Finished Sun books, reading comics

[avram]

I finished up Return to the Whorl on Thursday, completing the last of Gene Wolfe’s Sun books.

Of the three Sun series, I still think New Sun is the best. It’s got the most vibrant imagery, the darkest irony, the funniest jokes.

I found myself getting a bit annoyed as Silk/Horn starts reinventing Christianity. I rolled my eyes during the sacrifice with Olivine, when Silk/Horn uses bread and wine. On the other hand, I enjoyed the ironic literalism of “this is my body”. It wouldn’t be Wolfe without irony.

I think I’ve finally figured out the cause of that astral projection — it was the ring. Not the light-stoned ring Seawrack gave Horn, but the dark-stoned one Oreb brought. Oreb, as we learn towards the end of the book, was possessed by Scylla (who was fleeing Pas’s wrath), and Scylla was a scanned recording of Cilinia, Typhon’s eldest daughter, who worshipped or was allied with one of the alien sea creatures of Urth, which was itself an offspring (or something) of Mother, the sea goddess of Blue. Oreb was sent to search for Seawrack, and brought back the ring. He must have been given it by Mother, who was hoping it would find its way to someone who would eventually hook up with an ex-sleeper who would have memories of Urth, and allow this fragment of Scylla to return.

I was considering starting up Wolfe’s latest book, The Knight, but ladymondegreen starting talking about staging an intervention. I started Eleanor Arnason’s Ring of Swords on the way to work Friday morning. This is a copy borrowed from drcpunk; we both copy-edited a really great review of it that should be running in The New York Review of Science Fiction soon. It was one of those great reviews that really sells the book. The author considered the book from three angles: as an SF Jane Austin book, as a parallel to Macbeth, and as Heinlein slash fiction. How could I pass that up?

But I’ll be holding that for commutes. Now I’m catching up on my comics reading. I picked up a pair of Paul Grist collections that came out on Wednesday: Kane: Greetings from New Eden (a contemporary cop story) and Jack Staff: Everything Used to be Black and White (a British superhero comic). These are great. Grist is one of those comics artist who approaches things from a graphic-design perspective, with lots of blocks of solid black or white, and lots of attention to panel and page composition. (Though see page 19 of the Kane book for examples of a nose-shading technique that keeps not working even though he keeps trying it.) His stories tend to bounce around a bit with lots of flashbacks; I was a bit confused by some of the transitions early in Kane, but the ironic juxtapositions of comments and events made it worth my while. I’m only a third of the way through the Jack Staff book, but I’m enjoying it even more. Grist manages to combine bouncy superhero fun with X-Files mystery and an old noirish plot twist and make it all work in true postmodern genre-sampling style.

I really need to start catching up on some of the comics collections I’ve had sitting around. There’s volume 2 of FLCL which I picked up last week, and Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde which I got when it first came out in paperback and still haven’t gotten around to reading. I think I’m still a few volumes behind in Ranma 1/2 too.

Comments

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Much appreciation that you're doing Ring of Swords first, as I've not read it yet either. Just finished part 1 of the dead tree version of Unicorn Jelly. Waycool. Will not read further on the website till part 2 of the dead tree version arrives.