# Kirkus review of RttW *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 15 Dec 2000* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### akt *15 Dec 2000, 20:18* IMO, this early review for booksellers does not include spoilers (yes, I am also one of the people you can put on your hate list), but if you are super-sensitive, you may want to skip it. I do not believe in "spoiler space." Caveat lector. RETURN TO THE WHORL. This, the third and final part of Wolfe’s Short Sun trilogy, itself the sequel to a tetrology, the Book of the Long Sun, concludes the saga of Patera Silk, the one-time ruler of an immense starship, the Whorl, the story’s narrator, Horn, various other characters--some of whom may have become composite--and the planets that the Whorl’s colonists have populated. So much is clear. For the remainder, Wolfe includes his usual teasing list of “proper names in the text,” which helps less than not at all. Also, this time, Wolfe provides a typically elusive recap and update guaranteed to disconcert readers not already perplexed--Wolfe’s demands on his readers grow more onerous with every volume. If by this point you have even a tenuous idea of what the series is all about, you’ll certainly enjoy the finale. For the rest of us mere mortals, Wolfe’s grace and power evoke gleams of admiration even as we float away on a tide of indifference. -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---