The Urth of the New Sun (original 1987; edition 1987)

Now I am going to have to start at the beginning of the series and see if I can make sense of it. ( )

I should qualify - Gene Wolfe is a master, an absolute raconteur extrordinaire, and I enjoyed Severian's last adventures very much. Others have said why the books are great so much more eloquently than I, so I will gesture to their reviews. However, I did find myself alternately mildly disappointed and somewhat distraught at the (ab)use of time-travel in the narration: no spoilers, but it gets a bit stretched, as a useful way of doing things. Or maybe that's the point. Well. ( )

Questions Answered, but New Ones Arise: The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun) isn't so much a book as a lengthy pontification on the nature of man. As compared to other beings, Severian, tells the reader his philosophies as if they are to become volumes in his gospel (which is what we are supposed to believe.)

This is told via travelogue, where we find out where Severian has gone, what he's done, but not why. He spends much of his time trying to work through the largest of all Why questions, without resolving that satisfactorily.

But, at the end of the book, Gene Wolfe stops writing. We never find out the answers to Severian's questions because it seems that the author tired of the internal socratic dialogue, realizing that others tried before and also didn't come up with definitive conclusions.

All that said, Wolfe is still a talented writer, and even with flaws the volume is worth a read. I didn't throw it in frustration, but instead I savored the words and only became perplexed after days pondering the plot and realizing that those errors came through retrospectively.

Enjoy it, and the whole series.

- CV Rick

Severian, the narrator/protagonist of The Book of the New Sun, has been autarch for ten years. He is finally ready to make the trip for which his whole life has been preparing him, to plead as Urth's representative for the coming of the New Sun. He travels on an interstellar (and more) ship to the universe where he will be judged.

Wolfe wraps up some loose ends from TBotNS, but does much more than that. His style, already remarkable in TBotNS, is more assured and platyul; we can almost imagine him laughing with joy as he writes. As always, he does not explain every detail, but invites the reader to participate in fleshing out the story. He gives us scenes from the New Testament, such as the storm on the river, reimagined to fit in with Severian's story and Wolfe's cosmology. Severian is not Christ, however, but a bad man striving to become good.

Severian's voice becomes more and more lyrical as he progresses. He has always sought understanding of his world and its events, but now he seeks and achieves appreciation of the world and his place in it.

I will confess to having my doubts about Wolfe revisiting Urth; this sequel has not only calmed my fears but delighted me with how Severian has grown and how Wolfe tells us his story. ( )

This sequel to the already-hefty four-part Book of the New Sun integrates remarkably well with its predecessors. Wolfe takes us with Severian on a ship -- maybe The Ship -- that travels between stars and times. Does he manage to bring the New Sun to Urth? It's a hell of trip (and I mean that in every sense of the word you can imagine) finding out.

One warning: don't even think about trying to read this without having finished the Book of the New Sun first. It'll be utterly incomprehensible. ( )