Nightside the Long Sun - Hardcover

Wolfe, Gene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 045059405X ISBN 13: 9780450594052

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, 1993

Synopsis

It has been nearly a decade since the completion of Gene Wolfe's four-volume epic The Book of the New Sun, "one of the modern masterpieces of imaginative literature - an evocation of a world so far in the future that magic and technology, poetry and science, are indistinguishable, a world heavy with time but not yet bereft of hope, a world brought to life by Mr. Wolfe's unique blend of slightly archaic diction and ever-surprising vocabulary" (The New York Times Book Review). In the intervening years his award-winning novels and stories have solidified his reputation both in fantasy and science fiction with a cascade of stunning achievements. No sf writer has been more highly and continually praised.
Now Wolfe returns to science fiction with a mighty multi-volume mega-novel of mystery, war, and revolution, The Book of the Long Sun, set on a world, the Whorl, existing inside a giant starship sent from Urth to colonize a distant planet. Wolfe's previous work in this future universe has been hailed as a "major landmark of contemporary American literature" by Booklist, and "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly.
Enormous in breadth and scope, Wolfe's ambitious new work opens out into a world of wonders, of gods and humans, aliens and machines, and mysterious adventures far out in space and deep inside the human spirit. It is set on a ship-world whose origins are shrouded in legend, ruled by strange gods who appear infrequently to their worshippers on large screens, and peopled by a human race changed by eons of time, yet familiar.
Nightside the Long Sun is the beginning of a masterpiece of science fiction for this decade. Life on the Whorl, and the struggles and triumphs of Patera Silk to satisfy the demands of the gods, will captivate readers yearning for something new and different in science fiction, for the magic of the future. The Book of the Long Sun is launched with success.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Wolfe's first novel since Pandora by Holly Hollander (1990) is a vivid and compelling evocation of life inside an interstellar spacecraft so huge that a whole world of cities and wildernesses exists within it, and so old that its origins and purpose are mere legends to its inhabitants. Patera Silk, a young priest in one of the city of Viron's poorest temples ("manteions"), receives a mental message from one of his gods, an enlightenment which invests his life with urgent meaning. On the same day, however, he learns his manteion had been sold for back taxes and may well be dismantled. Armed with the conviction of his revelation, Silk enlists the aid of a local but decent-hearted thief, intent upon breaking into the mansion of Blod, the new owner of the manteion, to convince (or even force) him to guarantee its survival. From that point on, Silk is drawn even deeper into the shady world outside his temple walls. But for all its interest, the plot is hardly the most powerful element. The atmosphere of Wolfe's spacecraft seduces and amazes, details and mystery piling upon each other to yield a sense of palpable otherworldliness. The environment of the long sun--so called because the ship's cylindrical interior is lit by a central tubular "sun" extending the length of the ship--comes energetically alive, and readers will be grateful that this book begins a four-volume series. If this first taste is any test, Wolfe has embarked on an epic to rival his acclaimed Book of the New Sun.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The first installment in another multivolume, far-future saga (like Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun tetralogy, 1980-87), set inside...well, something--a supercolossal spaceship? a ringworld? a Dyson sphere?--that has its own sun, seasons, and a land surface that curves up in the distance to form the sky; until recently, this world's numerous ruling gods communicated with humans via ``Sacred Windows'' from their remote Mainframe home. Here, in a poor, decaying section of the city Viron, augur and religious leader Patera Silk receives enlightenment from a god, the Outsider, only to learn that his temple has been sold in lieu of unpaid taxes to the rich businessman Blood. Somehow, Silk must persuade Blood not to demolish the temple and redevelop the neighborhood. So Silk breaks into Blood's heavily defended villa, intending threats or bluff; after various weird incidents, Silk sustains a broken ankle and obtains Blood's undertaking to sell the temple back to Silk for twice the original price. Silk also agrees to exorcise Blood's bordello--the scene of a number of unpleasant and ultimately murderous hauntings. A typically unsettling, utterly mysterious blend of sacrifice, spies, exorcism, cyborgs, ghosts, androids, robots, genetic engineering, gods, computers, and what-all. The clever plotting, solid characters, and intriguing backdrop work splendidly in close- up, but their larger significance remains annoyingly unexplained, indeed barely even intimated. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 045059405X
• ISBN 13: 9780450594052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336