We continue the story of Horn, who is in search of his mentor, Patera Silk - or is he? Has he taken on aspects of Silk? Oreb, his bird, seems to think so. Other people identify Horn as the Rajan, or ruler, of the city of Gaon, or as the magician Incanto (though Horn claims no such powers). We explore the relationship between Horn, his son Hide, and various of the Vanished People (the original inhabitants of the settled world Blue) and the vampiric Inhumu (original inhabitants of the jungle world Green).

The reader might be misled by the title of this book into thinking that we are going to have an adventure on Green. Instead, we visit Green at different points in the narrative. The means by which this happens is open to debate, for we move between Green and Blue by some supernatural means rather than via the agency of a lander from the generation starship The Whorl, which still remains the focus of discussion and speculation. Sometimes, we travel even further afield, visiting Urth itself and the city of Nessus. At other times, we are engaged in a war between two more of the cities of Blue, a war in which Horn claims to have no influence, but everyone seems to ignore that and take orders from him.

If you have got this far in Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle without realising that there are distinctly strange things happening, then you probably haven't been paying attention. If you have stuck with it this far, then you may well have given yourself up to the flow of story-telling and have ceased to look for narrative causality. The writing more than makes up for this; Wolfe's prose is simple yet exquisite, and carries the reader through any difficulties they may have with mere comprehension. ( )

I spent the better part of yesterday enjoying the sun and this book, while at the same time celebrating the easter holiday. I found this book, especially the first 3/4 frustrating. I wanted to get more details about Green and couldn't figure out why we were spending so much time in yet another city on Blue in yet another war. But, he's totally got me hooked, and I'm going to get in a chapter of the last book in this series before I go to work.

( )

Far from my usual literature realm, In Green's Jungles leads you deeper into a world so unlike our own that for a moment you forget which way is out. Excellent reading, I feel bad about having missed the first in the series, but made do since this is an excellent stand-alone novel. ( )

The sequel to "On Blue's Waters". Here, Horn continues his dual, tangential narrative of his life and adventures.
I have to admit that I believe I liked the previous book slightly more - in this volume I found the newly-introduced concept of psychic(?) travel between planets to be far-fetched, in the context of the story. It's often problematic, for me, when some really major new gimmick comes in when the story is already well in progress...
ALso, I really wanted more of the planet Green. The narrator, at one point, admits that he believes he has failed to make the horrors of Green come alive for his reader - and, unfortunately, I felt that it was true. 'Dreams' and passing mentions weren't really enough, I felt.
Still, these are slight criticisms of what is overall, still an extremely impressive work, and one I would definitely recommend. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2015/12/review-of-book-of-short-sun-by-gene.htm... ( )