Have you ever read a novel and felt the story was heading one way, only to find it taking a completely different turn? This is the case with Lake of the Long Sun, the second book in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun series. The story picks up right after the first book in the series, Nightside the Long Sun, and continues with Patera Silk, a priest trying to save his church from being forever taken by Blood, a major criminal in the city of Viron. As established in Nightside, Blood bought Patera Silk’s church because of the back taxes owed on it. Silk has decided to work for Blood in order to pay off the debt and get his church back.

Lake of the Long Sun deepens the story, revealing that the gods have a greater scheme for Patera Silk than he knew in Nightside the Long Sun. Silk learns more about the politics of this world on a huge spaceship and his role in it. The story took an unexpected turn, yet Wolfe’s use of religious symbolism now clarifies his exploration of what it means to be human. Does believing in a higher power, with its moral codes and promises, threaten the progress of humanity?

I will admit that I liked Lake of the Long Sun much better than Nightside the Long Sun. Wolfe’s prose and worldbuilding have created a world on a spaceship, and I can tell that it’s more science fiction than fantasy. Yet it also combines religious and secular ideas in a world with a simultaneous ancient and modern feel. I had to look up words like calde, manteion, & ayuntamiento to see if they were made-up words or real ones. They are real words and belong in this fictional world that Wolfe has created.

Lake of the Long Sun raises the stakes in the series, and I’m looking forward to what happens next on Patera Silk’s journey in book three of the series, Calde of the Long Sun.