I had to give it up; I loved the first 2 books in the trilogy (amazing use of language, great character and story development, excellent dialogues, some complex questions on humanity and so on), but this is unreadable: not only is it uninteresting as the story does not really develop any more, rather goes back in a boring way, but it is really unreadable for a non-native in English. Just a quote as an example: ”Gae ter t'other h'end, though, h'if there's nae help fer h'it. Yer need nae come wi' me, h'if yer finds yer h'own short a' there”.
Gave up after 100 pages...

And so the twelve books of Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle draw to a close with Return to the Whorl. Wolfe's unreliable narrator, Horn (or is it Silk?) continues his quest to bring his mentor, Silk (or is it Horn?) home to the city of New Viron on the colonised world of Blue. I was intrigued to find myself becoming quite taken with the personality of the protagonist, who gains in wisdom and self-knowledge (even if that self-knowledge is misplaced). We meet his sons, and we meet others who join him on his journey back to Viron on board the generation starship The Whorl (I had a massive clue when one of these travellers was described, in the list at the beginning of the book, as "a blind wanderer". My Wagnerian self thought "Oh yes?".)

This book does actually resolve a few issues. It brings together two narrative strands that the previous two books resolutely refused to clarify. Finally, the overall picture of The Book of the Short Sun is revealed. We make another visit to Urth, and refer back to events and characters in The Shadow of the Torturer. We even get a vague "explanation" of Horn's ability to move seamlessly between worlds, though it's best described as "one hand waving". Even the bird Oreb gets some resolution. The destiny of The Whorl is finally revealed and in the closing pages we are back in solid science fiction territory. You might even find that loose ends are tied up, though some remain unravelled. (Though I have to admit that some of the narrative shifts left me thinking "Is that Wolfe playing with us, or just really bad proofreading or editing?" There are times when it's hard to be sure.)

As ever, the writing is sumptuous and the imagery striking. Like its preceding volumes, this is not an easy read and it demands much more from the reader than the description "a science fiction trilogy" might suggest.

begun 3/23 ( )

The Final Volume of the Book of the Short Sun.

This follow-up to On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles continues the saga of the man who calls himself Horn, and his quest to find the political and spiritual leader, Patera Silk, and bring him back to settle political unrest in his hometown.
As in the previous two books, Wolfe uses an unreliable narrator, who speaks of things happening in multiple places and times, and whose perspective on events seems to frequently shift and disagree with that of other characters. Philosophical themes include musings on identity, religion, and the various sorts of bonds that there are between people...
Although it's not absolutely that a reader be familiar with Wolfe's works The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the New Sun to read this (though it wouldn't hurt, either), I would say that one absolutely has to have read the two previous books in this particular series for the story to make any sense whatsoever.
Having read them, I enjoyed this conclusion very much - a few story arcs I wish could have been drawn together in a more dramatic and satisfying way - but, on the other hand, it fits with the style to not wrap everything up into a neat package ( )

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