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I just finished Book of the New Sun for the first time and I guess I had a different interpretation of the time travel twist than everyone else. I didn't see it as a single timeline where interventions were taking place to keep Severian alive. Based on the theory of time he learned from the false Malrubius, the way I feel is that the universal day keeps repeating and those outside of time watch and learn a lesson from it. Wherever the previous Severian failed, they set up circumstances to assist him on the next repetition of the day and then watch to see how far he gets. When that Severian fails, they make a note, put their pawns back into place, and add the next assist. The Severian we follow is not a clone, but rather a very similar person to several previous people named Severian. It's kind of similar to Edge of Tomorrow, but rather than the same Severian resetting, it's time itself that resets and tries again. It's very Spinozan in its approach to causality and free will. That said, I do think there are a couple of instances where Severian literally dies and comes back to life, like with the Avern flower, but that's why the hierodules are interested in him in the first place. In any case, I like how time itself is a loose concept in the story. There appear to be parallel universes that can look back at potential origins, but you while you can observe other timelines, you can't actually exist in a timeline that your universe didn't spawn from. It's a neat idea. Anyway, I'm off to read Urth of the New Sun.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:56
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It's also important to remember that it's entirely plausible that Severian never had sexual relations with any of these women.
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Sep 29, 2016 16:19
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Right, I only meant that he, as a teenager with no experience of women and having lived in an all male dorm, might be talking up his sexual experiences whereas the one he denies is plausibly the only one that happened. He may have been in the friendzone with Dorcas the whole time as she was lovers with someone else.
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Sep 29, 2016 17:43
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No time to take care of yourself when you're busy writing and inventing ovens.
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Jan 14, 2017 06:12
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I'm reading Long Sun right now and I've noticed two things. First, it's the first book by Wolfe I've read that isn't first person. So that jumped out at me right away. Second, it's amazingly slow but really captivating. I'm struck by how far removed from New Sun it is. It really shows the range of talent he has as an author.
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Jun 11, 2017 02:21
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Finally finished Long Sun. That was a slog in paces, but I think I killed the last 200 pages in three toddler interrupted sittings because it had finally come to the promised conclusion. I haven't even gotten my hands on of copies of Short Sun yet, so not sure how much speculating to do, but I get the impression it's going to be a very, very different kind of book from Long Sun. As for Long Sun, I did get a little tired of Wolfe starting a moment of action with a cliffhanger, then immediately cutting off after a confused shout, and then resuming with some or several of the characters in the incident a few hours later calmly talking about it. I guess it makes sense given that Horn wrote the whole thing so it's actually mostly pieced together recollections and discussions of events he participated in rather than the events themselves, but it was starting to feel cheap towards the end. I think Hammerstone was my favorite character. He was just so much fun to listen to. I saw the Dracula reveal coming, but I figured he was just a regular cacogen who was trying to make sure the ship landed. But I guess I'll find out more in On Blue's Waters, assuming I can ever find a drat copy of it.
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Sep 11, 2017 14:45
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It seemed fairly obvious to me from his POV segment. He was sucking on hidden fangs, floating across the floor, and obsessed with concealing his true appearance. Plus you had mention of literal blood sucking devils and got to see at least one victim. Pike fully believed in them because I guess he kept his targets to the Orilla to go unnoticed, but I think Silk mistook the attack to be somehow related to Mucor. I was second guessing myself later and thought maybe he was the old Calde in disguise, but I quickly dismissed that as not plausible based on who had known him.
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Sep 12, 2017 00:10
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I am so mad the Short Sun omnibus is out of print.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:05
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Neurosis posted:I always found it hard to figure out what was going on with the Shadow Children in that. I thought I understood that they weresettlers who'd changed due to dependence on that plant thing but other interpretations I read strongly implied that was wrong My impression was that the shadow children were aliens. They arrived on St. Anne before or after a wave of human colonists. These colonists likely arrived from Earth directly. The Shadow Children had many abilities, such as shape-shifting, but notably could "hide" the planet from outside observers (maybe by generating some kind of electrical storm?). In any case, the planet was lost to Earth and forgotten about. The Shadow Children were in danger of extinction and so were using various abilities to hide themselves or to change their appearances. In a sense, they were already trying to blend into the human population and supplant it when the St. Croix lander arrived. However, they themselves had allowed it to arrive by withdrawing their protection to avoid being wiped out by the violent marshmen. At which point, they killed the new colonists, went to St. Croix, and took over that population as well. The humans we see don't even realize they're not humans, but there are still a handful of "wild" abos in the wilderness who tried to stick to their old way of life rather than the human one (hence the rejection of tools). I remember reading some interpretations of the story that differed a bit from my own, but gently caress if I can remember them.
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Jan 5, 2018 08:07
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Sorry if I wasn't clear, but yeah I agree the natives and children are different. There are a lot of parallels between St Anne and St Croix in Fifth Head and Blue and Green from Short Sun (I'm at the part where Horn first encounters a Neighbor), but Gene Wolfe has gone on record saying they're not the same planets. But can you really trust him?
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Jan 5, 2018 14:34
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The gardens are there to show you that: death isn't all that permanent and time doesn't have to move in a single direction and shockingly those two are the big reveal when you put it all together.
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Jan 22, 2018 09:04
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Finished Return to the Whorl last night and so have finally closed out The Solar Cycle. That is a goddamn heavy ending. OK so here's my hot take. A Typhon sent the Whorl to Blue and Green. Like the ship in Urth, time passed oddly for them. When the Cacogens banned human expansion, they plucked the Whorl from reality. To the passengers and crew, it felt like 300 years, but even that was longer than they were supposed to have been on board. They are eventually released into the universe of BotNS. Technically they arrive before Severian has brought the New Sun, but the Cacogens by that point basically already know the Severian of that universe is going to succeed. And the real expansion isn't the arrival on Blue/Green where they might fail, but when the Whorl is repaired and leaves again. That coincides much closer with Severian having brought the New Sun. The Severian that Silk visits may or may not be the Severian in BotNS. There's nothing to say that the astral projection brings them to places in their own universe. There's never an example for instance of someone being visited by them and then encountering them later and asking what the hell that was about. The closest we get is Mucor, but she's doing something entirely different to what Silk and the inhumi do. When Wolfe says Green is Urth, I take it more figuratively. It's an ancient planet worn down by the crush of time that's witnessed the rise and fall of multiple civilizations. Ultimately none of that matters because that's just the plot. This book is about so much more than that. Of all the fantasy authors that ever wanted to write a holy text for their universe, I think this is the only guy who ever accomplished it.
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Jan 26, 2018 00:48
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A big part of Severian's unreliability is that he himself doesn't understand what he's seeing a lot of the time and he's trying to relate events that are beyond his comprehension through the lens of his personal interpretation. Like the fight with the Alzabo is crystal clear because that makes sense to Severian through his experiences and frame of reference, but Talos's plays are super bizarre and muddied because Severian himself didn't get what was happening at the time, in no small part because he was in the show and not able to give it the whole of his attention. But since we've mentioned, "If you have to mention something regularly then it probably isn't true," what kind of monster was Silk actually?
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Jan 27, 2018 04:55
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Is it also possible that he is describing Thecla attacking herself but he's confusing his pronouns?
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Mar 1, 2018 16:19
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I was only able to get my friends to read it when Patton Oswalt started Tweeting about it. For whatever reason his endorsement was enough. I'd recommend reading Urth as it's a nice, if confusing and weird, little coda to New Sun. My gut is to tell you to then power on through Long Sun so you can get to the utter joy of reading Short Sun.
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May 4, 2018 00:49
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Unless Ash is a Chem? A bit unconventional as a Chem name, but I don't think it'd be against the rules?
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May 9, 2018 00:20
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Long Sun is a tough read, but Short Sun is really worth it and absolutely depends on Long Sun to make sense.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:50
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My friend described Short Sun as Wolfe's Moby Dick and was surprised how much he liked it.
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Mar 2, 2019 02:08
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Your Gay Uncle posted:Yeah I've tried to read it a few and just lost interest every time right around when Silk goes to break into Blood's house. Glad I stuck with it, I'm now about halfway into Lake and enjoying it quite a bit. It is a bit odd though to have a Wolfe book that seems to take place in the span of what seems like 3 or 4 days and not eons. Not to be spoilery, but what's interesting is how much the book picks up the pace as each novel wraps up. The first novel is literally just one night. And it accelerates from there. Short Sun rules though. I can't stress this enough.
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Mar 4, 2019 04:35
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He's a supreme monarch reflecting on the decisions he made as a teenager that resulted in him becoming a supreme monarch. It's not so much that he manufactures a narrative as he justifies monstrous behavior and also tries to make himself look really cool.
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Mar 21, 2019 00:13
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less laughter posted:There are five Severians But the narrative you're reading is potentially written by one only. He just has divine intervention where the Severians of the previous timelines died and they had to wait for the universe to reset itself enough times to know all the points where divine intervention was going to be necessary to keep him alive to bring the New Sun.
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Mar 21, 2019 01:10
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my bony fealty posted:Yeah every time Severian is having a real hard time he probably actually dies. This is made explicit in Urth when he falls down the big shaft and on retrospect it's pretty obvious that the Avern kills him. I think he dies journeying down the mountain after Typhon, he drowns in the Gyoll before the narrative starts, he maaaaay have died in the Lazaret. The Stone Town explosion may have killed him, and near the end of Urth the natives kill him as Apu Punchau. Maybe other times I can't remember? "Spot the times Severian dies" is a fun way to read the book. I didn't read it as resurrection. The way I read it, when Severian dies, that's it for this iteration of the universe as far Earth is concerned. Time will continue on and Earth and the human species will die. But those who are unlocked in time observe how he died, make a note of it, and wait for the universe to repeat itself and then step in for the next iteration of Severian to avoid dying at that moment. They watch how far he gets and then do the whole thing again. Eventually they get a Severian who makes it through the whole dang obstacle course. Alternatively, it's all the same Severian and only one iteration of the universe, but the cacogens rewind time every time he dies and alter reality so whatever kills him doesn't. Either way, it immediately calls Severian's reliability as a narrator into question. If he's dying and resurrecting or his deaths are being undone as they happen, then his memories are at odds with he's story if his memory is perfect because he'd remember dying and yet he never mentions it. If it's divine intervention, he has no explanation for how he manages to keep escaping despite the fact that he does.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:52
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Unreliable narrator is way more important of a thing in Long and Short Sun and there it actually is a puzzle to unravel.
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Mar 25, 2019 04:37
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I agree with the above. Short Sun is my favorite of them.
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Apr 2, 2019 12:47
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I don't think Young Severian can be Severian because Severian had to be brought to the Guild at a very young age, like an infant, to be free of the corruption of the outside world. It's possible he represents an alternative timeline though?
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Apr 24, 2019 04:32
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Lex Talionis posted:There are some simple hints: Teasel is bitten, Patera Pike speaks of devils that attack children, "Silk for Calde" appears high on buildings where humans cannot easily reach. I think Oreb also refers to him as "Bad thing!" though the characters don't realize who he means. A memorial of home probably is the closest thing we get as a hint that he's an alien but it takes the hindsight of having read the book. Also, that section you quoted ends with him floating across the room so it was pretty obvious to me from the beginning that he wasn't human. This is definitely "hidden in plane sight". Everyone expects Wolfe to have these textured, Byzantine riddles in his novels so when he states something as openly as this alien drinks blood and has no skeleton people assume it's a more complicated metaphor. My friends to whom I've lent the book all miss it and are completely shocked by the twist. Which is a testament to how good Quetzal was at disguising himself
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Jun 1, 2019 04:46
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Yeah you shouldn't take it too seriously. He's narrating his exploits from when he was like 16 or 17 and trying to show how cool he was.
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Oct 19, 2019 08:58
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Return to the Whorl is real good.
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Dec 18, 2019 02:43
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I tried reading BOTNS and bounced off but it was probably the wrong time in my life to be reading something like that. Years later I picked up Fifth Head and loving loved it. Then I did the whole Solar Cycle. That's what I would recommend. Book of the Short is just so loving good.
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Mar 13, 2020 05:52
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One of these days I'm going to do a complete Solar Cycle reread so maybe knowing where Long Sun is headed will make it easier to get through on a second pass, but I just felt like they spend ages in that loving cave and so little happens. Short Sun was such a masterwork in comparison.
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Aug 25, 2020 00:25
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Sekenr posted:Finally finished long and short suns, have a couple of questions. To 1 and 2: 1) I was under the impression that Silk had attempted to commit suicide, but my theory is spotty at best. I think the suicide wasn't successful, but he was traumatized enough that he needed a "reboot" so to speak, and merging with Horn let him get over that. We know from Return to the Whorl that this is still Silk even if Horn's "soul" was grafted on. I assume that Horn's memories/experiences/goals gave Silk the push he needed to keep going. 2) I assume it's Hyacinth and it was her death that drove Silk to suicide. With Horn's identity grafted to him, he won't acknowledge her directly because a) Horn never cared for her (see her depiction in Long Sun) and b) acknowledging her death could potentially undo what recovery Silk has had and lead him back into being suicidal over her death Disclaimer: I've only read the whole series once and I am by no means a pro-Wolfe reader. These were just my impressions.
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Sep 2, 2020 05:40
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Sekenr posted:What if the entire book was written by Pas? I don't think this works based on how and when Severian encounters him, but I'd have to reread Urth because I feel like their first chronological encounter is in there but I could be misremembering.
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Sep 2, 2020 11:36
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CommonShore posted:So what something you would point out to someone who had just finished reading Urth of the New Sun? He definitely dies at least once, specifically when he falls down the stairs/ladder on the ship.
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Jan 7, 2021 05:41
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I have just started The Wizard Knight and I am absolutely adoring it. I don't have much else to say about it right now, but it absolutely kicks rear end. I just got to the part where his dog and him are reunited after he wins a suit of armor and some horses.
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May 23, 2021 08:18
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Finally finished The Wizard Knight and it is just amazing. I don't know if I have anything more coherent to say about it, but it was a blast to read.
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Jul 11, 2021 17:21
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The Wizard Knight is what happens when a DM doesn't know how to say no. Able's death halfway through is the DM pulling him aside and saying that he's ruining it for everyone else and that he really, really needs to tone it down. Eventually he gets bored and fucks the campaign over about the time he gets a girlfriend in real life and is kicked out by the DM. Some time later a game is being put together with a new DM and they're short a player and someone says, "Hey, I know a guy."
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Jul 13, 2021 13:36
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Milo and POTUS posted:Was it about the kitten and ball or the two apricots I'm hoping it's when Severian punched the person in the face so hard it killed them.
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Feb 8, 2022 10:44
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I was actually thinking of: Most humans do not know it, but it is difficult to learn to strike another human being with all one's force; some ancient instinct makes even the most brutal soften the blow. Among the torturers I had been taught not to do so. I struck her, the heel of my hand against her chin, as hard as I have ever struck anyone in my life, and she crumpled like a doll.
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Feb 10, 2022 15:06
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I would have seen it as Blue is Urth and Green is the moon.
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Feb 15, 2022 00:17
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His being an unreliable narrator is mostly him just trying to justify his monstrous behavior to himself.
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Jun 22, 2022 02:35
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