Gene Wolfe has become an author who has grown on me throughout my reading life. I’ve praised his work on my blog for years, considering him among the best American fiction writers after WWII. Even though the science-fiction and fantasy literary community lauds him, mainstream literary culture is still relatively unaware of his work. I have read a couple of his standalone novels: Pirate Freedom and The Land Across, and the first half of his Wizard Knight duology, the first book in his Soldier series, and the excellent novella, Seven American Nights. Most people come to Wolfe’s work through his magnum opus, The Book of the New Sun. These books from his Solar Cycle series represent the pinnacle of science-fiction and fantasy. However, I have always been intrigued by the second four-volume series in the Solar Cycle books, The Book of the Long Sun. The Book of Long Sun has been in my reading orbit for nearly three decades, and I have been planning to read the series many times throughout my reading life. Well, I have started my 2026 reading year with this tetralogy, beginning with Nightside the Long Sun.

Nightside the Long Sun begins the story of Patera Silk, a priest who is trying to save his manteion (church) after a criminal named Blood bought it because of the back taxes that were owed on the property. Patera Silk, who believes he has received enlightenment from a god named The Outsider, to get his manteion back by any means necessary. On the surface, the story seems it’s about a man of faith having to make choices he would not normally make to keep his place of worship. Yet, Wolfe adds a spaceship setting with a dying city and religious symbolism, making the first volume of the Book of the Long Sun intriguing. I will admit that Nightside the Long Sun felt more like a set-up book than a full story. Wolfe’s worldbuilding abilities really shone, and that feeling of complete immersion is a quality of great imaginative fiction, where you feel completely transported to the fictional world.

However, Wolfe’s weaknesses towards his female characters are on display in Nightside the Long Sun as well. Many of the women in Wolfe’s books appear one-dimensional, which might make it difficult for some readers to connect with them. Despite that obvious weakness, I am a Wolfe fan. I enjoy his stories because he uses his imagination and prose to weave religious and secular concepts into his science fiction and fantasy tales. Onto volume two of the series, The Lake of the Long Sun.