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I finally got around to reading BotNS after having it on my list forever, and boy am I absolutely sold. I've finished the first three and and just started the fourth, if I finish it tomorrow I'll have read them all in a week and am already anticipating a re-read, probably after I read the rest of the Solar Cycle. I've really fallen in love with the bizarre world Wolfe created, and it does the science-fantasy thing where fantastic technology coexists with medieval life far better than anything I've read before. It reminds me a lot of Michael Moorcock's Elric series, which is generally much more by-the-books sword and sorcery than BotNS is, but the characters of Elric and Severian share some similar traits and Moorcock's world is (Elric spoilers) implied to be the Earth of a long distant past (and/or a parallel universe) in the same way Urth is the Earth of a distant future. And then I started reading Citadel of the Autarch and in the second paragraph there's an interesting name that I don't think appeared in the first three books, can't say if it's in the fourth again yet: quote:Just as our familiar Urth holds such monstrosities as Erebus, Abaia, and Arioch, so the world of war is stalked by the monsters called battles... The Biblical Arioch was apparently the captain of the guard and the head executioner(!) of King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel, i.e. a human, so interesting to see that name mentioned alongside the two monsters with mythological names Severian has talked about before. And in the Elric series, Arioch is a chaos deity who thrives on war and discord. Michael Moorcock himself says: quote:I've said elsewhere that I admire Gene Wolf's work. I was privileged to publish his first story in New Worlds in, I think, 1967! So I wonder if Gene Wolfe throwing in Arioch, seemingly randomly, is a reference to Moorcock. I came across a fan theory that Severian is written to be an aspect of Moorcock's Eternal Champion, which is of course meaningless but still fun to think about.
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Sep 23, 2015 18:49
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The Vosgian Beast posted:My feeling on stuff like this in Wolfe is that you almost certainly did, but you can always figure it out later, and it doesn't matter to your enjoyment as much as you might think. My feeling is that some of it - the jungle hut, for instance - is actually really straightforward - the scene is there to introduce the idea that time isn't linear or constant and can be manipulated. This plays a huge role later in the story, of course, so it's clever of Wolfe to introduce it early on in such a weird context. I'm sure someone's written a long essay about the deep significance of the jungle hut, though, and maybe they're right! That's half the fun.
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Oct 12, 2015 01:36
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Umberto Eco is my favorite author who isn't named Gene Wolfe, and I always tell people to read Baudolino first because it's a good introduction to his style that's super readable and tons of fun. In other news, I read Castleview a couple weeks ago and still don't know quite what to think.
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Jul 19, 2016 05:12
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Slaughterhouse-Ive posted:Yeah I mean I've read stuff where the nominal protagonist is a bastard but I got a little blindsided here since someone earlier in this thread mentioned Baudolino and I was expecting a science fantasy version of that. Yeah I brought up Baudolino only as a suggestion for someone wanting to start reading Eco, it doesn't have much in common with BOTNS other than having an unreliable narrator. I love that book dearly though, it's probably my favorite Eco book if only because the Prester John myth is so fascinating. A sci-fi version would be really neat if there was some comparable legend to base it off of. Chichevache posted:That is true! Every other autarch is a castrato. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say Severian is as well and has too much pride to admit it. We're supposed to believe that this is only because of the reasons brought up earlier failing the Yesod judgment test but I like to think it could be another lie from Severian. Maybe the eunuch status comes from absorbing all the previous Autarchs which puts the new Autarch in a non-gender specific state, and Severian just doesn't want to admit that it happened to him too? Ultimately there's no way to know for sure, like a lot of other stuff in the story! Something amusing on Severian's parentage (Fifth Head of Cerberus spoilers contained within) - his dad's name, Ouen, corresponds to Owain (Welsh) and Owen (English) - and also the Greek name Eugenes, or Eugene, commonly shortened as Gene. Normally I would think this is a stretch, but it's Wolfe and he already pulled the same trick in FHOC, so perhaps he's telling us that Severian's dad is...Gene Wolfe!
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Oct 1, 2016 07:11
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Safety Biscuits posted:First up, a guy in the general sf thread has posted scans of the first part of the old Shadow of the Torturer comic, so hop over and check them out: Going to scan the second and third (final) issues of the comic when I get a chance! And I'll mention again, the founder of Innovation Comics said it's fine to scan and share so long as it's all non-commercial use. I agree that Urth is generally a bit weaker but I did enjoy it a lot more on my second read of the series. A lot of it went way over my head the first time and there's a lot of unclear stuff that happens on the ship and planet that was really cool when I (think) I figured out what was going on. Chichevache posted:Someone earlier posted a link to the Duchy of Cumberbatch blog that discussed the books in great detail. Thanks to them I've corrected the disservice I've done myself and finally begun reading T.H. White's The Once and Future King, which Wolfe seems to draw heavily on. I'd seen some of his Arthurian influences previously, but I'd assumed they were Mallory and not more recent. With regards to some of the time travel, White's portrayal of Merlin is as someone who travels through time backwards, like the Cacogens do. He's also a mentor/guide to Arthur the way the Cacogens are to Severian. I'm not too far into the book yet, but it is a fantastic read that has greatly expanded my vocabulary at this point. If you're very into Wolfe, or fantasy in general, you'd do well to check this novel out. Have you read Castleview? It's a modern-day King Arthur story done in a very Gene Wolfe way. I'm not sure if I liked it, really didn't, or just did not get it at all. Feels thick with allusions and imagery that I do not have the background to understand. I'm going to follow your lead and read TH White, then, and maybe Castleview again after to see if it makes any more sense...
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Dec 13, 2016 21:49
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I finished reading the Short Sun books for the first time today (thanks, local library, for having them so I didn't have to spend $75 on Amazon). Really great. So many questions. I had the central 'twist' about the narrator sort-of accidentally spoiled and that didn't matter at all. After I read Long Sun I was kind of mad because they're so different in style and narration than New Sun and any connection between the two felt tangential, but now I really appreciate that all 3 series are written so differently. The world of New Sun always seemed so grimdark to me but it's often rather whimsical and always just plain weird; after reading Short Sun their shared universe all really clicks for me (and the power of the narrator's voice to shape how the reader views what they're reading - that's one of Wolfe's biggest strengths for sure).
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Jan 23, 2017 06:46
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Atlas Hugged posted: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. It's a really, really, really stellar work and I haven't given it the time it deserves. And then the bonus is, you get Short Sun as a follow-up which is probably the best thing Wolfe's written, for me. You're in for some surprises with both the narration and the pacing, Wolfe does neat stuff with both, per the course. Re: Severian & Cugel, I read The Dying Earth omnibus pretty recently myself and that's a great comparison - it dawned on me after a while that Cugel is not the hero, he's not even an anti-hero, he's 100% villain. Which also could apply to Severian, from the perspective of most of Urth's residents.
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Jun 11, 2017 04:36
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If you're ever bored and haven't gone down this rabbit hole yet, this guy has loads of speculative videos on ASOIAF that range from "hmm yeah, plausible" to "probably batshit crazy" Here's a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kwZ_7M3o0 On the topic of, uh, Gene Wolfe, I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Wizard now and digging it a lot. At the end of The Knight I was really ambivalent and not sure if I liked it - the cosmology and setting is great, but Sir Able kinda sucked and seemed really inconsistently characterized. And then a few chapters into The Wizard it all clicked for me and I got what's going on and what kind of character Able is. Gotta have faith in Wolfe!
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Jun 26, 2017 21:25
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The Vosgian Beast posted:http://thesometime.com/blog/a-rigor-of-chessmasters-not-of-angels-gene-wolfe-and-literature-as-puzzle/ At the risk of sounding like the dire fanboys our author here calls out: that's a pretty sloppy analysis and the parts that aren't just opinion (e.g. the use of archaic words, the quality of the prose) show a really lazy reading of the book and a weird reluctance of the author to engage with the text. The book works perfectly well as a relatively straight-forward adventure story and you don't have to be some genius detective to "get" it. I don't need to know who Severian's sister is to understand the fact that he has a sister is significant to the story. quote:Beneath the narrative mystery-solving, on Wolfe’s part as on his readers’, runs a thoroughly simplistic rationalism — every mystery, it promises, will be explained, every clue find its place — and a deep hostility to subtlety, nuance, hint, or indeterminacy. Like, that's not true at all - the author just wasn't looking in the right place for the ambiguity. I think the guy heard that BOTNS was this crazy puzzle that's maybe-literature wow! and went into it with that expectation. And he was expecting some postmodernist masterwork and was confused when he got "Catholic engineer who really likes Jack Vance" instead. For good measure: quote:[3] E.g. for some reason he prefers prehistoric animals’ scientific names (e.g. “smilodon”) over more evocative descriptors (“saber-toothed tiger”). Yeah, because the made up future animal is not a saber-toothed tiger, it's a made up future animal that the made-up translator of the made-up language thought was best described by 'smilodon.' For someone looking for nuance and subtlety he apparently wants things described in explicit detail - maybe try using your imagination a bit, eh?
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Aug 6, 2017 21:56
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I got 'The Best of Gene Wolfe' short story collection from my local library and it's real good. If you haven't read his short stories, do so, they're incredible. At least the ones in the 'Best of' are. 'The Death of Dr. Island' and 'Seven American Nights' really stand out. I finished the latter with the distinct impression that I missed A LOT, even more than normal with Wolfe. I gather that it's some sort of hosed up passion play and therefore Nadan is probably black-bagged and killed off-page but beyond that I got nothing. Luckily it works very well as just a great story without any further analysis too.
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Sep 15, 2017 18:52
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Uhlans were harrassing people because the Autarch had closed the roads. That's it, I think. Severian says something to that effect in SOTT.
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Sep 23, 2017 23:58
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Neurosis posted:that's the one. i remember borski getting some hate on here for making some tenuous arguments. i didn't think that was so justified, on the basis of my hazy recollection of reading solar labyrinths a decade ago. the impression i had was that while his arguments usually failed to convince, i'd at least learn about some plausible connections and allusions i wasn't aware of before, and some of the intermediary steps on the way to the ultimate conclusion were reasonable. next time i reread the botns i'll have a read of these and may find out 19 year old me is a lovely judge of everything. The problem with Borski is that he's the Ancient Aliens of Wolfe readers, he has plenty of good insight but then draws tenuous conclusions that are often based on his own other tenuous conclusions. quote:Well, just as I've argued earlier that Caron may be the name of Dorcas's husband (there being a saint by that name, and Caron recalling Charon, the Greek ferryman of the dead), I'm tempted to call this second child Secunda... He takes something definite (the Saint/Monster naming scheme) and runs wild with it, to the point where he's no longer even talking about stuff in the text. ElGroucho posted:I think these books broke my brain on some fundamental level does that include Short Sun, wooo boy if you haven't read those yet
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Sep 25, 2017 20:20
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I finished An Evil Guest on my flight today... ...the gently caress did I just read?
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Dec 30, 2017 01:01
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Hammer Bro. posted:It's been a while since I've read that one, though that was my second run-through I believe. It was an odd stand-alone in that it felt like it was leaving itself open to a sequel, but Wolfe doesn't usually leave any unfinished business like that. I'd like to read that argument because it would make about as much sense as anything else on first pass. It's a very jarring book, how the first 2/3 or so is spent plodding through Cassie's life and the stage productions and theater colleagues, then all of a sudden she's on a tropical island and the action escalates extremely quickly and Cthulhu is there? If you told me the secret of the book lies in the rather detailed descriptions of the food the characters order, I'd believe it. There's also something very strange going on in the period after the bat aliens (Wolders?) save Cassie and drop her off on the volcano island, and when she gets rescued - it can't have been very long, but she seems to have aged a few decades. Radiation sickness from Wolder magic? Gideon's star-power glamor wearing off had some adverse side effects? I dunno, I'll definitely read it again someday. At the end I was pretty convinced that Gideon Chase is the villain and I want to go through it again with that in mind. For some reason I have it in my head that Gideon and Bill Reis are the same person but I couldn't give you much evidence for that. I could really do without Wolfe's annoying racist attempt to make the computer sound Japanese, I think Sorcerer's House had that same problem. Shark Sandwich posted:I picked up Fifth Head of Cerberus recently and while I have no clue what’s really going on in the second novella it is so psychedelic that I really don’t care. That's the right place to be, it's a real literary walkabout. The third part is pretty trippy too, in a different way. St Croix and St Anne are on the bottom of my "sci-fi places I'd like to visit" list. ManlyGrunting posted:Forlesen was entirely too real for someone who's worked thankless jobs that demand you do more work than is actually available, but I loved it: it had the pitch-black Kafkaesque humour to it. I also love at the end where they go through the different explanations. "It could be demons, or aliens, or you're in a simulation or maybe it's just a tumor, I dunno." Forlsen is real as heck. The character naming scheme means something important, but I totally forget what. I love that the story is presented as if it all takes place in one (long) day, but maybe not since our hero should be at home lunching when he's doing a training at one point according to the timeline. That whole collection is generally great and probably aptly named, although there are a lot of Wolfe stories I haven't read. Seven American Nights might be my personal favorite, it's wild.
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Jan 4, 2018 05:28
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There's a somewhat convincing theory out there that (major possible Short Sun spoilers, seriously don't look unless you don't care about having much of the mystery possibly revealed) Green is the future Urth/Ushas and Blue is...something else, maybe Mars/Verthandi. I think the idea is that the Whorl was always intended to make a circular journey and return Typhon to power via Silk after the New Sun had come. Severian bringing the New Sun had major consequences for the solar system, shifting planetary allignments and such. The Inhumi are what humanity eventually ended up as, maybe the eventual result of the green man's evolutionary line. Look for Marc Aramini's stuff if you want to read more, he wrote like 200 pages about this. I don't know if I buy it at all but it does bring the solar cycle full-circle and link BOTNS with LS and SS in a very tragic way. Aramini says he sent his original 'Blue is Urth' theory to Wolfe and he replied that 'no, Green is Urth' which may or may not be actual evidence. Wolfe's tricky and I wouldn't trust that he would just say that...
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Jan 5, 2018 16:41
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Hammer Bro. posted:I think this was what I read. Glancing at it again there are some pretty tenuous arguments, but some things still resonate with me, so it'll make the next reread more interesting. I love this, haha - some of it seems really reaching but y'know, who knows? quote:There's the clue of the werewolf's "swift loping walk, even in women." (p. 206). Margaret bobs along (p. 59). Does any other female character have a unique walk described? A lope and a bob are...plausibly similar? I do like the Margaret as future-Cassie idea. There's too much hinted at with the letters from Woldercan arriving before they're sent to not have some sort of time shenanigans involved in the main plot. And I'd have to read it again, but there's the bit near the end where old Cassie passes Margaret in the street and it feels, to me the reader, like the latter intentionally does not recognize the former. Hammer Bro. posted:I originally had the impression and never felt the reason to question it that it was Gideon's magic wearing off. They talk a fair bit about how changing upward is much more difficult to do and maintain than slipping downward. I figured it was either a return to how she should've been after the life she'd lived or maybe a little extra downward slide. I thought more about this and it occurred to me that Gideon's magic going away is definitely exactly what's happening - because of Jolenta in BOTNS. Not to say it isn't evident from just the text, but it's a very clear example of Wolfe using similar themes and character transformations in different works, as he loves to do. It was pretty whack when SHARK GOD HANGA showed up in Evil Guest, like exactly the same character from "The Tree is my Hat." Maybe there's a shared Wolfe-verse that all his works take place in  Hammer Bro. posted:If you buy the interpretation of Sorcerer's House that much if not all of the supernatural is fabricated, which I do because it makes the work significantly more interesting, then it's not Wolfe being racist, it's Bax being incendiary toward George and Millie. I'm inclined to that interpretation too and it definitely makes more sense if Bax is the culprit. I should clarify that I don't think Wolfe is really being "racist," more so just lazy - he loves to do unique speech patterns so it follows that he'll give one to the Japanese computer personality, but it feels like he didn't actually bother to research what this would sound like and went for the boring "R pronounced like L." From a comment elsewhere: quote:A little note here: IF a japanese AI were to have an actual, japanese-based japanese accent (which might be because it can only talk in the hiragana writing system of syllables), it would say "artificial" not as "artificiar" but as "artificiaru". So stereotyping accents isn't even correctly done... Neurosis posted:Even if they were Ushas and Lune, it wouldn't mean they were those we spent BotNS on. The Severian encountered is, I think, not ours, but one from a previous iteration of the universe. The tell as to that I remember is Severian saying he'd never include them in a book he wrote because no one would believe him. I remember pausing at that - really, Severian, given the other poo poo in there? There are others that are a bit too foggy to remember - maybe Triskele being alive when he shouldn't have been? So this could mean the Short and Long Sun are from a prior creation. Which would kind of make sense, for the NEW Sun to post date the Short and Long Suns. That was my immediate thought too, it's a different universal cycle. Triskele and Merryn being present in the scenes don't mesh up with BOTNS's chronology. Which is even weirder, does that mean Severian didn't bring the new sun in this world? If so, how can Green be Urth? I gotta read that whole Aramini thing again.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:50
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Writing first-person narrators who are shitheads is cool and Wolfe is great at it Wanna empathize with that torturer
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Jan 10, 2018 17:17
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Neurosis posted:i'm rereading the wizard knight; the protagonist of that is one of wolfe's more sympathetic characters, all-in-all, but for the the first book he acts like an rear end in a top hat. many other characters are themselves assholes or it would be really offputting. I didn't like The Knight and was left feeling really dissatisfied at the end because Able REALLY SUCKS. Then some pages into The Wizard when dead Able comes back from chillin' with Odin it instantly clicked into place for me and I went "oooooooh." That was a neat trick: 20 years of character development happens completely off-screen and is only occasionally referenced later by Able. Now I love TWK, it's grand. angel opportunity posted:I read the whole BOTNS series like 3 years ago, and I just finished book 2 of my re-read. On my first read I really liked the atmosphere and the writing, and it was just enough to hold me and keep me reading...but it was just so confusing and overwhelming that I couldn't have said I super enjoyed it. The way the plot was structured, and especially the random stories and plays thrown in were just so disorienting that I rarely felt I had any real clue what was happening. Even if I did know what was happening I didn't really know why. Have you read Urth of the New Sun? It'll make some of this make a lot more sense, e.g. Apu-Punchau and wtf happened with the Witches at the end of Claw. Talos's play still befuddles me. I think I get the idea: it's a stylized version of a religious myth, stuck in the middle of the events that said myth is based on. Talos says he based it on the "lost" Book of the New Sun, which itself came from Concilliator-Severian telling Canog his story in Urth of the New Sun. The stories in the Brown Book are meant to get us in this mindset: They're mostly a mishmash of actual Earth myths and historical events; Talos's play is the same, but in the entirely fictional world of Urth. But as to what exactly in the play is supposed to map to what in the narrative, if it is, I've never given that much thought. I don't have any clue how Wolfe's creative process works or what's going on in his head when he writes, but I think Wolfe's biggest strength as a SF author is his ability to separate author from narrator: he really, truly makes an effort to write in the words of the characters he's invented. It's the opposite of that "what if all stories were written like science fiction" thing - typical SF explains way too much and feels like it's fiction written by someone coming up with spaceships and lasers in their heads, communicated to readers in the year 2018, not narrated by people who actually live in that world. Wolfe stories are cool because even on a surface level they're highly entertaining and well-written. If the reader wants to try and "unlock" the secret of what's actually going on, they're welcome to, but I don't think they have to to get a lot out of a Wolfe book. Short Sun, for example - I have no clue what the "real story" is and any one of the interpretations I've read online might be right, but I still found it one of the most moving and emotional works I've ever read.
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Jan 11, 2018 20:25
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Ccs posted:I thought the Corn Maidens was there to show hows stories have changed over the millions of years since our time. Jonas knows that story but as a greek myth, as opposed to how it is in Severian's time. I take it as mostly the former, the story is a mashup of the Thesus (student's son = "Thesis") myth with the Battle of Hampton Roads. The joke being that "minotaur" and "monitor" got confused over the ages. We also learn that Jonas is really, really old. Regarding plot relevance, it might have something to do with the Megatherians and the thing Severian sees in the 4th book swimming up the river near the end. Would have to read that part again to remember why I think this, though. vv its great. Their ship is even called "Land of Virgins," Wolfe is a sly one. my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jan 22, 2018 |
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Jan 22, 2018 19:42
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An artist named Len Davis has an exhibition with some pieces that use pages from a copy of Shadow of the Torturer as a medium, I was skeptical but it turned out to be pretty neat. Definitely novel to see Wolfe's work used in a context like this. http://www.eccalifornian.com/article/eclectic-work-len-davis-now-showing-grossmont-college%E2%80%99s-hyde-art-gallery I saw it last week and took some pictures - https://imgur.com/a/7vbGK The SOTT stuff starts about halfway through with 'We Were Here.'
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Feb 17, 2018 22:52
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You can plan for several more interjected stories that don't "make sense" in the context of the main narrative. Wolfe isn't much of a capital-p Plot guy. There definitely IS a strong plot but it's not really what drives the story. He instead places an enormous weight on symbolism which is rather unique for SFF fiction.
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Mar 2, 2018 16:45
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Every now and then I get reminded that although he has become my favorite author, I still have not read like half the novels Wolfe wrote, and probably 75% of his short stories. Embarrassingly that includes Peace. I've got Pandora by Holly Hollander sitting on my desk, but after that I'm gonna go for Peace. Having a library a block from where you work, that has almost all of Wolfe's novels, is dope. And having loads more new Wolfe to read is even better. I haven't even read the Soldier books x.x
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Mar 20, 2018 03:51
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Started and finished Pandora by Holly Hollander on Saturday - very fun, quick read. I finished with the distinct belief that the murderer was Holly Hollander herself. She's got motive, opportunity, and smarts to do it. Blue may have been in on it too, with the whole thing being a plot to get Holly the freedom to move in with Blue - isn't much of a stretch to assume a romantic relationship between them. Whoever opened to box is the story's "Pandora" and Holly fits that role much better than Elaine.
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Apr 24, 2018 20:17
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Neurosis posted:I notice in Book when Severian thinks of calling his memoirs the Book of the New Sun he says it's using the name of some fabled but long lost text. I assume he is in fact talking about the Gene Wolfe authored Book of the New Sun (it might be a reference to the New Testament, too). This occurs to me since it seems in the Wizard Knight the conceit was the way Michael would let Able communicate with Ben, who was on our Earth, was to inspire Gene Wolfe to write the fictional work the Wizard Knight. The 'lost' BOTNS is almost certainly the text that Canog writes sometime after encountering Conciliator Sev while he's imprisoned at the Matachin Tower in Urth of the New Sun. I don't remember the details but Sev dictates his story to Canog through the wall and this goes on to form the basis of the Conciliator myth (via the lost BOTNS). Here's the catch: we have no idea what this BOTNS contains and if it's entirely different/somewhat the same/entirely the same as Wolfe's BOTNS. It's imo likely that it's mostly different though. One of the books Sev brings Thecla is the 'lost' BOTNS and Dr Talos has read enough of it to write his play. For being a 'lost' book it sure seems easy enough to get. Re: technology remnants - I think Baldander's castle is implied to be some sort of mini-spaceport that was used by cacogens as a base and then given over to Baldy. The caco flying saucer docks at the top and it would explain where he got some of the whack tech.
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May 4, 2018 16:30
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Happy birthday Gene Wolfe! 87 years young.
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May 8, 2018 01:23
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Neurosis posted:evil hieros My most recent reading of BOTNS had me feeling that there was some sort of galactic war that happened between the Hierogrammates and the Megatherians, for which Urth was ground zero, probably in Typhon's time. The culmination of which was putting the black worm into the Sun. Which led me to think: if the Hierogrammates are what humanity's descendants eventually create after the New Sun comes, could the Megatherians be created by future humanity in the future without the New Sun? It's never made much sense that the New Sun would be devastating to Abaia and co. given that they are giant aquatic beings; surely a flooded Urth would be ideal for them. So Severian's Urth is kind of in a superposition where the Hierogrammates and Megatherians both exist, and they're fighting to determine which one shapes the future (and therefore brings themselves into existence). The Commonwealth & Autarchs are the Hiero's proxies on Urth and the Ascians are the Megatherian's. Hierodules are the equivalent of Undines. Dunno if I buy my own theory but it would shed some more light on the motivations of the Megatherians which are rather esoteric. Re: Blue as Urth, I'm way more convinced that Marc Aramini is on the right track and Green is Urth/Ushas, Blue is probably Mars. Coming of the New Sun dramatically hosed up the solar system. Short Sun works very, very well as a wrap-up to the Solar Cycle if it's correct that the events depicted therein are some of the stages of mankind's journey towards evolving into the Hieros. Which suggests some interesting implications that most of the, perhaps all of the, "aliens" we see in the Solar Cycle are actually different stages of human evolution.. I think this is backed up by the fact that the scary cacogen masks are really hiding beautiful human-esque faces underneath. The Inhumi are so good at copying humans because they carry the genetic memory of being homo sapiens.
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May 9, 2018 02:08
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Your Gay Uncle posted:It wasn't humans specifically, god promised not to kill all life with floods. Wolfe got himself out of this pickle in an interview by saying that the universal cycle in BOTNS is NOT the same as the one we're living in. Which is...suspect, given all of the clearly-our-world allusions in the Solar Cycle. quote:JJ: This universe that you set in Briah, or part of it--is that our universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made? So this puts us in a universe without the Flood, without Christ...but with Allah? Idk. Here's the full interview: https://web.archive.org/web/20140911190904/http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html
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May 14, 2018 21:08
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Yeah, I like to spend my weekends lurking in the chip aisles of grocery stores, accosting people by giving them copies of Book of the New Sun - "SO YOU'RE BUYING PRINGLES DID YOU KNOW GENE WOLFE INVENTED THEM, AND ALSO THIS BOOK, READ IT?"
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May 22, 2018 14:08
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Action Jacktion posted:
Think I can see a Vanished Person through that ring if I look hard enough. It is most fun to tell people, "did you know he also invented Pringles?", even if it REALLY was just the cooking machine. e: that quote went totally by me until I remembered it's from Urth. That whole sequence of Severian on the deck of the Ship is mindblowing and one of my favorite scenes of any of Wolfe's work. Urth is good. Neurosis posted:i like to think his engineering background carries over into the books in terms of how the puzzles are constructed - that all of those bits we've all been puzzling over for decades will be put together in some masterful interpretation where everything fits neatly. i've read marc aramini say he thinks wolfe did intend his books to be solvable in that way, he just vastly underestimated how hard other people would find the task. there'd still be the evaluative judgments and character stuff to argue over, of course, i'm not saying i want books that are sudoku puzzles rather than literature. Agree with this. Wolfe's books are definitely well-constructed puzzles where every moving piece contributes to some greater whole, no doubt about it. I'm not smart enough to figure them out but I maintain that it doesn't really matter, you can enjoy a Wolfe story at any level that it speaks to you and that objectively "wrong" interpretations of what happened are also ok to hold (uh oh!). Wolfe's biggest strength as a writer is his characters anyhow. He writes really human characters. Long Sun is really cool because it does give you so much, and builds a wonderful world through it, but not really much of what Silk's true nature is and why he was destined to become such a pivotal figure in the Whorl. I think, I need to re-read them. My current grand theory of the Solar Cycle's backstory is heavily informed by Long Sun and where Pas's family, and Pas himself, fall into all of it. Short Sun helps illuminate a lot of it too. my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 01:25 on May 23, 2018 |
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May 22, 2018 23:41
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finished Soldier in the Mist a few days ago very confused cool book, wtf happened at all
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Dec 17, 2018 23:57
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Nightside is a love letter to Chesterton in which detective Silk gets his Father Brown on but I forget what the other three are
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Mar 1, 2019 20:17
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sebmojo posted:I stopped liking Wolfe after soldier of arete, felt like he stopped being weird and started being pedantic An Evil Guest is probably the weirdest book Wolfe has written. That doesn't make it good necessarily though, I got no clue what to think about that book. Its hosed up. I give the man a lot of credit for never settling on a specific style. He certainly has a unique way of writing that comes across in everything he's written but has such a wide range compared to most SFF writers. In a parallel universe he just wrote a lot of books like Peace and hey that would have been cool too.
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Mar 2, 2019 02:12
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there is a very interesting and completely coherent story underlying New Sun but it is pretty hard to find the first time around. probably the second as well. Wolfe is a lot different from pretty much every other SFF writer in that he often communicates vital plot information exactly once, possibly not where you'd expect it, and you may not recognize it as such. New Sun in particular tells you exactly wtf is going on and why things seem so random at least once, I forget where, but it's easy to miss.
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Mar 20, 2019 20:43
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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. He's very much a Frazier-esque dying-and-resurrecting-god; its not entirely clear who is doing the resurrecting though - is it Severian himself? Tzadkiel? The Increate? All of the above/the distinction doesn't matter?
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Mar 21, 2019 15:03
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Severian does outright lie a few times (for example he says Thecla and he were not lovers and then later that they were) but for the most part ya it's definitely overstated by people. He does misremember events and little details kinda frequently and is often not fully aware of what's going on. Re: timelines and Severian dying, he sees his own dead body in Urth, so he was definitely resurrected at least then. And when he leaves Apu Punchau behind. And the skull at the bottom of the Gyoll. So maybe there's two things going on, sometimes he dies and is resurrected as an eidolon and sometimes he dies and is gone for that universe forreal. I am partial to the idea that Severian was always an eidolon or sort of avatar of the white fountain, with the power to traverse universes via the corridors of time.
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Mar 25, 2019 04:26
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Neurosis posted:I think it absolutely matters whether Severian is evil or good, thematically. One of the central themes is how flawed human beings are, which can be redeemed by suffering and atonement. yeah given that his ultimate destiny is to betray and murder the entire human race it's pretty important that he is comfortable with doing bad things and hurting people who don't deserve it
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Mar 31, 2019 15:37
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is it? that's pretty much what happens at the end of Urth - the new sun triggers a (second?) global deluge that wipes out everyone but Severian and the few House Absolute folks who become the new gods of an Ushas repopulated by sailors from Tzadkiel's ship. likely leading to a renewal of humanity and the green man future and the evolution of the hieros. how much culpability Severian personally bears for this and how aware if at all he was of what the coming of the new sun would entail are questionable for sure.
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Mar 31, 2019 16:39
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Alzabo Soup is entertaining but the quality varies wildly. I thought their Sorcerer's House and Fifth Head of Cerberus series were quite good and insightful while the New Sun one is really hit or miss. They have some weird ideas that I don't think have any textual support at all like "Severian swapped Thecla's torture orders." I would really not recommend it as a guide for reading through the book the first time which it unfortunately seems to get pitched for a lot. It's good as two guys shooting the poo poo about a fantasy book they like. Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast is definitely more, well, literary and does a good job dissecting themes and references and whatnot. But they go off the deep end sometimes and read too far in to stuff I think. And it gets annoying how they say "looking forward to discussing this in our wrap up episode" like 5 times every episode @.@ I listen to em both because I'm a big Wolfe fan and theres generally a lack of sff podcasts that discuss more obscure stuff at all, which isn't to say Wolfe is especially obscure but that every other podcast just talks about Dr Who and Brandon Sanderson @.@
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Apr 1, 2019 04:24
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Amethyst posted:I get the impression that all of the books after Citadel of the Autarch are similar to the Foundation books Asimov published after the first thee: unnecessary additions written at the request of the publisher because they sold more than all his others. not at all. Long and Short Sun are mostly standalone stories that are very very different than New Sun. all 3 series together probably do form a big overarching story but that doesnt really matter for actually reading them. Wolfe wrote them because he wanted to. Long Sun is definitely tedious in places. I've only read the whole thing once but recall way too much time in the tunnels and the fuckin robot factory. it is a great story and Silk is a phenomenal protagonist tho.
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Apr 2, 2019 00:40
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I don't think I'm going to read Urth of the New Sun. I read somewhere that Wolfe wanted Book of the New Sun to be one massive tome, but the publisher made him break it up to four novels. He was apparently so pissed at this that he excised sections, which explains the sudden change of setting from the Wall to Saltus between Shadow of the Torturer and Claw of the Conciliator. Not sure if that's true but if so it would make me wary of reading Urth. I've never heard that before and I don't think it's true, Wolfe leaving out big sections is just his style. It is true that New Sun was intended to be a trilogy, but the Sword/Citadel part got too long so it became a quadrilogy. The storytelling parts of Citadel were added to pad out the length after. Given that he had written the first draft of all four books before Shadow was published I don't think he was mad about it not being one volume? Source for all that is Castle of Days. Urth is good, you should read it. It's a lot different from New Sun and in typical Wolfe fashion is not really what you would expect from a New Sun sequel. Agreed that Short Sun is the best of them all.
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Apr 2, 2019 16:43
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