Gene Wolfe, _On Blue's Waters_

Kevin J. Maroney · 20 Oct 1999, 15:51 · from sf-lovers.1999.mbox

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From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe, _On Blue's Waters_
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 11:51:30 -0400
Message-ID: <sflovers-v24-147-3 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V24 #147
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-24

While I think that _On Blue's Waters_ is Wolfe's best novel in 20 years,
and that's saying *quite* a lot, thank you, I don't think it's a good place
to start. It is the fifth volume in a seven-volume series*, and quite a lot
of the emotional and intellectual interest of _OBW_ depends on prior
knowledge of the characters and situations as depicted in _The Book of the
Long Sun_.

In short, this is *not* the Gene Wolfe book to start with. 

I usually recommend _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ as the Wolfe book to start
with; if you read all of it and don't like any of it, you probably aren't
going to like much else of Wolfe. However, if you like it, the odds are
excellent that you'll want to read more and will enjoy it when you do.

*Minor and oblique spoiler below

And it's also the 10th volume in a 12-volume series, since _The Book of the
Long Sun_ is an indirect sequel to _The Book of the New Sun_, and the
connection between the _New Sun_ and _Long Sun_ narratives is going to
become much more important in the final two volumes of _The Book of the
Short Sun_.

Kevin Maroney

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