Screw it, I don't really want to hold my thoughts for another day. I think I'll just copy this post for the new thread whenever it's up.
I finished
On Blue's Waters recently, the first entry in Wolfe's
Book of the Short Sun.
Several things about the narrative format took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting it to be such a direct sequel to the Book of the Long Sun. With that story still somewhat fresh in my mind since I only read it last year, it felt really familiar right from the start, which is somewhat rare for any Wolfe story. Not only was the narrator a familiar face, but the terms, language, customs, etc all felt like I was coming home to an old friend. There's a surprising amount of meta-commentary in the narrative as well, with references and comments on the Long Sun story itself, both in terms of context, and in terms of the story actually being a book in the world of the narrative itself. It's really fun when good writers do fun stuff like that with their stories, and Wolfe ranks among the best.
As for the story itself, it's a pretty fun adventure tale told in a double narrative frame - the book is being written after the main adventure, but the author writing it is also experiencing dramatic events at the point of writing which is frequently mentioned and detailed as he writes. The main themes in Short Sun differ quite a bit from both New Sun and Long Sun due the setting being a somewhat recent human colonization of a new planet, and in that sense it actually reminds me a lot more of the stories told in Fifth Head of the Cerberus. It touches a little on post-colonial theory, as well as migration concerns - both economical and cultural, and on the fear of aborigines, fear of the unknowns in a new world, and the possible threat of shapeshifters. Being a huge fan of the Fifth Head of the Cerberus stories, I'm really happy that he found the time and interest to return to some of these themes and expand on them in a way which a much longer story would allow.
I'm making my way through
In Green's Jungles now, and it just keeps getting better. Maybe when I'm done with Short Sun, I'll finally find the motivation to go through New Sun again some time this year. I've been meaning to for the last couple of years, but just lacked the push to really do it.
