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Horn, who was 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--the central character of The Book of the Long Sun--and convince him to return to Blue and lead them to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet, trying to return to the Whorl--the giant interstellar ship still inhabited by the civilization that brought the settlers to Blue--in search for the now-legendary Patera Silk.

And it's not merely the details of the plot that reader has to re-evaluate when Wolfe draws the curtain away like this; it extends to the most basic assumptions about the story, things that you believed settled on page 1, like "who's telling this story?" and "why are they telling it?" This author knows that the answers to these questions are the source of a novel's power to engage the mind and the emotions of the reader.

In this book, as in others, he's provided answers that are mobile. You may end up answering the questions differently at the end of the book than you would have when only halfway finished. And if you re-read the book again later, you may come up with yet a third set of answers.

Wolfe is admittedly not as easy to read as, say, Robert Jordan, but the rewards for reading Wolfe are on a different order of magnitude altogether. Somebody like Jordan lets you live for a short time in another world. Wolfe lets you live for a short time in another world, to discover that the real world has become larger when you return.

Written as if it were an actual journal, the narrator describes his journey and its purpose: an odyssey across the oceans of the planet Blue to reach a spaceship that will return to the Whorl (a generation starship) to retrieve a god-like man named Silk, who is believed to be capable of saving the narrator's city from self-destruction. There are also the the events currently happening to the character, who is the Solomonesque Rajan (a type of ruler)of a people far from his native land. Both stories escalate in tension. During his odyssey (and I use this word deliberately), the narrator encounters a number of wonderfully drawn characters. There is the blind and probably crazy robot Maytera Marble and her 'granddaughter' Mucor, who is capable of sending her spirit across the whorl of Blue. (Both are characters from the Long Sun series; it is best to read Long Sun first, but not necessary.) When leaving the rock, the hero is joined by Mucor's loyal hus named Babbie, an eightlegged creature of enormous intelligence. Later, he will also encounter a mermaid and her goddess Mother and an inhumu, a vampire-like creature from Blue's twin planet Green.

Have you wondered why I haven't named the main narrator? That is because it is unclear exactly who he is. Ostensibly, it is Horn. Throughout, Horn describes physical changes that have occurred to him. He occasionally lapses into describing Horn in the third person. He also carries artifacts that at one time belonged to Silk, including a night chough and an azoth. It is likely that he is a least partially Silk, though that is unclear.

Running out of paper, the narrator quickly describes the climax of both stories, which are more cliffhangers than legitimate endings.

Throughout are references to his visit to the planet Green, which are tantalizingly vague but detailed enough to whet the appeptite for the next two books, and then there are the numerous references to his failure to find Silk. Yet if he is at least partially Silk as seems probable, then what happened on Green and did he reach the Whorl?

Like nearly all Wolfe novels, it demands an enormous amount of patience and focus on the reader's part. It is initially disorienting because it is the rambling thoughts of the narrator and because it is difficult to know exactly who he is; it is definitely worth a second and perhaps even a third reading. It is not a novel for readers who want those nine billion page pale Tolkien imitations; it is not a beach novel. If your definition of speculative fiction encompasses only the innumerable Star Trek paperbacks (and those terrible crimes against the wallet: the hardback novels), then this novel is not for you. It is a difficult read, but for the patient and careful reader it offers the pleasure of discovery and thoughtful analysis as well as the wonderful style we have come to expect from Wolfe. Sadly, while it will no doubt be enjoyed by the many Wolfe fans and perhaps a few other adventurous souls, it will largely be ignored by both the critics and the majority of readers. This is shameful, for this is likely to be one of the greatest American novels of the last hundred years.

On Blue's Waters is the latest creation from this gifted writer. On Blue's Waters, the first book of a trilogy, picks up twenty years after Exodus From the Long Sun (the finale of Mr. Wolfe's previous tetralogy). Horn (one of Silks former students) is the central character and narrator. He has been charged with returning to the long sun whorl - the gigantic spaceship that brought them to Blue - to find Silk and to persuade him to return to Blue and rule as Caldé. As do all of Mr. Wolfe's previous works, On Blue's Waters brims with wonder as Horn must find his way to the village of Pajarocu, where he must board one of the landers that brought the emigrants to their new world and return to the whorl on which he was born. Horn has many encounters along the way; he meets and falls in love with a woman from the sea - a siren - as well as one of the inhumi - strange creatures that feed on human blood. In return for saving Horn's life, Horn promises to allow the inhumu to accompany him on his journey back to the long sun whorl.

Since Horn is the narrator, On Blue's Waters takes on the flavor of a diary, with Horn's entries written to Nettle, his childhood sweetheart and wife, whom he left behind on Lizard, the island they chose to settle on when they first came to Blue. Strangely reminiscent of The Book of the New Sun, Horn, er, Mr. Wolfe populates On Blue's Waters with many similar thought-provoking little philosophical gems. Horn: "This short sun is well named; it speaks daily of the transitory nature of all it sees, drawing for us the pattern of human life, fair at first and growing ever stronger so that we cannot help believing it will continue as it began; but losing strength from the moment it is strongest." Horn again: "Time is a sea greater than our sea... Its tides batter down all walls, and what the tides of time batter down is never rebuilt. Not larger. Not smaller. Never as it was." Horn yet a third time: "To do nothing is a talent, one I have not got. I have known a few people who possessed it to a superlative degree, as one of my scribes here does. They can, if they wish, sit or even stand for hours without occupation and without thought. Their eyes are open and they see the whorl before them, but see it only as the eyes of potatoes do." Marvelous prose. As a writer myself, I can only hope to one day write something half as beautiful and meaningful.

On Blue's Waters will not disappoint those who have read Mr. Wolfe's previous books, and for those who have not, it will serve as a wonderful introduction to this most gifted writer. Mr. Wolfe, I look forward to the conclusion of this epic, and anxiously await your next masterpiece.

J. Conrad Guest

In this trilogy Wolfe has adopted a rather unadorned first-person voice, stylistically suitable for the novel's narrator, a seemingly straightforward man named Horn. Horn was a teenager when he boarded a lander to leave the Whorl: Now he is a man in middle age, well settled on Blue with a wife and children and a prospering business. Yet he readily leaves to search out his former teacher and mentor, the one-time Calde of the City of Viron, Patera Silk.

On Blue's Waters follows Horn as he begins his quest for Silk, which will, over the course of the trilogy, take him across Blue (much of the narrative takes place aboard a small ship), to the virulent jungle planet Green, and at last back to the Whorl where he and Silk were born.

Blue was not uninhabited when the humans offloaded from the Whorl. It's former owners, known variously as the Vanished People and the Neighbors, are still seen from time to time. This species, as well as humans, are plagued by creatures known as inhuma. As Green makes its approach toward Blue the inuhuma fly from one planet to another, where they feed off the humans as they fed off the Neighbors, gaining nourishment and more from the blood they drain.

Horn makes his way toward the city of Pajarocu, where a working lander waits to return to the Whorl. Along the way he collects a surrogate family. There is Seawrack, a siren-like woman who is a foster child of a strange entity of Blue's oceans; Krait, an inhumu who becomes Horn's adoptive son; and Babbie, a hus, an animal of Blue who cannot speak, but may be intelligent.

Much has been made here and elsewhere of the difficulties in accessing the writings of Gene Wolfe. Wolfe writes dense, subtle and sometimes contradictory novels, and often employs a highly ornate style. Some have suggested that On Blue's Waters is perhaps a place for Wolfe neophytes to begin, as Horn "speaks" far more plainly that Severain, the narrator of The Book of the New Sun. In truth, however, this simplicity is, like so much of Wolfe's work, deceptive. The nature of many characters remains unclear throughout the series; motivations are never plainly explicated. The events may seem to be clear -- Horn leaves his home and family, sails across an ocean, finds new friends -- but are, perhaps, far less understandable than they first seem to be.

In truth, On Blue's Waters is vintage Gene Wolfe. If you are among his fans (as I am), it is an engrossing and wholly satifying return to his themes of virtue, piety, sin and redemption, as well as a first rate romp across an alien world. If you've read and enjoyed other volumes of the Sun series, you must continue onto the Book of the Short Sun. However, if you've disliked Wolfe in the past, there's no assurance this novel will provide a friendlier introduction.

The hardbound edition is a very handsome volume, with good binding and paper (something which would be of great importance to Horn) and a nice dust jacket design. I would recommend the purchase of a hardcover edition to Wolfe's fans, as there is no writer more worth rereading.