Lake of the Long Sun continues Patera
Silk's quest to recover his manteion (church) from the clutches of an
aristocratic crime-lord. Along the way, he'll somehow get through an
exorcism that quickly turns into a pulp murder mystery, complain a
lot about walking in the heat of the day, and make a dramatic run
through a series of tunnels that reveal his world is a generational
starship (really, this is a throw-in-the-towel word on the back cover
synopsis, and I don't want you to think knowing that will ruin your
ability to read this book and be just as awed and inspired by Wolfe's
command of narrative as you should be.) There's a lot more standard
science fiction fare in Lake of the Long Sun than there was in the
first novel, but that's just the fun!
The bulk of this novel is
world-building. Wolfe wants you to feel what Silk can not possibly
understand: this place is a massive man-made vehicle to preserve life
en route to another planet, but it's been in operation for an unknown
space of time and, between the people surviving in the Short Sun
whorl and the machinery and operations of the ship breaking down and
being salvaged by unwitting survivors, it's not looking like it'll be
a place anyone can survive on for much longer. Does Silk realize
this? No, not yet, and never as such. But then, he's just beginning
to learn that the lust and overall corruption of mankind is never
simply the fault of someone who sins. (Yes, these novels are
thematically steeped in the spiritual teachings of Christ.) Can Silk
learn that his love for people and his hope for them to improve and
live better lives means more than simply adhering to the rules and
living with his nose to the ground all while cyborgs try to kill him
for stumbling into government conspiracies to trap mankind on a dying
ship in space simply to indulge their own desires to be immortal
gods?
In my previous review of the first book of the series, I wanted to make
clear that Gene Wolfe is never a casual read and I'm trying to sort
out the mysteries of this tetralogy while enjoying
his
mastery of prose and command of narrative. Mr. Wolfe was a
very dense and intricate writer who
was extremely fond of using archaic words and unreliable narrators,
as well as cliffhangers, to challenge his readers to look for the
story they wanted to read in his work. It's still difficult, even
after this re-read, to explain what's so brilliant about Lake
of the Long Sun, but I can tell you a lot about what is
brilliant: There's so much play between subtle and blunt exposition,
the world-building Wolfe so effectively crafts and cultivates through
dialogue and dizzying twists and turns in the plot, that, on the
surface, as with all of these novels, makes little sense. Do some
exploring in the tunnels, in the deeps, of the Lake of the Long Sun,
and you'll find that amid all the swashbuckling bravado, death, and
espionage intrigue, there's a science fiction story that has a lot to
say about misogyny, government, religion, the breakdown of how a
society may forget its history and its technological capacity, and
the makings of a hero.
Again, if you're looking for a
straightforward science fiction novel, you won't find that here. Have
a dictionary handy, or else be ready to do some encyclopedic research
for fun, because Lake continues where the first book left off and
goes nowhere you expect it to: no matter how obvious every single
character in the book says the plot to be, the reader is in for a
wild ride that doesn't let up even after it's over. Happily, there's
two more books.
- Frank
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