On Blue's Waters (Book of the Short Sun #1) Book

3.5 stars

It has proven sadly appropriate that this was my year of (re)reading Gene Wolfe with the passing of the master this month (April 14, 2019). Rest well Gene and know that your mark on the world of letters was significant and lasting.

_On Blue's Waters_ is the first book in the final segment of what has been called the 'Solar Cycle', the sometimes loosely and sometimes closely related Books of the New Sun, Long Sun, and Short Sun. The Short Sun series is more or less a direct continuation from the Books of the Long Sun and we will be revisiting some old friends as we see how the refugees from the generation starship of the Long Sun Whorl are doing in their new homes on the sister worlds of Blue and Green. Our narrator and protagonist is Horn, the young boy (now a grown man) from the Long Sun whorl who idolized Silk and who was, as we eventually discover, one of the authors (within the world of the book) of the Book of the Long Sun itself along with his wife Nettle.

All is not well on Blue, the world on which Horn's lander arrived many years prior to the start of the story and on which the city of New Viron has been founded. The city itself is collapsing into chaos and lawlessness without the presence of a strong leader, exacerbated by the cyclical conjunctions with their sister planet Green. Green, you see, is the home of the inhumi, the shapeshifting vampire-like aliens that we only glimpsed briefly in the Long Sun and of whom we get a much closer view this time around. During conjunction hordes of inhumi are able to cross the void and come to Blue in order to feed upon the newly settled people from the whorl. New Viron, and most of the cities founded on Blue, are falling apart due to pressures both from without and from within. As a result a group of the leading citizens of New Viron come to Horn as one of the writers of the story of Silk, a work which has gained a nearly religious significance by now, in the hopes that he will take up the quest to find Silk himself, presumably still living in the Long Sun Whorl, and bring him back to Blue to lead his people again and (of course) solve all of their problems. Horn is a victim of his own success as his hagiography of Silk has perpetuated the image of the saintly hero in the minds of people across Blue and they now believe Silk is so great that only he can be their saviour once again. Who better to bring him back than his former protégé and admirer, the very man who co-wrote his biography?

I think it is safe to say this is a rather confusing book, even for Gene Wolfe. There are certainly many mysteries and allusions throughout the text about which the reader is left guessing (if he or she even notices them germinating in the background), but at an even more basic level the story itself can give the reader a real sense of confusion. We start with Horn recounting the day he was approached by the leaders of New Viron to set out on his quest, and while we learn a little bit about his life on Blue since leaving the lander many years ago (and both marrying his childhood sweetheart Nettle and having three sons with her) the story soons shifts perspective and we find ourselves in a completely different time and place, one which is not fully explained, and we witness the 'present' events of Horn setting out from New Viron as ocurring in the past. In addition we get veiled references to still other events that appear to be in the past of this new 'present', but that seem to occur in the future of what we had initially taken to be the 'now' of Horn's quest. Confused? Well, add to that the fact that the narrator himself may not always be exactly the same person we think he is at first, though there is no indication of exactly what has happened aside from the obvious shifts in time and place. It can be a real mind-fuck. In the end we see three main parts of the narrative:

1. Horn setting out on his journey across the waters of Blue in the hopes of boarding a lander ostensibly going back to the Long Sun Whorl with the aim of finding Silk and convincing him to come back to Blue.

2. Someone called the 'Rajan of Gaon', presumably Horn himself, recounting not only his trials as the leader of the city of Gaon as it finds itself in the midst of the chaos of conjunction with Green and a war with their nearby neighbours from the city of Han but also his remembered trip outlined in part 1 and,

3. Allusions by the Rajan to events not yet fully recounted or explained that occur after Horn has boarded the lander, but before he becomes the Rajan of Gaon, which seem to include references to both the Long Sun Whorl and the deadly planet Green, home of the inhumi.

As we attempt to sort out these various entangled strings in the narrative the very voice of of the narrator seems to evince a confusion as to his own identity as slips are made or references to others, and even himself, become confused and confounded. It can be a real exercise in close reading as we try and unravel the mystery of who this speaker is and guess at what has happened to him.

Horn himself is not always a particularly sympathetic character. While he obviously tries to emulate his hero Silk and be the best man he can he fails quite often to live up to his own ideals (but then don't we all?) He has a particularly acrimonious relationship with his eldest son Sinew, one whose roots aren't immediately obvious and which does not paint the father in the best light. He also stumbles often in his faithfulness to his 'true love' and wife Nettle numerous times throughout the text, most notably with the siren Seawrack who becomes attached to him early in his voyage, and his harem of wives as the Rajan of Gaon. He's certainly not an evil character, but he definitely displays a lot of, um, let's say moral complexity.

Horn's journey across the waters of Blue (section 1) are something of a reverse Odyssey as our hero travels away from hearth and home instead of towards it, though still encountering trials and encounters that threaten to pull him off course from his destination of the mysterious town of Pajaracou and their lander aimed at the Long Sun Whorl. Horn even encounters a literal siren and her sea goddess mother, not to mention our old friends Maytera Marble and Mucor seen in the guise of hermit witches, and his new companion the (semi?)intelligent hus (something like a wild boar) Babbie. In the Rajan of Gaon sections the narrator displays a distinctly Silk-like concern for meting out justice and instilling a sense of goodness in the people who have apparently forced him to be their leader. Most tantalizing of all, however, are the hints and allusions dropped to mysterious events on Green and the Long Sun Whorl for which we currently have no context, but that point to a period of crisis for the narrator.

This one really is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…at least it seemed so to me from what I remember of my first read and even knowing much of what is to come doesn't always make this volume a heck of a lot clearer. You definitely don't want to read this volume (or series) without first having tackeld the Books of the Long Sun, but even with this behind you be prepared for more confusion than answers (at first at least). It's definitely an intriguing (if sometimes frustrating) return to that world.