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''The Book of the New Sun'' (1980 – 1983) is a series of four science fantasy novels or one four-volume novel by the American author Gene Wolfe. Alternatively, it is a series comprising the original tetralogy, a 1983 collection of essays, and a 1987 sequel.〔 Either way, it inaugurated the so-called "Solar Cycle" (below) that Wolfe continued after 1987 by setting other multi-volume works in the same universe.〔 Gene Wolfe had originally intended the story to be a 40,000-word novella called "The Feast of Saint Catherine", meant to be published in one of the Orbit anthologies, but during the writing it continued to grow in size.〔(On Encompassing the Entire Universe: An Interview with Gene Wolfe )〕〔(George R.R. Martin on Magic Vs. Science - Weird Tales )〕 Despite being published with a year between each book, all four books were written and completed during his free time without anyone's knowledge when he was still an editor of ''Plant Engineering'', allowing him to write at his own pace and take his time.〔(Nerdist Podcast: George R.R. Martin « Nerdist (1:01:05) )〕 The tetralogy chronicles the journey of Severian, a disgraced journeyman torturer who is exiled and forced to travel to Thrax and beyond. It is a first-person narrative, apparently translated by Wolfe into contemporary English, set in the distant future when the Sun has dimmed and Earth is cooler (a "Dying Earth" story). In 1998, ''Locus'' magazine ranked the tetralogy number three among 36 all-time best fantasy novels before 1990, based on a poll of subscribers.〔 The Locus Online website links multiple pages providing the results of several polls and a little other information. • • See also ("1998 Locus Poll Award" ). ISFDB. Retrieved 2012-04-24.〕〔 ''Locus'' subscribers voted only two Middle-earth novels by J. R. R. Tolkien ahead of Wolfe's ''New Sun'', followed by Ursula K. Le Guin's ''Earthsea'' series. Third and fourth ranks were exchanged in the 1987 rendition of the poll, "All-Time Best Fantasy Novels", which considered as single entries Wolfe's ''The Shadow of the Torturer'' and Le Guin's ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', the first volumes of ''New Sun'' and ''Earthsea''.〕 ==Place within the genre== ''The Book of the New Sun'' belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre of speculative fiction, named after the ''Dying Earth'' series by Jack Vance (1950 to 1984). Substantially that is fantasy or science fiction set in a distant future when Earth's sun is dying (cooling notably). The setting commonly includes mysterious and obscure powers and events. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Book of the New Sun」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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