The Dilemma: I've been reading Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun for over a week now and am closing in on the end of the third book. Yesterday, the UPS man dropped a complication on my doorstep: Butcher's Moon, the last of the Parker books from the original run. My first impulse is to finish Sword of the Lictor, devour Butcher's Moon like a starving piranha, and pick up Citadel of the Autarch when I'm finished. There are reasons I'm apprehensive about doing this.
- Momentum: The last time I put down the Book of the New Sun, I didn't pick it up again for over three years. Gene Wolfe's not something I can easily start again once I've stopped.
- Momentum II: I have all of the other Parker books lined up for consumption and have been waiting on Butcher's Moon for over six months. I'm afraid of a feeding frenzy once I start following Parker's capers again.
- Path of Least Resistance: As I intimated in #1, Gene Wolfe's not a light read. I afraid that once I stop, I'll be binging on crime books until I run out, drawn by their comparitvely cotton candy-like weight and won't be motivated to return to the rump roast that is the Book of the New Sun.
On the writing front, I've gathered a lot more ideas for what I'm calling Towers of the Sun, my homage to The Dark Tower and the Hyperion Cantos. I think I'm going to write the interior stories first and then the frame story to go around it.
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