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The Book of the Short Sun Series

This gripping saga unfolds on the rugged planet of Blue, where settlers struggle against harsh conditions. The protagonist, a veteran of difficult journeys, finds himself thrust into a role of desperate hope. He must locate a legendary leader and persuade him to return, thereby securing the future of his people. The narrative weaves together personal hardship with an epic quest for survival and societal renewal.

In Green's Jungles
On Blue's Waters
Return to the Whorl

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    On Blue's Waters

    • 384 pages
    • 14 hours of reading
    4.2(1680)Add rating

    On Blue's Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun.Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk. The story continues in In Green's Jungles and Return to the Whorl."By any standard, Wolfe's beautifully composed, meditative, thrilling, and tricky-beyond-belief 'science fantasy' is a work of the highest art."-- The Washington Post Book World

    On Blue's Waters
  2. 2

    In Green's Jungles

    • 384 pages
    • 14 hours of reading
    4.3(1495)Add rating

    Gene Wolfe's In Green's Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue's Waters , of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun .It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance.In Green's Jungles is Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun , building toward a strange and seductive climax."Wolfe's narrative glows, rich and seductive as ever."-- Kirkus Reviews

    In Green's Jungles
  3. 3

    Return to the Whorl

    • 416 pages
    • 15 hours of reading
    4.3(106)Add rating

    Gene Wolfe's Return to the Whorl is the third volume, after On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles, of his ambitious SF trilogy The Book of the Short Sun . . . It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Horn has traveled from his home on the planet Blue, reached the mysterious planet Green, and visited the great starship, the Whorl and even, somehow, the distant planet Urth. But Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Perhaps Horn and Silk are now one being. Return to the Whorl brings Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, to a strange and seductive climax.

    Return to the Whorl