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Just finished Christopher Ruocchio's Empire of Silence. If you haven't heard of it (I hadn't until very recently), this is basically a Quentin Tarantino approach to writing a book: constant references to better books. Most people catch the overt "homages" to Dune and The Name of the Wind but there's an absolute ton of Book of the New Sun references in it as well. I guess I will use spoiler tags for a quick list in case someone wants to find them themselves but there's nothing that spoils either Wolfe or this guy's book, just off the top of my head: frequent use of words like "necropolis" and "peltast", the book's closing talk to the reader, thinly reworded thought bubbles like the invention of symbols and the main character reciting the types of obedience to authority, a character named "Saltus", and late in the story, there's even a female prisoner facing torture who the main character wants to disobey the rules and give a merciful death to, probably more I'm forgetting. The author doesn't seem to have read any Wolfe besides BotNS or else I'm sure there'd be some Silkisms in here too. I had surprisingly mixed feelings about the book. On one hand, as a matter of craft this book is far below what it's referencing in plot, character, and prose so it mostly just made me wish I was reading one of those books. Except for The Name of the Wind, which I didn't like, and at first enjoyed that here the smugness is almost entirely gone, but in its place is a character I disliked for totally different reasons. It's also depressing to think some people's first exposure to prominent BotNS motifs is going to be this debased version. And yet...it is kind of a good feeling to read a book where the author is kind of winking and nudging you, in effect saying "hey, Book of the New Sun rules, am I right?" Most modern SF/F books show no visible Wolfe influence at all, whereas here it's right next to Dune and so on. It's also pretty incredible how densely he has pieced together these references from such different stories. And it does give me some more appreciation of Wolfe to see a far less talented (and, to be fair, also far less opaque) author trying to use some of the same ideas.
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Aug 30, 2023 04:23
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Kind of the Marvel movie problem I guess, you get that small high when you recognize something or hear a reference and then once the glow is gone you look back and realize the thing you just watched or read was actually pretty bad.
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Aug 30, 2023 04:32
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I am on my second time through BotNS (the first time I never picked up Citadel of the Autarch and then when I wanted to try again years later I found I didn’t remember or understand enough of the plot to just read Citadel). I’m getting more of what is happening this time, I think. I just read the chapter where Severian and Jonas dine with Vodalus and his crew in the forest. Vodalus makes several references to his allies “beneath the waves.” Am I to understand that Vodalus is allied with the huge things in the ocean that have been opaquely referred to before that eventually are going to eat the continents (Abaia is definitely one, and I guess Erebus might be the name of another although that’s it’s even less clear what Erebus is than Abaia)? I guess that partly explains why Severian is so disturbed that he feels like he needs to vomit (although part of that I’m sure is the news that he’ll soon be made to eat a corpse). Why does it make sense for Vodalus to be aligned with monsters that want to devour the planet? Vodalus claims that he wants to restore humanity to spacefaring, basically, to save it from the death of the sun. How does it help him if the continents are eaten by sea monsters? Or am I just completely off track?
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Sep 25, 2023 16:44
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Nope, you are on the scent
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Sep 25, 2023 17:11
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Gaius Marius posted:Nope, you are on the scent Okay. I remember a few chapters ago Severian asks Jonas why the beast-soldiers inside the wall of Nessus (and I guess maybe the man-apes) will be helpful against things the size of Abaia and Erebus and Jonas said that when the giant monsters attack the commonwealth, they’re going to do it by (as far as I can decipher) by telepathically influencing people on land. So I guess that’s Vodalus. But I also seem to remember (although I’m not there yet in this read through) that the Autarch meets Severian during Claw and gives some sense that he knows all the gently caress about Vodalus and is kind of permitting him to operate. So now that makes even less sense.
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Sep 25, 2023 17:21
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Maybe it's as practical as "if the continents are eaten, humanity will be forced into the stars," but I'm just guessing. I haven't read the book in many years and I was more enjoying the ride than reading it that closely.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:18
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I guess it’s also possible that Vodalus has just been psychically manipulated to the point that his motivations wouldn’t make sense to rational people. Or that they only make sense in the context of some facts about the mysterious and inscrutable setting that we aren’t given access to.
Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Sep 26, 2023 |
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Sep 26, 2023 16:24
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I never felt like Vodalus needed any cryptic explanations for his motivations -- he's a clown / tool / useful idiot, and who wouldn't want to ride the wave of the-old-ways-were-better into a seat of greater personal power? One could claim that capitalism wants to devour this planet yet still find many people who ally with it. And from the individualistic perspective, that's probably a rational action.
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Sep 28, 2023 16:24
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If Vodalus wants to return to the stars, then he probably sees Urth as a lovely hole beneath all contempt. No reason not to hand over the keys to Abaia and friends on the way out the doorbit if they want it so badly. That Urth might be special in some way because it is Urth, because it is the spiritual origin of humanity, is entirely outside his concern. He has no interest in being a good steward or bringing about a renewal of the planet.
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Sep 28, 2023 19:36
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Vodalus is basically the man Severian would be at the end of the story if he didn't have any character development. Wanting power for powers sake with no regard for others or the world.
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Sep 29, 2023 03:52
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The black hole was put into the sun in the first place because humanity was incredibly lovely to everyone else they found out in the universe during their space empires, Vodalus wants to return to that and lead humanity down a false path of materialism and expansionism instead of their true path, which is to ascend to the next stage of spiritual evolution (by becoming plant hybrids I guess).
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Oct 2, 2023 20:28
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my bony fealty posted:The black hole was put into the sun in the first place because humanity was incredibly lovely to everyone else they found out in the universe during their space empires, Vodalus wants to return to that and lead humanity down a false path of materialism and expansionism instead of their true path, which is to ascend to the next stage of spiritual evolution (by becoming plant hybrids I guess). Time traveling plant hybrids.
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Oct 2, 2023 20:44
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Man hasn't even finished citadel gotta give him time to draw his own conclusions
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Oct 2, 2023 20:44
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Another week another Wolfe pod. https://spotify.link/MbNCnf8CADb They're covering a story I've never even heard of so I cannot comment on how solid they are.
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Oct 3, 2023 08:26
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Perhaps relevant to some of the recent posts here, saw recently that Jo Walton and Ada Palmer are co-writing a novel called Wrath of Abaia. Wolfe didn't invent the term "Abaia" of course but that's got to be a conscious reference. Thematically there seems to be some resonance as well:Ada Palmer posted:It's a very hopepunk project, dealing with future politics, Climate Crisis aftermath, biological and planetary custodianship, and the connection between the dream of space colonization and Earth's destructive colonial past, and ways we can address and rehabilitate the dream of space in anticolonial ways. The world build was a ton of fun to work on, especially the future politics plus stuff with disability & future medicine and A.I. civil rights, and it's really fun working with Jo on it, who is so much faster that me at getting words down on the page, and great at such vivid characters.
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Oct 8, 2023 21:17
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Anyone here have good to say about Palmer's Terra Ignota? I listened to either half or all of the first book as a multi-voice-acted audiobook, something I tend to enjoy, but I felt like I was just getting repeatedly browbeaten by the author's moral message (which I agree with) more than getting a glimpse into the lives (or even tailored story of) characters that felt real. Anytime I've heard Palmer discuss something on a podcast I've found it thoughtful and enjoyable, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something with the novels or if they're just not for me.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:38
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Re-reading the long sun and about 200 pages in and drat Silk is really suicidal huh
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Oct 16, 2023 04:01
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Levitate posted:Re-reading the long sun and about 200 pages in and drat Silk is really suicidal huh I hadn't thought about it until this post but it's an interesting contrast to Typhon and his willingness to do anything to survive. Love Silk though, such an interesting and Human character. Man gets his life flipped turned upside down, learns everything he ever learned was a lie, and still tries to go out there and help out his friends and people, even when he's emotionally and physically getting destroyed through the whole series.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:11
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Hammer Bro. posted:Anyone here have good to say about Palmer's Terra Ignota?
It's not for everyone. The Mycroft narrator voice is very strong and Palmer is unapologetic about incorporating all her interests whether or not, strictly speaking, they maybe ought to be there. The overall tone is pretty consistent so if you didn't like the first one I'm not sure the rest are going to change your mind, but the plot IMO is pretty well constructed and though I have lots of nitpicks with some of the choices she makes with the ending, she ties everything together at the end the way she wants to and it all makes sense and was planned well from the beginning. The fourth and final book, in particular, has some really standout sequences in its first half that really reward readers who get that far. I think everyone who's enough of a Wolfe fan to be in this thread ought to at least try it if they haven't yet. There's not many other authors out there so obviously in dialogue with him and we're not getting any more Wolfe novels.
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Oct 17, 2023 03:19
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I'm also going to recommend the Gideon books to this thread, they have a lot of the same qualities
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Oct 17, 2023 08:32
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I enjoyed Too Like the Lightning up until it went full on on the de Sade sex club conspiracy. Is there more of that in the following books?
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Oct 17, 2023 13:48
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anilEhilated posted:I enjoyed Too Like the Lightning up until it went full on on the de Sade sex club conspiracy. Is there more of that in the following books?
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Oct 17, 2023 15:42
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I've been reading On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jünger and it's giving me BOTNS vibes. Highly recommended.
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Oct 19, 2023 04:01
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on the last book of Long Sun now and man...just really gotta feel for Silk again I go back to the number of times he thinks about or attempts suicide as well and just desperately craves some release from the burdens put on him but also feels so responsible, it's pretty interesting and very Gene Wolfe how things can be hinted at/left unsaid but play a lot into character development. I think one part where it says something along the lines of him testing Hyacinth's needler but it didn't fire and he congratulated himself on testing it really came across as a failed suicide attempt that was very played off as just a thing
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Nov 28, 2023 21:19
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I think I am going to call it quits reading through Book of the Short Sun. I’m about halfway through “On Blue’s Waters” and just finished reading Horn raping Seawrack and I just can’t deal with this novel anymore. I hate the prose, I hate the structure of the novel and this book along with revelations made at the end of”Exodus of the Long Sun” has really soured me on the solar cycle. I loved the first three books of Long Sun but I found the fourth to really drag its feet and waste a lot of the potential of the setting and characters. Silk is such an interesting character along with the rest of the cast. Short Sun seems to me, reading the jist of what happens in that series, to just torpedo a lot the characters and what made them and the setting interesting. I think my opinion is in the minority of what I can see on the Internet.
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Nov 29, 2023 18:19
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I had a similar experience with the first Short Sun book, to the point of asking this thread whether it was worth sticking with it. I did, and I don't regret it, but it's definitely not a great start, and the series never got as good as New Sun for me. Link if you want to see the discussion from back then Osmosisch fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Nov 29, 2023 |
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Nov 29, 2023 18:29
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Old Swerdlow posted:I think I am going to call it quits reading through Book of the Short Sun. I’m about halfway through “On Blue’s Waters” and just finished reading Horn raping Seawrack and I just can’t deal with this novel anymore. I'm with you. I have no idea wtf Wolfe's point was in writing that part. It was incredibly upsetting. That said, books 2 and 3 are better. Best series - Long Sun. Best individual book - Urth.
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Nov 29, 2023 21:29
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It's impossible to explain Seawrack and Horn without also discussing the following works, Short Sun is by and by far Wolfe at his height of just letting you drown if you aren't on the ball constantly. That said, at least finish OBW, the ending is going to do a lot of work to make you reappraise your readings thus far. And fear not, Silk is just as much a part of Short Sun as Long, even when he seems so far away.
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Nov 29, 2023 22:29
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Would you be willing to explain under spoiler bars?
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Nov 30, 2023 00:27
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Old Swerdlow posted:I think I am going to call it quits reading through Book of the Short Sun. I’m about halfway through “On Blue’s Waters” and just finished reading Horn raping Seawrack and I just can’t deal with this novel anymore. I basically draw a line after... Soldier of arete? and stop reading Wolfe, which is maybe a little harsh but I just don't like his later books that much.
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Nov 30, 2023 00:57
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I just want to express the view that In Green's Jungles is just amazing and for me justifies a lot of the sloggy parts of later Long Sun and OBW. Unfortunately I didn't like the last book nearly as much but not in a way that invalidates what came before. That part of On Blue's Waters is awful and I don't know why Wolfe insists on exploring that both there, Claw of the Conciliator, etc. But that's the low point of Short Sun from a reading perspective if that helps, I'm pretty sure.
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Nov 30, 2023 01:40
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I disliked Long Sun enough by the end that I don't know whether I'll ever get around to Short Sun. Wolfe's style seemed to morph around this time into being way more dry and expository compared to his earlier stuff that I've read.
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Nov 30, 2023 03:16
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I disliked Long Sun enough by the end that I don't know whether I'll ever get around to Short Sun. Wolfe's style seemed to morph around this time into being way more dry and expository compared to his earlier stuff that I've read. I think as he got older Wolfe got really interested in conversations with lots of subtext. That's something Vance did really well, but Wolfe, though a genius in some ways, frequently is just wrong about what readers are going to be able to follow, so as he loads up more and more subtext on to conversations they get more weird and inscrutable. It doesn't help that, to speculate based on some very vague comments, after he wrote Book of the New Sun David Hartwell and the others are Tor were like, "this guy's a genius" and basically didn't think they were worthy of touching the work he turned in. So maybe editors were keeping him more in check before that (though Castleview and even Fifth Head might argue otherwise, they're still plenty obscure). I don't know anything about his writing process really but I think he really needed beta readers and must not have had them.
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Nov 30, 2023 03:40
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Tokelau All Star posted:Would you be willing to explain under spoiler bars? I tried and got myself confused lol. I'll give it a shot again tomorrow when I'm not so tired MeatwadIsGod posted:I disliked Long Sun enough by the end that I don't know whether I'll ever get around to Short Sun. Wolfe's style seemed to morph around this time into being way more dry and expository compared to his earlier stuff that I've read. Short is written in a different style to Long. First vs Third Person and much more direct and restrained by POV then Long seems to be. While I'm here I just wanna drop a prediction for There Are Doors which I'm halfway through. It's basically Fight Club. Main dude can't handle not fitting in and after having a fling with a women completely collapses into solipsism instead of Fight Clubbing. His one side lashes out as a saboteur and anti government agent while he retreats into childhood fantasies with older cars and dresses, people always smoking, no color tv, and fixation on toys and dolls Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 03:47
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Gene so far is not winning me over with “In Green’s Jungles.” I don’t understand what he needs his narrators to constantly describe and assess how attractive nearly every woman and child is. It made sense for a character trait of Severian since his was a little weird who lives his life in a tower that tortured people to death; I don’t see any narrative or thematic reason why it needs to continue to exist in these books. “Her granddaughter, Mora, is clearly her father's daughter, too large and too heavy-limbed and thick-waisted to be called attractive. To be fair, she carries herself well, and seems quiet and intelligent. About fifteen.” “Her friend Fava is about half her size, looks blond next to Mora, and is quite pretty. Fava is—or at least appears to be—several years younger.” Yuck. It’s not the absolutely worst thing in the world but I’m finding it fairly difficult to stay engaged and discover and think about the ideas and themes Gene is writing into his work when I have to deal with this garbage on the surface along with just boring Orientalist depictions of other cultures. Old Swerdlow fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 15:20
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You have to be trolling or way too online because what you posted is a nothingburger.
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Nov 30, 2023 15:50
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I tried reading An Evil Guest and abandoned it. I get what he was trying to do but it was pretty mid.
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Nov 30, 2023 17:57
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Do you? Because that's probably his weirdest book.
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Nov 30, 2023 18:06
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The best part of Evil Guest is when the private detective gets transported to R'lyeh and resurrected on the beach. That's the only part that sticks in my memory as good.
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Dec 1, 2023 00:11
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Gaius Marius posted:While I'm here I just wanna drop a prediction for There Are Doors which I'm halfway through. Do keep posting  That was one of the first Wolfe books that really clicked with me, and I find it wildly sentimental. Old Swerdlow posted:“Her granddaughter, Mora, is clearly her father's daughter, too large and too heavy-limbed and thick-waisted to be called attractive. To be fair, she carries herself well, and seems quiet and intelligent. About fifteen.” Maybe it was not executed as smoothly as it could've been but I look at that first quote with the benefit of hindsight and see setup of some immediate plot things which help make Mora's actions make sense. Then I see part of that second quote with its  HUGE BLARING BOLD LETTERS and I think, man. He really was layin' it on thick. How did I not notice?
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Dec 1, 2023 17:36
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