It is akin to Judaism giving birth to Christianity and spreading out into new lands, while the polytheistic religion changes to a monotheistic reference for the invisible Outsider god. As humans descend to Blue and Green, they are separated from their homeland and from their gods and encounter other species or barbarians (Inhumi) who are attracted to and somehow released from sin through Horn and Silk. What Wolfe tried to do with the Long Sun and Short Sun series especially, I think, was to show the spread of humanity from a promised land into a broader universe. The old myths of Noah, Moses and Jesus are in a sense repeated in a far future world and a science fiction environment without Gene Wolfe spelling it out for you. Then it turns into science fiction with suns and planets, and then the whole story becomes a religious allegory retold through a 12 book cycle. These themes slowly become visible as you read what you think is simply a fantasy story. In The Book of the Long Sun, we meet Patera Silk who sets out as a messiah to lead humanity from the Ark that is the Long Sun Whorl (to escape the great flood) to the promised lands of Blue and Green, and in The Book of the Short Sun, Horn is on Blue but searches for Silk to deliver the new lands from trouble. Severian in The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) sets out as a messiah to save the Earth, and in the process reinvigorates the sun, but causes a great flood on the planet that cleanses everything. The three book series that comprise Wolfe’s Solar Cycle have a religious theme running all the way through them about messiahs, promised lands and deliverance.

Or, more precisely, I understand that Gene Wolfe set out to do a couple of things with them.įirst of all, it is the continuation and conclusion of his Solar Cycle of course.

Only now, halfway through the final book, I sort of start to understand what Gene Wolfe has set out to do with these series.

I’ve been trying forever to wrap my head around these books. Some thoughts about the Books of the Long and Short Sun. As Patera Remora would say: “Saints, eh? Visions, rockets.

In Green's Jungles by Gene Wolfe