Product Description
On Blue’s Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe’s four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk. The story continues in In Green’s Jungles and Return to the Who… More >>
On Blue’s Waters: Volume One of ‘The Book of the Short Sun’
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I’ve never much cared for the Wolfe I’ve read (which isn’t all that
much), but he gets so much praise from people whose opinions
I respect that, every few years, I try him again [note 1]. This time,
I tried On Blue’s Waters (1999), since I recalled seeing some comments
that the Short Sun ‘series’ (which appears to be one long novel) is
unusually accessible. Plus, I saw a blurb by Michael Swanwick
praising Wolfe as the world’s greatest working novelist, in *any*
genre….
Anyway, Blue’s does have clear prose and an unambiguously sfnal
setting — Blue is a pleasantly Earthlike planet that has recently been
settled by colonists from the Long Sun generation-ship, which is a
VERY large spaceship indeed. This is good, because I recall being put
off in both the New Sun and Long Sun books by the fantasy-that’s-
really-SF tomfoolery [note 2].
Blue’s also has a broken-back plot structure that got in the way of
Wolfe’s story (IMO), but there was enough going on to lure me into
finishing the thing, even after it became obvious that this wasn’t a
stand-alone book (another annoyance). Anyway, Wolfe’s conceit
here is that On Blue’s Waters is the memoir of the viewpoint
character (with complications noted in the reviews cited below).
Fine, except that it’s a *first draft* memoir (written with a quill pen
on handmade paper….), and the narrator is constantly jumping around
from story-present to various times in his past, which I found both
confusing and annoying. Plus the bridge-bits (which make it a
‘memoir’ rather than flashbacks) are meandering and rather dull.
And there are all these carried-over characters from the Long Sun
books, that I’m supposed to recognize, I guess… Faugh.
So here I am again, wondering how Wolfe has acquired such a
stellar reputation from books that I find, at best, annoyingly ‘literary’
and at worst unreadable. Why would Wolfe structure Blue’s as a
confusing, meandering and dullish pseudo-memoir? How is this
better than using a conventional first-person with flashbacks plot-
structure? Why does Wolfe deliberately fracture and obscure what’s
basically a fine travel-adventure yarn? His choice, of course, and he
clearly knows what he’s doing, but it sure doesn’t agree with me.
Sigh.
I’m guessing that the Short Sun is as straightforward as Wolfe is
likey to get, at novel-length anyway, and I liked On Blue’s Waters
well enough that I may continue into Green’s Jungles sometime —
but I’m afraid that most of the glittering jewels that others see in
Wolfe’s work look like dusty pebbles to me.
___________________
Note 1). I vividly recall a long-ago weekend in some godforsaken
mining camp when for some reason all I had to read was Free Live
Free. And it rained. It was a VERY long weekend, and it was years
before I touched another Wolfe.
2). I abandoned both series (after about 1.5 of each), not because of
this, but because I Didn’t Care What Happened to Those People.
I have had better luck with his short stories — I’ve liked maybe 1/3 of
those that I’ve read, as opposed to, basically, none of the novels.
I believe that I’ve sampled most of what Wolfe’s fans think is
his best work….
Review copyright 2002 by Peter D. Tillman
First published at Infinity Plus, with links and discussion:
infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/blueh2o2.htm
Rating: 3 / 5
After reading the Long Sun series, I excitedly anticipated reading the first book in this new series, which begins sixteen years later on the planet Blue. Sad to say, I found it not as coherent as the previous books. It might be just me, but it was confusing that our narrator, Horn, kept jumping back and forth from the past to the present. I liked it better when Horn wrote in the third person and kept himself more in the background. Maybe it’s just that I don’t find Horn as likeable a character as Silk, so keeping Horn out of the first person was more agreeable to me. This somewhat new writing style of Mr. Wolfe’s lacked the excitement and impact of his previous books set in the Long Sun whorl.
Rating: 3 / 5
Using ‘typical’ is somewhat wrong; the only thing typical about Wolfe’s writing is that its always great, and always unpredictable. I have become quite good at seeing where a story is going before I get there, but with Wolfe, and especially the Short Sun series, you are pretty much along for the ride unless you catch the subtle foreshadowing he drops. Even so, the story never really turns out as you had envisioned it, even with the hints.
If you read the Long Sun (which I would advise before this series, since the characters and events are derived from it), you definitely owe it to yourself to jump into the Book of the Short Sun.
Rating: 5 / 5
Gene Wolfe once again returns to the style that won him awards and acclaim for the Book of the New Sun series. The story flows like water, carrying the reader along into a strange world filled with creatures both evil and innocent. Beautifully written and much easier to read than the Book of the Long Sun series. If you like to read about thoughtful and interesting characters, this book is a gem.
Rating: 5 / 5
“On Blue’s Waters” is better than any of the “Long Sun” books (which were good), and delivers an experience closer to that of the extremely wonderful “New Sun” tetralogy. As Wolfe is my favorite writer, I feel entitled to do a little amateur literary criticism of some of his work.
“New Sun” was written in a narrative style, and the reader was kept somewhat conscious of the narrarator, who would sometimes suspend the story to return to the “present”. With “On Blue’s Waters” it is the same, but more so. It is written almost in the style of a journal, with the writer writing a lot more about the writing. (If you know what I mean.)
This brings me to a criticism of the “Long Sun” works. Its point of view is muddled. When it is revealed that Horn is the “narrarator”, it is done in a clumsy and contrived way. Especially shocking since Wolfe writes with such finesse! One gets the distinct impression that Wolfe’s concept of the point of view CHANGED DURING THE WRITING OF THIS NOVEL.
Another problem with the “Long Sun”. Wolfe is a subtle writer and, like many good sci-fi authors, is very implicit. The reader figures out big truths about the fictional world by piecing together dropped hints. The same is true with “Long Sun”, except Wolfe spoils it by becoming explicit about that which the reader has already worked hard to figure out. “New Sun” was much better in this regard.
On thing I love about how Wolfe writes is that it is a lot what watching real life is like. People often refer to events you are unfamiliar with, or to people you have yet to meet. Wolfe does this A LOT, as any faithful read can testify. How often have you had the “What the…. Did I miss something?” experience? I find this thrilling, and it makes the work very real for me. I think this aspect is spoiled a little in “On Blue’s Waters”, as the narrarator refers to these as “mistakes” when he does them. I prefer not to have these nonlinearities pointed out. (Mr. Wolfe, we don’t REALLY think your books are too hard to read. Don’t start coddling!!!)
Rating: 5 / 5