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StumblyWumbly posted:I've made it through some long, tough books, and come out better on the other side. what are some long, tough books you liked
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Jun 10, 2024 14:28
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| # ? Jun 27, 2024 18:33 |
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Silk rules.
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Jun 11, 2024 01:07
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Make that man Caldé
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Jun 11, 2024 01:14
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More and more people are saying that, yeah.
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Jun 11, 2024 01:17
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Mint and Oreb are the best characters in Long Sun, easy
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Jun 11, 2024 01:42
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Silk, Mint and Crane for me. I really wished we'd have gotten more Silk and Crane together, his faith vs. Crane's scientific scepticism always made an interesting read. Spider is the worst, I have no idea what he was saying whenever he was talking.
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Jun 11, 2024 01:50
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shirunei posted:Long Sun seemingly has very little to do with Severian so unsure where that comment came from. Silk is just some wholesome dude who wants to save his wrestling academy in the hood. Really he is almost the complete opposite of Severian imo Wolfe enjoys his meta-games -- I think one of the ideas for New Sun was What If Bad Man In Good Religion? So of course Long Sun had to be What If Good Man In Bad Religion? And Silk is definitely a good man. My favorite Disney princess. An absolute baller.
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Jun 11, 2024 16:15
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Dang spoilers!! You're telling me that the entity named Pas who has a harem of AI waifus is not on the up and up? Only halfway through the second book of Long Sun, but I wouldn't say there has been much indication the religion is poo poo. Yet.
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Jun 11, 2024 23:05
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If you've read New Sun you should be able to tell who founded the pantheon.
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Jun 11, 2024 23:21
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It's funny timing checking in on the thread as I wrap up my first read of on blue's waters, because I'm definitely in my "maybe silk wasn't such a perfect guy after all" era. Now that I have a better handle on Horn's character, I feel like if I were to go back and do a Long Sun reread, I'd really be looking for things that may have been papered over by Horn's hero worship of Silk. Things that don't feel totally grounded, like Silk's first meeting with Hyacinth, or his suicidal ideation on the airship seem a little more menacing in retrospect (Was reminded of the last one when Horn kept insisting that he wanted Seawrack to kill him on the boat.) I also feel like seen that way, the three solar cycle sub series start to feel like a different angle on the "flawed savior" story. In BOTNS you have a genuinely amoral (Cugel the clever style) first person narrator, who is more or less incapable of understanding why some of the things he lets slip may paint him in a poor light. In Long Sun you have a mostly uncomplicated heroic portrait, in which most flaws are obscured by Horn's hero worship of Silk Then in Short Sun you have a 1st person diaristic take with a narrator directly struggling with what it means to be flawed while forced into that savior role.
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Jun 11, 2024 23:43
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broken sm57 posted:It's funny timing checking in on the thread as I wrap up my first read of on blue's waters, because I'm definitely in my "maybe silk wasn't such a perfect guy after all" era. That's good, you're paying attention. Buckle up, because In Green's Jungles doesn't mess around.  In Green's Jungles posted:"...I have a question for all of you first...Have you ever known anyone who returned alive from Green?"
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Jun 12, 2024 02:13
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Lex Talionis posted:That's good, you're paying attention. Buckle up, because In Green's Jungles doesn't mess around. Some of the more mind bending stuff that slips into Short Sun like the man on green given the timeline and the colorless cloak guy is Wolfe at his best. I'd already planned on rereading New Sun soon, maybe I should make it the whole solar cycle...
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Jun 12, 2024 03:57
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broken sm57 posted:Then in Short Sun you have a 1st person diaristic take with a narrator directly struggling with what it means to be flawed while forced into that savior role. However... the whole of Short Sun is a meditation on leadership, and I think Wolfe is in at least some sense turning this lens toward God himself, showing Silk/Horn/whoever achieving a sort of moral apotheosis yet at the same time making us question whether there really is such a thing as being so good that "the rules change." Has the narrator truly become the sort of leader whose good judgment cannot be questioned even when he appears to do or permit evil things, e.g. the inhumu attack on the wedding that he almost certainly knew was coming? Or is he a deeply flawed man with a death wish whose ideals have eroded from having to deal with a wicked world that can only change by fits, starts, and the twisting of evil to service of good? And is the Outsider actually transcendent of this analysis, or should we also see God as a morally compromised good man who is doing his best (or "bad man who is trying to be good")? Should we accept this sort of leadership without question? If we should, why is it that the narrator keeps leaving the places he's helped? Why does he leave Blue entirely? Is this sort of moral event horizon something reserved only to a God who is usually so distant he might as well not be there, and the narrator understands that the problems of Blue are not something that can be fixed by God? He speaks of fearing that Pas will be brought to Blue, but he understands that Pas is already there in himself; is it only Pas that does not belong on Blue? Also it still bugs me that people don't recognize that while Blue is not a good planet, Green is the good planet. The humans on Green are united and don't willingly prey upon each other (the inhumu slaves have to be forced to do it). This is so important to humanity on Green that Sinew is willing to turn against his father when Horn decides to become a predator on his own kind, because Green makes Sinew choose the good. Hound -- who is pretty firmly coded as a "naturally good" man -- says that he and his wife would go to Green if they had the choice, because that's where they're needed. The people needed to survive on Green are the kinds of people who would think like that, and the people who are surviving on Green do think like that. The inhumu have to feed on Blue because if they kept feeding on the humans of Green they would become like them, and defeat themselves. All the Hell imagery associated with Green is ironic: If Green is Hell, it's a purgative Hell, a redemptive Hell, a Hell that makes those suffering there better, and the demons are starving so badly that they have to go somewhere else or risk becoming redeemed themselves. I actually wonder to some extent if this is at least part of the great secret the narrator knows: If the humans on Blue change, the inhumu are doomed to become changed themselves; but if the humans on Blue don't change, they will be destroyed, and the humans on Green are already changing, so the inhumu are still doomed to become changed themselves once they run out of humans on Blue to feed on. Humanity will either mature or self-destruct, and the inhumu are powerless to prevent at least one of these outcomes.
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Jun 12, 2024 14:53
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shirunei posted:Long Sun seemingly has very little to do with Severian so unsure where that comment came from. Silk is just some wholesome dude who wants to save his wrestling academy in the hood. Really he is almost the complete opposite of Severian imo animal murder & telepresence emporium
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Jun 13, 2024 03:28
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Really liking the Cugel comparison. I loving love those stories.
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Jun 13, 2024 05:52
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| # ? Jun 27, 2024 18:33 |
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CommonShore posted:Really liking the Cugel comparison. I loving love those stories. Yep Severian being an amoral clown in the style of Cugel is the true influence The Dying Earth has on New Sun. It's a clever little trick to make such a guy into the savior of humanity. Or is it? If someone's predestined role is to bring the New Sun and kill off the large majority of humanity in the process, he kinda has to be a villain, right? A moral, good Severian doesn't quite work.
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Jun 13, 2024 11:02
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