Nightside the Long Sun
Page 31
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