(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[Daniel Petersen]

Although, I have to say, I for some reason read On Blue's
Waters first and only then went back and read Long Sun before starting over
and completing Short Sun.  As much as I/loved/ Long Sun in many ways, a bit
of the oomph was taken out by my hazy familiarity with some of the
characters and set up.

2011/12/14 António Pedro Marques:  Is it that different from reading The
Silmarillion after tLotR?

Oh dear, here's where I have to admit to my great chagrin that I've never
read more than the first pages of the Silmarillion.  But if I had to guess,
I'd say, yes, it is different.  If Wolfe had created a purely mythical
piece that filled in the vast historical-cultural background to the solar
cycle, it would be fine and probably proper to read it after reading the
sequence itself.  What I did in reading OBW before Long Sun was more
comparable to reading the Two Towers, then going back and re-starting at
Fellowship of the Ring.

2011/12/14 António Pedro Marques:  I think tIoDDaOSaOS or SftOH would be
the best places to start, because you have smaller bits to chew before you
go into a 12 (500 pages) volume series. But the 12 (500 pages) volume
series should come next, and I honestly think the 'canonical' order is the
right one.
Yes, you are probably right about all that.  It was actually reading
Innocents Aboard that really got me super-intrigued about Wolfe (after
unsuccessfully reading through New Sun some years before).  Only then did I
happen onto Wizard-Knight and devoured it and became hooked.  Then OBW.
And *finally *at that point I got wise and went right back to New Sun and
read straight through all 12 volumes of the solar cycle.  A weird path but
I enjoyed it.  However, I shouldn't try to make my experience a weird lab
experiment to recommend others to try.  You're surely right that everyone
should go 'canonical' with the solar cycle after some more digestible
introductory text (I would add FHoC to your recommendations).

-DOJP
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