bluegargantua (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bluegargantua) wrote2008-07-16 08:14 pm
bluegargantua) wrote2008-07-16 08:14 pm
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Litany of the Long Review
Hi,
Blazed through Litany of the Long Sun (books 1 and 2) by Gene Wolfe. It's a series set roughly in the same universe as his "Urth of New Sun" books, but not directly related to it in any way.
As you might guess rather easily from the title, the characters are all trapped aboard a slower-than-light world-ship. It's a long cylinder with the "long sun" a glowing plasma conduit running down the center. Of course, everyone has forgotten about their origins (some 300 years ago) and now they've got this whole messed-up religion based around their half-remembered past and visitations by god-like AI's in the various large terminal screens.
The main thrust of the story follows Patera Silk, an augur who receives enlightenment from the god known as the Outsider. The priest sets off to rescue his parish and in the process becomes a thief, a detective and a rebel leader. All rather by accident, as he strives to remain true to his faith in spite of ever-increasing demonstrations that it's all a put-on.
My biggest pet peeve about the books is that they're clearly meant to be read as a whole and have no problem just up and stopping in the middle of the action. In fact, they basically end on cliffhangers. Not so big a deal since I have the books collected in two volumes and can easily go onto the next page, but had I read these when they first came out, I'd be a bit miffed. As it is, I'm not entirely sure if I want to go onto the next set of books.
On the plus side, he never really stops for a huge amount of exposition. So you soon figure out that there are "bios" who are normal humans, "chems" who are basically robots and a few bios who have almost enough prosthetics to quality as chems. But all of this slowly teases out along with various bits and pieces of the ship's true history and the social underpinnings that have grown up to hold everything together.
So...yeah. The writing was very strong and kept me going, but now I'm looking at the concluding volume and I'm trying to make up my mind. I'll probably go through with it, just for completeness sake, but it feels like a real slog.
later
Tom
Blazed through Litany of the Long Sun (books 1 and 2) by Gene Wolfe. It's a series set roughly in the same universe as his "Urth of New Sun" books, but not directly related to it in any way.
As you might guess rather easily from the title, the characters are all trapped aboard a slower-than-light world-ship. It's a long cylinder with the "long sun" a glowing plasma conduit running down the center. Of course, everyone has forgotten about their origins (some 300 years ago) and now they've got this whole messed-up religion based around their half-remembered past and visitations by god-like AI's in the various large terminal screens.
The main thrust of the story follows Patera Silk, an augur who receives enlightenment from the god known as the Outsider. The priest sets off to rescue his parish and in the process becomes a thief, a detective and a rebel leader. All rather by accident, as he strives to remain true to his faith in spite of ever-increasing demonstrations that it's all a put-on.
My biggest pet peeve about the books is that they're clearly meant to be read as a whole and have no problem just up and stopping in the middle of the action. In fact, they basically end on cliffhangers. Not so big a deal since I have the books collected in two volumes and can easily go onto the next page, but had I read these when they first came out, I'd be a bit miffed. As it is, I'm not entirely sure if I want to go onto the next set of books.
On the plus side, he never really stops for a huge amount of exposition. So you soon figure out that there are "bios" who are normal humans, "chems" who are basically robots and a few bios who have almost enough prosthetics to quality as chems. But all of this slowly teases out along with various bits and pieces of the ship's true history and the social underpinnings that have grown up to hold everything together.
So...yeah. The writing was very strong and kept me going, but now I'm looking at the concluding volume and I'm trying to make up my mind. I'll probably go through with it, just for completeness sake, but it feels like a real slog.
later
Tom