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Have you read The Fifth Head of Cerberus? I think that's his best stand-alone novel. I enjoy most of his stuff, though; I thought the Wizard-Knight was a ton of fun. His short stories are pretty good, too - Seven American Nights is great.
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Oct 1, 2011 15:43
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Encryptic posted:Yeah, I read Fifth Head of Cerberus quite some time ago and recall really enjoying it. I believe there's some speculation out there as to whether it's connected to BotNS as well, though I can't recall specifics. A variant of the Shadow Children show up in Citadel. The blind giants being controlled by the dwarves. If you recall, the Shadow Children blinded their 'mounts' too in the middle part of the book. There's also some theories concerning the greening of Lune being connected, although I found that evidence quite a bit weaker. It might be or it might not be connected, not that it'd make much difference since they're about a hundred millenia apart.
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Oct 2, 2011 09:29
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Yeah, Long Sun is easier to follow as the institutions and world set up are a bit closer to our own or at least to familiar conventions of story-telling so it isn't as hard to fathom what the hell is going on all the time. Short Sun moves a little bit away from this but is still an easier read than the New Sun. I actually prefer Short Sun to Long Sun - I really like Horn, despite his absorption by Silk.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:08
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Don't forget Hyacinth's cat. The fact I had to stop and read that closely to understand what the hell it was saying really helped to convey the style of speech.tpg0007 posted:Hopefully his new book will be more interesting. I read An Evil Guest and Home Fires and didn't understand any of it. The Sorcerer's House was better. Agree with this. The Sorceror's House could have done with a bit more exploration of faerie too. I feel like Wolfe's books work best when he's employing his imagination to create weird concepts to go with the masterful writing and puzzle-box aspects. His novels like There Are Doors and An Evil Guest are just kind of... Eh, whereas the Solar novels and the Wizard-Knight are great fun, even if I don't always understand quite what is happening. Having said that, Peace is great even though it wasn't quite as out there are Wolfe's other top novels. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Nov 25, 2011 |
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Nov 25, 2011 08:47
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I think it's worth it. The first book moves a little bit slowly but the pace gets faster and faster and each book is very different in style, so that disliking the beginning of the first is not a herald of doom for the whole series. It also sets up the Short Sun books which are closer to the New Sun and also excellent.
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Feb 17, 2012 18:11
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Palaemon. There are some theories that he is actually Ossipago, sent to watch over Severian. This is hinted at by the fact Palaemon has some kind of ocular apparatus in place of regular eyes - and there is something peculiar about Ossipago's eyes, though I can't recall exactly what. I think it's in Urth of the New Sun. There's also the fact that Ossipago's role seems to be something like that of a carer - his name strongly hints at it, anyway, since it refers to a god responsible for skeletal development or something like that. Some theories run the Palaemon that left the Torturers is not the Palaemon who watches over Severian, and that Ossipago has assumed his identity. It's been a while since I read these theories so I could be mixing some things up, and there's probably more evidence than I'm remembering.
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Mar 13, 2012 18:38
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Google tells me Malrubius is the name of a Scottish saint. Edit: I am pretty sure the initial post was incorrect; human names are not all from the Bible and include saints - or maybe they are exclusively saints, I can't remember. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 13, 2012 |
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Mar 13, 2012 22:03
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Lex Talionis posted:In New Sun, humans all have saints names. The previous poster may have been confused because the name Dorcas turns up a couple times in the New Testament, but most of the other names (including, er, Severian) do not. But they are all saint names (including "bad" humans like Vodalus as well as the one from that spoilered post, Palaemon). Other characters tend to come from various branches of mythology, e.g. Baldanders, Typhon (no longer human, I suppose), Abaia, Tzadkiel, etc. Yeah, you're right about the name in that post. I suppose what leads people to theories like the one I posted above was that the name is both that of a god and a saint. It's been so long since I read the discussion of that name that I can't remember how it properly ran.
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Mar 14, 2012 00:24
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Master Ash - the dude in the house from a future where the Earth is freezing over and being evacuated. It's strongly implied that that is not a very likely future, though, because Ash fades as he gets further away from his house.
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Mar 14, 2012 01:28
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That's what I said is a possibility in the spoilered theory - although I didn't realise that the name was such a strong hint . Palaemon left the Torturers at some point. The theory was that that Palaemon never returned to the Torturers. This is supported - if I recall correctly - by some remarks by a person at the front lines of the war with the Ascians, maybe one of the Pelerines' orderlies I'm not sure, that make young Palaemon sound very different from how he later appears. Instead, the Palaemon that returned to the Torturers was in fact Ossipago.
Neurosis fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Mar 14, 2012 |
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Mar 14, 2012 03:40
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That particular theory is pretty close to iron-clad. But as Lex Talionis said, knowing that won't hurt your enjoyment of the books at all.
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Jun 7, 2012 10:14
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My understanding was more that the Silver Silk entity seen in Return to the Whorl is some kind of amalgam of Pas and Silk. This would be in keeping with Wolfe's whole thing of pagan gods eventually merging with worship of the one true God. It would also mirror the identity merge we saw with Horn and Silk, with Silk supplanting Horn. I can't remember the evidence with complete clarity, it's been a couple of years since I read it. One of the bigger hints being Silk's dream of his head and Pas' being tied to the same body. There is another big one somewhere in there that I can't recall at present.
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Jun 8, 2012 09:20
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PateraOctopus posted:The theory isn't that Pas is [/spoiler]Typhon[/spoiler]; Scylla comes right out and says this in Lake of the Long Sun, so that's fact. There's a theory on the Internet that Silk is a clone or offspring of Typhon; as near as I can tell it's based on three pieces of evidence that are pretty circumstantial when added together, but it's very hard to tell with Wolfe. A) Silk and Typhon are both blond, though this is incredibly well-hidden. Typhon's hair color only becomes apparent if you notice that the head on the left is described as blond in Sword of the Lictor, which is the head that speaks in Urth. B) The bit with Kypris showing Silk a vision of Pas, wherein "one of the heads was Silk's." This is pretty ambiguous--theory proponents insist that this is a vision of what Pas actually looked like, but it's just as easy to read it as Kypris showing him a vision of what could be, i.e. his own personality being joined to Pas. Considering that he receives this vision after Kypris tells him to imagine what it would like to be Pas, I favor that reading. C) Typhon insists that his face be transferred with his consciousness into new bodies--that's why he had his head grafted onto Piaton rather than just replacing Piaton's brain with his own. He insisted that his subjects would only submit to his continued rule from body to body if they could continuously recognize him. Since Typhon planned to somehow leave the Whorl to rule the colonies as himself, and since the "gods" of the Whorl are able to transfer their consciousness into living creatures, it's not a stretch to imagine that he would store some of his own genetic material to be revived at the time of their landfall in order that he might transfer into it. As far as I know those are the only bits of evidence. In The Book of the Short Sun it's confirmed that Silk did in fact consent to upload his mind into Pas, thus becoming the central consciousness of the Whorl. Personally the Silk is Typhon's clone theory seems incredibly circumstantial to me and I'm not sure what the point would be if it were the case, but then Wolfe himself has said that Blood's father was Patera Pike, and the evidence pointing that way is all incredibly obscure, so who knows. On his deathbed Wolfe will confess Robert Borski was actually a pseudonym he used to publish the truth behind his puzzles and I will burn my collection of Wolfe books in disgust.
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Jun 8, 2012 11:09
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Wolfe has made one unambiguously pro-life statement, which was in An Evil Guest. He alludes to post-natal abortions being legalised in the US. Otherwise I have found his Catholicism pretty inoffensive.
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Oct 25, 2012 06:30
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PateraOctopus posted:Still haven't read that one. Bought it when it came out, still on my shelf. I understand it's tied up with Memorare somehow--is the connection terribly explicit? I haven't read Memorare, so I couldn't tell you. An Evil Guest is not Wolfe's best work. It borrows more from early 20th century pulp than it does from Lovecraft, although the Lovecraftian connections become more evident as the novel goes on. Not recommended unless you are a Wolfe completionist. Speaking of which, I still have a few stand alone Wolfe novels I have yet to read. These are: (i) Operation Ares (which even Wolfe doesn't like); (ii) Free Live Free; (iii) Pirate Freedom; (iv) Castleview; (v) Pandora, by Holly Hollander; (vi) The Devil in a Forest. Which of these should I track down and which should I ignore? Neurosis fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 11:32
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John McCain posted:(i) Operation Ares (which even Wolfe doesn't like); Thanks! andrew smash posted:Thoughts on the wizard knight series or there are doors? I remember there are doors being somewhat arcane but I read it long ago, before I was familiar with his other books. I've never read any of the wizard knight books bit I'm curious about them. I really enjoyed the Wizard Knight. The mythology involved is a little closer to mainstream than most of Wolfe's novels (Norse mythology), although of course he adds his own take on things which distinguishes it, and it has a lot of cool adventure elements which make it a relatively quick read, as far as Wolfe goes. The puzzles are also a little less obtuse. There Are Doors I found pretty tedious. The setting is not particularly interesting, and I didn't care much for the narrator, who appears at times to be either mentally unwell or not very intelligent.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:30
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John McCain posted:The Wizard Knight series is about a boy who stumbles into Norse mythology, basically. It's one of his more straightforward series, but I found the ending [of the second book, i.e. the ending of the series] to be somewhat unsatisfying. One thing that sticks out about the series is that the narrator (Wolfe's literary conceit is that the novels are essentially one long-rear end letter that the narrator is writing to his brother) is essentially a "tween" (at least mentally - you'll see what I mean if you read beyond the first ten or twenty pages of the first book). So his motivations are a little gross and unsubtle compared to what you would expect from an adult, and, at least in my opinion, he doesn't grow up too much over the course of the books. I guess the central premise of Wizard Knight is this: Imagine you are a ten or eleven year old boy who (like most boys) is enamored with the concept of knighthood and chivalry, and is somehow transported to a world in which you can live out what are your wildest fantasies - how do you behave? My take was that Able DID grow up significantly, but was still short of developing a fully realised set of morals. That was my general impression, anyway. I can think of plenty of examples of him being a loving arsehole in the first book based on his flawed understanding of the world but not many either way from the second book, anyway. Which may indicate I just wasn't reading the second book closely enough, to be sure. It didn't bother me too much because I found the setting and other characters interesting. Edit: alright gently caress it, time for a reread, because this duology is fun. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 11:51
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I'm fairly sure you're correct. I think it might come up in the last book.
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Nov 1, 2012 07:52
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Beyond sane knolls posted:I just finished The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories and I recommend it to everyone. All the stories are at least cool, and some of them are just Wolfe mindfuckery of the most outrageous variety. It also features the best prose I've read from him (having only read New Sun and half of Long Sun), which is some excellent prose indeed. It was also cool to see him trying out some of the plot devices he makes use of in New Sun and the Latro books (fact-coloring or amnesiac narrators), and that whole unreliable narrator shtick works great in such small doses. Read it, y'all. I think my favourite of those stories is Seven American Nights. The narrator is really unlike most of Wolfe's normal view points and it's one of his more interesting near future settings (which, to be fair, isn't saying that much since he's never been that great at that kind of thing).
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Nov 14, 2012 08:00
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The ship.
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Dec 5, 2012 09:05
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Here's something that might interest people:quote:I was in the enviable position of seeing an advance copy of the upcoming Wolfe Tribute Anthology, Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe, edited by J.E. Mooney and Bill Fawcett. It will be coming out August 27th. No one should be surprised that Swanwick did a good tribute of Wolfe, since he already did an admirable job of it in Stations of the Tide.
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Mar 2, 2013 15:23
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I've only read three Swanwick novels but I got the impression the style of prose in each was a conscious choice for the purposes of writing that novel rather than Swanwick possessing a homogeneous authorial voice. Obviously, that doesn't excuse the flaws of a given book, but it means that the problems in a given book are not necessarily pervasive in his other works. Stations of the Tide is a very good facsimile of Wolfe. The odd word choice is there but from recollection they were almost always for a certain effect. I haven't read his take on Faust, yet, so I couldn't comment on that book.
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Mar 6, 2013 07:37
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I'll agree with the above post. There are some ridiculous theories on that list, and people put a lot of effort into them. But there's also some valid discussion. Quite often I'll find there are things I completely missed, or allusions I didn't understand. I find it easy enough to filter out the crap.
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Mar 19, 2013 07:24
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Hierodules are also our progeny, which is the whole point of them engineering Urth's future.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:14
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sebmojo posted:Soldier of Sidon is late Wolfe, which I dislike. But Arete is great. I don't think late Wolfe is that bad. The books of the last decade aren't as good as anything in the Solar Cycle, but they stack up favourably to things like There Are Doors and Free Live Free. I really liked the Wizard Knight, even though a lot of people don't.
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Jun 15, 2013 19:46
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Seven American Nights owns. I like the protagonist a lot and it's one of Wolfe's more interesting near-future settings. I am not sure what credence to give the theories that the US government murdered the narrator and rewrote parts of his journal. I'll have to reread it!
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Jul 10, 2013 15:11
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I hope it's better than his last few efforts. The last thing he wrote I really liked was The Wizard Knight. It feels like in the three recent books he stopped trying to write interesting narratives and just created some puzzle boxes. More could have been done with An Evil Guest and The Sorcerer's House.
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Nov 7, 2013 07:21
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If he finally goes off the rails and starts writing crazy political poo poo at 82 he'll have withstood the call of the elderly sci-fi writer longer than most. The only overtly political thing I have noticed so far was in An Evil Guest where he mentioned postpartum abortions. I didn't read Home Fires too closely though because I found it boring so I could have missed something there. Operation Ares might've had some crude political poo poo too but thankfully about 3 people have read that book.
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Nov 8, 2013 08:33
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There Are Doors was tedious as gently caress. Don't say that. Please.
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Nov 8, 2013 18:53
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Wolfe's wife just died: http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/a-farewell-to-rosemary.html Too bad. Surprising he'd been so prolific in recent years if Rosemary's medical problems had been that onerous and time consuming to deal with.
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Dec 17, 2013 02:22
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I really liked the Wizard Knight and am glad to see it clicked for you. For me I remember being baffled and confused a lot of the time when I began reading his work and I couldn't understand character motivations very well and it all seemed obtuse. Only the beautiful prose and bizarre imagery kept me going until I began to understand what was going on a bit better. I will warn you recent Wolfe is only for hardcore fans. It has a lot of the puzzlebox complexities of the earlier works without the interesting settings or the same level of prose. His more popular works are still pretty great, though.
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Jan 7, 2014 03:15
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Anyone read The Land Across? I started it last night. I'm only 9% in so I can't give any substantive commentary, but it's fairly engaging so far and the prose is quite good and very believable (other than a few anachronisms).
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Feb 10, 2014 14:53
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Yeah, you could really read The Long Sun without ever having read The New Sun. The New Sun is more directly related to The Short Sun, which follows on from The Long Sun (I actually enjoyed The Short Sun more than The Long Sun, although I like both).
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May 18, 2014 15:42
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Barto posted:So why did some people suggest that Green and Blue are...err, actually Severian's Urth? This theory is disfavoured amongst the fandom, to my recollection. I'm sure there's some long post on the Urth mailing list setting out explicitly why, but I can't remember any specifics. Beyond sane knolls posted:Long Sun in particular really benefits from being read in summer while New Sun was great autumn-winter reading. If you aren't reading things in the appropriate climate, you're doing it wrong. This is really dumb.
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May 19, 2014 20:54
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There's a lengthy interview with Wolfe here: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529431/a-qa-with-gene-wolfe/#comments Looks like the old guy is on his way out. 
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Jul 31, 2014 09:08
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Nebakenezzer posted:I'm glad I found this thread; I've read a few Gene Wolfe books recently, but don't really have anybody to talk about them with. Read the Short Sun. It is better than the Long Sun and makes the connection more explicit.
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Oct 20, 2014 06:30
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systran posted:Is it bad that every time I see this thread get bumped I get scared that Gene Wolfe died I saw 6 posts here and thought exactly this.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:00
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Good article. Only problem I had with it is that Latro is clearly not hallucinating unless you doubt absolutely every entry at which point the story becomes straight up meaningless.
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Apr 25, 2015 05:57
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:More specifically, humans are named after saints, aliens are not. Palaemon is both a saint and a god. Some people think that he's really Ossipago, partly on this basis, Palaemon's relationship with Severian, and also because of the eye stuff he has.
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Jun 4, 2015 11:39
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Chichevache posted:Long Sun is his best work. A bold assertion.
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Sep 12, 2015 18:12
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