking forward to In Green's Jungles. As much as I hated Horn, Wolfe's prose is as beautiful as ever. Besides, I get the feeling that the action will pick up a bit in the next one. Surely we won't be stuck on a boat with Horn for the duration of the book, which can only be an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

[Daniel Petersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a proper review. No idea why this was marked as 'want to read' for me. Pretty sure I'd already read it when I signed up to Goodreads years ago. Anyway, it's possibly my very favourite book by Gene Wolfe. And this Book of the Short Sun trilogy is probably my favourite among the 'Solar Cycle', even though I know the initial Book of the New Sun is rightly considered his magnum opus and masterpiece. I just prefer a number of things about this series, even though it gets so dense it's nearly impenetrable at times, and the last volume is... what, I don't know (still has some great imagery in it though). I think I just like the wonders and horrors of this trilogy better than anything else in Wolfe. And I love the narrative gymnastics. And the imagery, the theology and philosophy and symbolism, etc. Again, New Sun is just as rich or richer in some of these respects, but I *like* this trilogy's content better. That's all. Just more up my alley with its non-Earth setting and so on, the xenobiology and xenoanthropology, etc.

That's it for now.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was despairing a bit midway through the book because I really, REALLY didn't understand what was going on - moreso than any of my previous first-reads for Wolfe - but then I talked to the Rereading Wolfe podcast who reassured me it would be worth it in the end. I also caught the barest hints of understanding so we'll see if I was right.

[Hossein · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's outstanding how good this book is. Have I mentioned that Gene Wolfe is a genius? Because, he really is.

[Ben De Bono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and for the first time I found a Gene Wolfe novel accessible on a first read

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

On Blue's Waters is the first volume of Gene Wolfe's science fiction trilogy "The Book of the Short Sun". This trilogy is a follow-up to his four-volume "Book of the Long Sun", and both of these works take place in the same universe as his acclaimed tetralogy "The Book of the New Sun", all forming what is often referred to as the Solar Cycle. Before coming to this work, you should have read "The Book of the New Sun" and "The Book of the Long Sun" and my review will assume you have.

The basic plot of On Blue's Waters is that two decades after their arrival on Blue, the colonists from Viron are plagued by infighting and are missing vital technology left on the Whorl. The elite of New Viron commission Horn, whom we eventually learned was narrator of "The Book of the Long Sun", to go back to the Whorl, retrieve some items and, most importantly, bring Silk to Blue so that the town has a just, wise leader. Horn, who longs to see his boyhood idol again, sets out towards a faraway colony which is rumoured to have a working lander.

But this is no straightforward tale. Horn is setting down his experiences years later, when he has found himself in a very different place. The story of his search for Silk is told alongside a description of his current whereabouts, but as the text progresses, the exact identity of the narrator is cast into doubt: is the man writing now the same one who set off from New Viron? Faulty memories and things intentionally left unsaid suggest that there is more to the story than Wolfe directly tells.

To a degree, this book shows Wolfe's declining powers. It uses elements we've already found in some of his earlier works: shapeshifting aliens from The Fifth Head of Cerberus, giant godlike creatures that live in the sea from "The Book of the New Sun" (but not related to them), unreliable narrators, a protagonist who dies multiple times, etc. Still, On Blue's Waters is a memorable, moving work for the quality of its prose. The narrator is a man absolutely tormented by what he has seen, by his fear of old age and his uncertainty over being a good father, and this pathos comes through the text powerfully. The way the mysteries are set up in this text are often very clever. While I was deeply troubled at some of the plot twists in the latter two volumes of "The Book of the Short Sun", On Blue's Waters contains fine writing and, if you've enjoyed the earlier works in the Solar Cycle, I'd recommend pressing ahead into this one.

[Jendy Castillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel definitely threw me off a bit with the very non-linear writing style Horn chooses to utilize but also with a lot of the breaks included. This writing style did help tease out a lot of things we would not have known otherwise but also helped Wolfe expand/enhance things in the frame story. If Severian and Silk are polar opposites when it comes to telling the truth, Horn would probably be somewhere near the middle, where he is very much lying often but he is being honest that he lies about quite a bit but still striving to give readers the honest truth. I almost forgot how much Wolfe definitely loves his unreliable narrators and he plays around with that a lot, throwing in jokes here and there about being able to remember everything then a couple pages later how the MC forgets.

Horn as a grown man seems like a very honorable person at first and I thought he would be more or less like Silk, especially with how he’s been with Nettle from Long Sun onwards but boy I was very wrong and very glad for that (MOST times). He does do something terrible which we see how it affects him often after that. He also poses a lot of arguments with himself about that event as well, which does separate him from Severian in that aspect but still it’s very disgusting and inexcusable.

“I have tried hard to punish myself for that, and certain other things. No more. Let the Outsider punish me; we deceive ourselves when we think that we can measure out justice to ourselves. I wanted to end my guilt. What was just about that? I should feel guilty. I deserve it.”

What I found most fascinating was Sinew & Horn’s relationship and the bits and hinting at things that have happened so far between them. Also the inhumi being more prevalent in this story was cool and seeing a couple familiar characters was really great as well.

On Blue’s Waters was a solid start to Short Sun, with elements like The Mother & the Vanished People, keeping me intrigued and wanting more about that as Horn chooses to tell it. That helps me notice that I really enjoyed Horn’s account of this journey once I got used to it, being really eager to see what’s going to happen in the next 2 books and how this journey will conclude.

[Janet]

This is the first book in 'The Book of the Short Sun', which follows 'The Book of the Long Sun'. I found the first 70 or so pages slow going, as they assumed a knowledge of the characters and setting that were in the previous series. However, it began to be interesting, and then became compelling. The story is told in flashbacks and digressions, with the narrator making retractions and corrections as he goes, which appeals to my love of an unreliable narrator.[return]The planet has gods and goddesses, even sirens, and feudal kingdoms and vampires -- all with a rather science fiction flavor to them. It's a rich and strange place, where I was often confused, but fascinated.

[Ilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The formal acrobatics of Book of the Long Sun is followed up here with a discursive narrator telling two stories in parallel – a chronicle of the events that got him to where he is at present and a diary of his current situation. It's a neat trick keeping the audience guessing about how one strand connects to the other, and the book ends with that gap unfilled. It's an enjoyable journey, although marred for me by a moment of very disturbing sexual violence which I don't think Wolfe handles very responsibly.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a rant about how Gene Wolfe consistently rubs me the wrong way, in this mega-series. I should dig it out. Unless it's posted at the Long Sun books?

Another time....

[Romppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, I am completely blown away by Gene Wolfe as I begin the final series in the Solar Cycle. The sheer layers to this book alone is mind boggling.

For one, the book itself is written first person once again. This feels like a return to similar ground (Severian) in many ways, but also vastly different. Where Severian would gloss over many of his own errors or misconceptions, Horn openly admits to his faults on many occasions. Yet still we should not take everything he says at face value. At many times he is much like Severian in the way he will flat out lie to the reader or possibly misremember things outright. This is even called out by someone later in the book who says he lies quite a bit but that it so far has turned out for the better.

Another layer is the fact that these books seemed to not only have been edited and changed by the author himself (Horn) confessedly many times, but also that his sons may have edited it themselves. Or at the very least read and made a few additions.

Additionally, we have two paralleling stories intertwining with eachother in fluid motion throughout. At some points Horn will even be talking about both periods in the same paragraph. Needless to say the timeline is difficult to grasp, if graspable at all. And if that wasn't already impressive enough, Wolfe does more twisting and turning with an already ambiguous series of events. The finale is clouded in this strange reverse climax, where Wolfe starts with the finale in the final act and moves backwards towards the moment he reached pajarocu.

Embedded in it all are themes sprinkled and layered throughout like a sundae fully loaded. From religion, to civilization, to family, to war and peace. Many powerful ideas and concepts are shared and teased into an already fascinating tale.

The creatures of Blue and the Inhumi are enough on their own to catch your interest. Then there's the pantheon that is seemingly hiding beneath the surface, yet alluded to many times. The Mother and The Vanished Gods, and even a possibly deity for the Inhumi themselves.

There is a lot to absorb and I'm sure I missed plenty. Wolfe really saved his best series for last. Greatest of All Time.

[Dallas Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gene does it again. Long sun had me dragging at times, but this first volume of Short Sun was just amazing. It is Wolfe at or near his absolute best, I'm sure.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the first book in a trilogy, that is loosely (very loosely) tied in with some 9 other books also from Gene Wolfe, this book has a heavy burden to let people get their feet wet without drowning. As I have read the other books, I can't fairly judge how well he pulled it off, but as the only set of Wolfe's books that I feel I'm starting to get a handle on, it must be more accessible than his others (or maybe just better hidden). I would suggest that part of the availability of the book is Wolfe's use of two common story tropes.

The story within a story (the narrator talks to us from a later time telling us he is telling his story, think Slaughterhouse Five, or Canterbury Tales, or Hyperion, or, or, or...

Road trip (the protagonist goes out on an quest and finds friendship and growth in his travels).

We know what to expect out of these stories, and so when Wolfe stays within those confines, we are comfortable.

I'll mention this again in Return to the Whorl, but the second I finished that book, I desperately wished I had this book in my immediate possession so that I could read it again.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Gene Wolfe is blowing my mind. While this series is a continuation of his "Solar Cycle" and continues roughly 20 years after the "Book of the Long Sun", he's taken a different approach to the narration. The narrator, Horn, was a very minor character in the previous series. Now, having left the gargantuan starship on which he was born and lived for his early life, Horn has been living on one of two vastly different planets. One is the home of vampiric shape-shifters, and both bear the remnants of some strange, bygone "Neighbor" civilization. Even more compelling than these enigmatic creatures is Horn's narration. In a style similar to Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", Horn gives both a running commentary and a massive flashback tale. Wolfe shifts back and forth between them with amazing skill, so that just when things border on convolution, answers are given in startling moments of clarity. If the rest of the trilogy is this good, this one will be another hidden classic.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Future Matt,

What a book. It's like a written version of the game Wildermyth to you. It reads like a myth just like The Book of the New Sun did. Caught you in quickly and held tight. The ending was a little confusing for you but worth the read.

You want to reread Book of the New Sun now.

From,
Past Matt

[Daniel Bensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horn isn’t quite as much fun to follow as Silk, but, well, no spoilers. In this short review, the one thing I’ll call to attention in this generally excellent book is the way Wolfe dealt with the diary aspect of the story. Unlike Book of the New Sun, which was supposedly written by the narrator over the course of a few nights, The Book of the Short Sun was written as series of confessions interleaved with accounts of whatever the narrator happened to be doing in his old age the Raja of a small kingdom. Now I want the narrators of all the first-person books I read to take some time out between chapters to go fight a war.

[lowercase · Rating 5 out of 5]

the "short sun" series is probably among wolfe's most accessible works. although, like many of his other books, they are part of the same autarch omniverse he's created, they almost stand alone, and they're more purely science-fictional than his other efforts. the prose is still rich, the ideas are still startling, and the questions asked are still unanswered, but, for all that, this is wolfe at his most approachable.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. But of course, I loved all of Gene Wolf's books. This series comes aftr the Book of the Long Sun, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense without it. It spans three worlds, one human-made and two where humans have been trying to settle after a long long journey across the stars. HIs language is beautiful, though dense, and it brings together effortlessly fantasy, sci fi and horror into a cohesive whole.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Wolfe book to love. This one centering on Horn, the kid Silk stole the ball from as he had his enlightenment to kick off the long sun books. In that one act, Silk and Horn became bound and it becomes increasingly so. In this book, you'll find out what the inhuma's are. There are always weird Gods, strange vanished races, astral projecting waifs and animals that talk or bite that can be expected in any wolfe story along the way.

Horn is very amoral for a moral chap.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gene Wolfe clearly still had it when writing this continuation of the Solar books but the presentation of women really has not aged well. Another naked young woman throwing herself at the narrator is it Gene?

[James Wilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complex. Intriguing. Gene Wolfe novels really stick in your head. His writing is vivid and cinematic, in the sense that I, at least, can think back through his novels and run them forward with full color details, images, feelings, and wonder.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another strong showing from Gene Wolfe. The style is highly discursive, jumping from topic to topics, memory to memory, all filling in pieces as you go along. A worthy opening to the Long Sun series' sequel.

[Yórgos St. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolfe at his best. Very different from the Long Sun Whorl. Similar to New Sun, maybe. Lots mysteries that I need to solve. I am sure that I have missed many things that I will discover later when I will reread the book. What else can I tell? This is classic Wolfe!

[Osmosisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book does a decent job setting the stage for what follows, i am extremely fed up with Mr. Wolfe's naive waifish women sidekicks and all the abuse they get. His occasionally wooden dialogue also grates more than usual here.