Epiphany of the Long Sun: The Second Half of the Book of the Long Sun [Paperback]

Typical Gene Wolfe book - very good but you'll have to work at it. The structure of the book does not lend itself to easy reading and is hard going. If you are prepared to put the effort in, you'll find an amazing intelligent novel. Like most of GW's work what the book is about is not obvious and many questions will be left unanswered.

The book is not perfect by any means, there are a large number of character and keeping track of them can be hard (the who's who at start of the book is probably there by the publishers request, this does help somewhat); the book does jump ahead at points (you only find this out several pages later); lots of technical stuff is missed out (in reflection a good thing as the book is about people not so much about technology).

All in all a work of epic proportions, that does not take the easy way out.

Should this be your first GW book? - maybe not, "The Fifth Head Of Cerberus" might be a better place to start and the books of the New Sun are worth reading before hand to give you some grounding in this universe (but the connection between the stories is so loose that you don't have to read the books of the New Sun to understand these)

The story does continue with the books of the Short Sun...

This review is for the Long Sun series rather than this book on its own.

To give this book and its series a single star review is an absolute criminal offence, and can only be explained by the reviewer suffering with the difficulties in the narrative. It is difficult to get to grips with to begin with, yes, but that is only to be expected. It's as simple as 'if you don't want to work at the book, don't buy Gene Wolfe.'

The reason this artist's literary contempories call him "the greatest writer in the english language alive today" (Michael Swanwick) is due to the level of depth to be explored in his work. This is the reason writers love Gene Wolfe, yet he will probably never be a number one bestseller, because "average Joe reader" wants a simple, enjoyable read he doesn't have to work at to understand.

Not for me.

If you don't mind a bit of effort, you will be richly rewarded. A classic.

I desperately want to give Caldé of the Long Sun four stars as I have been keenly fixated on exploring the previous two novels in the series. Also, I read this third book of 300 pages in the series in merely two days, so it's obvious I was still captivated by Wolfe's prose and plot. BUT the book starts abruptly and continues to stagger and waver until the very end. It's like the book itself received a good conk on the head and isn't able to walk straight... much like the characters in Caldé of the Long Sun.

As in Lake of the Long Sun (book 2) when the characters were strained through hardship the main cast themselves changed in attitude and speech transforming them for the worst. It was difficult to follow them even though they should have been familiar after reading about them for 500+ pages. The change was unwanted. In Caldé of the Long Sun, this strain becomes overbearing when the hardships pile upon injury which stack upon disconnectedness. The characters' profiles which were molded in Nightside of Long Sun are shattered. It is difficult to sympathize with a cast you have since grown distant from through unfamiliarity.

What causes this abrupt change is a series of head concussions, perpetual bodily injury, insomnia, starvation and over activity of Auk and Silk. Their thoughts are poorly formed and wandering as they draw up improbable scenarios, talk to long dead individuals and skew their own memories of the past. These passages are not reader friendly; I found myself frustrated when encountering each delusional monologue. How many times can Silk get shot, knocked unconscious, bruised, battered and beaten? While dragging yourself through Caldé of the Long Sun you'll be surprised how often; and then sigh as you encounter injury after injury.

Some of the more minor characters come and go from the plot without knowing what happened to them, if they have left or have died or are just quiet. I found myself rereading entire pages to see where the characters have disappeared to and often gave up and wrote it off. Granted, it's easy to lose someone in a dark tunnel during the 200 pages of darkness, darkness, darkness.

There are parts of Caldé of the Long Sun which perk my interest in reading about the generation ship which the entire cast find themselves on and how everything seems to by alphabetized (sibling, class seating, villages, etc). I even became intrigued with new mysteries like the Plan of Pas, the greater importance of the Outsider and the Windows.

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When I started the Long Sun trilogy (Nightside of the Long Sun: 5 stars), seemingly held to high standards by popular readers, I fell in love with the detailed sumptuousness of a chaotic day in Silk's life. The foundation of the series was had utmost perfection for a further three books to build upon. I told myself that when I would eventually come to the conclusion of book four, I would lament/celebrate with a glass of champagne. However, when getting into the meat of the spanning plot (Lake of the Long Sun: 4 stars and Caldé of the Long Sun: 3 stars), I found the characters to be waning in their behavior, leading me to unnecessarily confuse who was who and who held what intentions. It was at this point that I decided the conclusion of the series didn't earn its weight in champagne. Sad.

`Exodus' does pick up speed from where Caldé seemed like it was dragging a codpiece full of coal. Much of the book four plot takes place in or around the subterranean tunnels, where Silk's revolution, the Trivigaunti army from the next city over, the tri-centennial biochem soldiers and the deposed city government of the Ayuntamiento are in a free fall of alliances and backstabbing. The nuances of the good-willed agreements becomes increasing complex as does the perpetual name dropping of the military: generals, generalissimos, lieutenants, sergeants and of the clergy: pateras and mayteras. Then there are the nicknames of some of the cast and I KNOW there's an index of names but I find it inconvenient as each synopsis is too brief.

Amongst the plethora of negotiating platitudes, there is the quiet crescendo of revelation, the unveiling of the some of the secrets the Whorl has in store and where the Whorl is headed. Some of these mysteries have light shed upon them while most secrets, ultimately, remain enigmatic due to the author's elusive prose or possibly because of his myopic view of science in the Long Sun series. The answers I've been dying to hear reveled, rather than being dwelled upon and inferred, are shortcoming. For the series as a whole, it's very poor science fiction and the technology and reason's for the broader background (The Whorl and all its wonders) is elusive. THIS would be the said baby's breathe, a visual superfluous addition to a floral bouquet, which is missing to the greater whole.

Additionally, I deduced who the Outsider was in book one didn't need to be bluntly told that the Outsider is the God of the Gods, the creator of the Mainframe Gods, the ultimate Maker. Book four becomes a little preachy when these matters are demonstrated while the other nine Gods often reveal idiosyncratic (BTW: I tend to use this word a lot in my reviews) tendencies and makes for a rather vibrant polytheistic culture.

Parting questions to raise debate: Does Wolfe snub the polytheistic cultures (as presented in the Whorl), brushing them off as amnesic and supernatural while placing his views of a monotheistic God on a self-imposed alter? Good Silk took refuge in the Outside and began to shun the other nine `Gods' because he himself believed in this monotheism or did Wolfe superimpose his conversion of faith on a character of his own creation?

Sorry Wolfe, you're novels don't appeal to me but your one short story, The Ziggurat, gives me hope that your collections can redeem your alleged high reputation.