Nightside the Long Sun

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by Gene Wolfe


  Gabbling now, his voice from the window: “Here hear what the Writings here have to Say-ilk. Here hear the high hopes of Horrible Hierax.”

  “Here axe,” repeated the harsh voice, as though mocking his finding the hatchet, and Silk recognized it.

  No, it had not been Mucor, or his deciding to take the hatchet or any such thing. All gods were good, but might not the unfathomable Outsider be good in a dark way? As Auk was, or as Auk might be? Suddenly Silk remembered the whorl outside the whorl, the Outsider’s immeasurable whorl beneath his feet. So dark.

  Yet lit by scattered motes.

  With one hand on the needler in his pocket, he opened the door of the manse and stepped inside.

  TOR BOOKS BY GENE WOLFE

  Castle of Days

  Castleview

  The Death of Doctor Island

  Endangered Species

  The Fifth Head of Cerberus

  Free Live Free

  Nightside the Long Sun

  Pandora by Holly Hollander

  Seven American Nights

  Soldier of Arete

  Soldier of the Mist

  Storeys From the Old Hotelt

  There Are Doors

  The Urth of the New Sun

  NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

  The first volume of a new masterpiece of science fiction

  The Book of the Long Sun

  “The Book of the New Sun having met ever-wider critical acclaim during the decade since its completion, Wolfe inaugurates its quadripartite successor with this quietly absorbing tale of one man’s tribulations inside a massive space-faring artificial world.… His prose echoes with an almost mythic resonance and promises a wealth of further interesting adventures in the new New Sun saga.”

  —Booklist

  “As with many other old ideas he has addressed, Wolfe makes it new.”

  —Science Fiction Age

  “There is plenty to entertain and intrigue here.”

  —Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “… be assured that Wolfe is a master of style and texture. His version of [the generation—starship story] is as astonishingly fresh and convincing as the first version you ever read.”

  —Analog

  “The appearance of a new novel by Gene Wolfe is an event, and the appearance of the first volume of a new tetralogy by Wolfe is a major event. Nobody can be said to be current in sf if they miss this one, and I will watch with great interest as Wolfe explores, in his typically rich and resonant fashion, the traditional theme of the generation starship.”

  —James E. Gunn

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

  Copyright © 1993 by Gene Wolfe

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Richard Bober

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N.Y. 10010

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  ISBN: 0-812-51625-7

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-21568

  First edition: April 1993

  First mass market edition: December 1993

  eISBN 9781466828261

  First eBook edition: August 2012

 

 

 


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