Nightside the Long Sun

Following my re-read of the same author's series The Book of the New Sun, I've made a start on my first reading of The Book of the Long Sun with this opening volume of the series.

My initial reactions are very favourable. The setting is nowhere near as baroque, the language is less erudite but no less a pleasure, and there are interesting characters. The protagonist, Patera Silk, is a far more reliable narrator than New Sun's Severian, though strange stuff happens to him just as much. He lives in a multi-generation starship (no spoiler, this: the book's blurb gives it away), though he hasn't realised it yet; it is a while before we get that confirmed with a description of the "skylands", a landscape in the sky that appears each night show more after the long sun dims. It is also set in the same universe as New Sun, but as yet I have not seen any clues to that.

The action of the book - and there is plenty of action - takes place over a period of little more than a couple of days. Patera Silk is an augur - a priest - who gets into a fraught relationship with a local crime boss over the sale of his manteion, or temple, from under his feet in lieu of taxes. Silk is a young man with considerable vigour and ingenuity, despite his calling, and proves useful to the crime boss in a number of ways. And there are other characters, equally well-drawn, but some of whom are not what they seem to be.

The setting - a city where society seems in decline, harvests have not done well and things generally are falling apart - is well drawn. The technology here is not so disguised as in New Sun; people recognise technology as such, and some have an idea about how to fix it - or how it ought to be fixed - when it goes wrong. It is a very different setting to the previous series.

I enjoyed this a lot and am keen to move on to the next instalment. show less

On a reread of this whole series, I was alarmed (pleasantly, if that's possible) at how much I'd missed the first time around. This is the experience of reading Wolfe. Despite being more introverted and less action-packed than The Book of the New Sun, I think I like this series better. In particular, the protagonist Silk is such an admirable guy, and much more interesting to me than Severian. Wolfe is so good at sprinkling in details about the world in the most calculated ways, it's easy to miss them and a joy to come back 10 years later and find them (or many of them) waiting there.

If what you hold dear is a thing that helps people by its nature, is it morally correct to steal and perhaps murder evil men to protect it? I'd think not, but it's a dilemma that Patera Silk, the protagonist of the first volume of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Long Sun.

While many of the same themes that Mr. Wolfe explores in The Book of the New Sun are present here - transformation, religion, government - yet are given new twists. The author's trademarked unreliable narrator is here more self-deluding than a liar. Silk nearly always tells the truth, but it's tinted by his desire for happy endings. While he is a priest of sorts, he has a remarkable loss of remorse at descending into criminal acts, even to save his parish.

Religion is here show more portrayed as both noble and worthy or ridicule, depending on the point of view. Or perhaps both. The gods of the Whorl, the miles-long generation ship the story is set in, are kind, or perhaps cruel.

To summarize the plot is to do it a disservice. But here goes: To save his manteion, as a god has instructed him to do, Patera Silk must accomplish the impossible task or convincing a criminal to show charity. That's pretty trite, actually, and it leaves out the grand society that's grown up (or perhaps not) in the Whorl. It leaves out the characters of Auk, professional thief and Silk's mentor; the semi-respectable criminal Blood; Maytera Marble, 300 year old sibyl of the manteion.

Not to be missed. Nightside the Long Sun is a continuation to the New Sun books. But you can start here, I think, since the characters and events are very different. However, having read the earlier books will enrich the experience. show less

This is an excellent start to what promises to be a fantastic series.

Wolfe sets up a futuristic 'world' (figuring out just what sort of world is part of the fun) in which a high technology has risen, but peaked; we pick up the story decades, or even centuries, after that peak, when the science behind the technology is long forgotten.

Our protagonist is a priest. Young, fervent, but also unpredictable and and daring, Patera Silk is one of the best characters I've encountered in scifi. His adventures in trying to secure the future of his temple are fresh and highly entertaining.

But this is not just a light work. Wolfe has worked in far deeper themes, making this one of the most elegant and worthwhile reads I've had in the genre. I'd rank show more it up there with one of the true greats in scifi, and indeed in novel-writing in general, i.e. Walter Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz. This is high praise, but Wolfe has earned it. show less

Patera Silk, 23, is the augur (priest) at the poorest church in the city of Viron. While playing with his students at recess, he received Enlightenment from a mysterious god called the Outsider. Silk sees in an instant all the prayers that have been offered for help for his poor church, and he also sees the help that is being provided... and it's himself.

So begins The Book of the Long Sun, another multi-volume novel from Gene Wolfe, probably the most literary of SF authors. For those familiar with Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, I can tell you that Long Sun has some similarities and some differences. For starters, it is told in the third person, as opposed to the first-person narration of New Sun. It's protagonist, Silk, is more thoughtful show more than Severian, although there are similarities as well. Long Sun contains far fewer unfamiliar words than New Sun and reads more easily; however, the easy readibility can conceal the depths of the story.

Silk learns that his church has been sold by the government for back taxes, and sets out to preserve it. Nightside The Long Sun, the first of four volumes, covers just the first 72 hours of Silk's quest. It introduces us to his world and many of its occupants, in a wide variety of occupations. We begin to suspect things about this world and its gods that its inhabitants might not know (this is Wolfe, after all). The subsequent volumes will confirm and correct our suspicions.

Silk is a wonderful character, living in a fascinating world, and lovers of literary SF will enjoy his story. show less

I am a big Gene Wolfe fan, but this has to be my favorite so far. I love the fact that 200 pages into the book and it's less than 24 hours since the beginning. So much is packed in to so little space, yet there is not much action. I have loaned this book to people who were bored to tears by it, not me. I hardly ever read books more than once, but this one is different. It would be a sad life to only get to read this once.

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That doesn’t mean Nightside is a very good book. As with all Wolfe I’ve read, the same list of adjectives – bizarre, strange, baffling, different, mythical, mysterious and oddball – springs to mind. And harsh, and deadpan. Nightside is set in a giant generational space ship, of the spinning cylinder Rendezvous With Rama-type. It was sent from a far, far future Earth (or Urth, or the Whorl) to some distant planet. Yet Nightside doesn’t register as SF at first – as in The New Sun, the inhabitants of its world don’t understand their surroundings, aren’t even aware they are on a spaceship, and are not able to repair or even understand the technology – AI entities show more in the Mainframe that sometimes appear on screens are worshipped as gods. The ship has been flying for ages, and its origins are mostly lost to the book’s characters.

Nightside takes a long time to set things up, (...) show less