The New Sun

I've embarked on a reading/re-reading of Gene Wolfe's epic science fiction series, The Book of the New Sun. This is made up of what was intended to be a trilogy, but which became a tetralogy (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch), plus a sequel (The Urth of the New Sun) and an associational book (The Castle of the Otter). There are several books in a follow-on series, but for this entry, I'll restrict myself to these.

I expect that it will take me more than what time remains in this year to read this set, but I'll keep updating this entry whenever I complete one of the books.

First up was the associational book, The Castle of the Otter (SFBC/Ziesing Brothers, no ISBN listed, 1982 publication date).

This is a collection of essays about the tetralogy. It might seem odd that I started by re-reading this, but I was looking for something relatively short to read one night, this fit the bill, and it has now lead me to get back to the other books. The book is made up of a series of articles that Wolfe either wrote for various fanzines, or are original to the book. The title comes from a mistake in an article that appeared in Locus, when it was reported that the final book of the tetralogy would be called...The Castle of the Otter. Wolfe just couldn't let a good title like that go to waste!

There's a couple of articles that illuminate aspects of the tetralogy that I'll have to come back to once I re-read the books (it has been quite a while). For now, the best of the lot was one long piece outlining how the books came to be written and how they became a tetralogy (The Castle of the Otter) and what might be now called a FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions list (The Rewards of Authorship). Pretty amusing was a list of jokes (These Are the Jokes), proving that for such a grim set of books, there is humor in the universe.

Good luck finding a copy of this book. Considering some of the prices I've seen for books about Wolfe's work (try looking up the price of a tome called Lexicon Urthus, for example!), I suspect it will cost you a few pretty pennies.

Made up of: The Feast of Saint Catherine; Helioscope; Sun of Helioscope; Hands and Feet; Words Weird and Wonderful; Onomastics, The Study of Names; Cavalry in the Age of the Autarch; These are the Jokes; The Rewards of Authorship; The Castle of the Otter; Beyond the Castle of the Otter; Gene Rodman Wolfe: A Bio-Bibliography.

Counts as 13 entries in the 2006 Short Story Project.

(Addendum for 2007: Due to a variety of circumstances—work, family, moving my blog postings—I have not followed up on this book so far! But maybe by the end of the year?)

(Addendum for 2008: Sigh. I got through most of the first...but not all. These books require a lot of time, without distractions. Maybe when I get done with my end-to-end read of the Patrick O'Brian tales.)