CALDÉ OF THE LONG SUN - GENE WOLFE

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We’re cruising right along with this Long Sun Tetralogy. I’ll have to take a break before the next and final chapter, since it’s proving elusive at the various used bookstores of Seattle. I might just have TheGiant mail it to me. Irregardless, I’m still digging this. Wolfe is the true king of sci-fi and the way he balances the whorl-building (pun intended) aspects with the “main story/plot” aspects is untouchable. I would say that compared with the NEW SUN series, the “main plot” of this series is much easier to follow and the main character is much less of a cipher. Tho this comes at the price of less overall weirdness in this series. Which is not to say that the series isn’t extremely weird. Wolfe has introduced several characters, some of whom are gods, who can possess humans and animals at will. This leads to the confusing task of trying to figure out who is speaking in a given scene and who is possessing who. We’re (both the reader and the character) are still working on how the Whorl functions and where its’ going and what the “rules” are, so to speak. We still need to see this mainframe that characters have alluded too, we still don’t know about the fliers, it still isn’t clear where this whole thing is going. Though, Wolfe is a skilled enough writer that I trust he both knows the answers to all of these questions, and he will revel them artfully. Otherwise, it is somewhat hard to review this as a stand alone. I think Wolfe does a good job with pacing, the stakes continue to be raised and the complexity of the situations deepens. The Whorl building stuff is all wonderful and keeps getting weirder and weirder. If I had 2 complaints, one would be that a lower-class sort of oaf figure keeps calling a woman he likes, “jugs” which bugs me for some reason, and I’m not sure what we’re to make of the bird that Silk keeps around. So far he doesn’t do anything, though he is in a lot of scenes. There is only one book left in the series (and then a whole other 3 books in a separate trilogy that takes places after this) and I am a touch worried about how much needs to be squeezed into the book to make this whole thing seem satisfying. But, if anyone can pull it off, it’s Wolfe. 303 Whorls