apart from the "puzzle", it's just really boring to read. Severian is not interesting.

neither are you

>>24461672 (OP)
I have an equally low opinion about the second half of Urth of the New Sun.
My time is limited, so I prefer to spend it with the vast number of books by other authors I have yet to read. No, I won't waste it rereading the entire series 200 times to "have a better understanding of it"

>>24461672 (OP)
what "puzzle"?

>>24461739
If you didn't get it the first time it probably doesn't matter how many times you read it again desu

>>24461672 (OP)
i never use this word but i must: filtered

>>24461739
if you read urth you don't really need a reread unless you enjoyed it and want that little bit extra out of the nuance wolfe hides in plain sight. urth gift wraps some of the more puzzling things in botns that you'd need the rereads to maybe understand.

>>24461676
fippy bippy

>>24461676
I'm Carl, not Neither

>>24462342
I wasn't talking to you

>>24461672 (OP)
>>24461739
what's great about botns is that it's a gateway to the dying earth genre. Ironically the solar cycle is the highest brow end point though. So I guess that's thematic to Wolfe's work in general. The cyclical nature of everything. Very meta indeed

>>24462384
Too bad Botns is probably the only dying earth novel worth reading

>>24462418
while gene is at the top, cugel's saga is fun to read.

>>24461676
OP never claimed to be interesting, THOUGH. All the Wolfe fanboys claim it's the greatest shit ever.

>>24462384
>>24462418
>>24462475
BOTNs is surface level trash which is why pseuds who get filtered by based wolfe, vance and hodgson love it
It's dying earth for people who are too dumb to read dying earth

>>24462384
>>24462418
>>24462475
BOTNs is surface level trash which is why pseuds who get filtered by based smith, vance and hodgson love it
It's dying earth for people who are too dumb to read dying earth
>>24462477
Because wolfefags are pseud retards who don't read actual literature

Why does Severian spend so much time moping about some girl he met once for like 10 minutes when he was 8 or some shit?

>>24463702
>fantasy fantasy fantasy
Is there a novel that explores the dying Earth genre in its most literal sense? As in knowing that the Earth doesn't have much time until it becomes uninhabitable: sadness, melancholy, nostalgic exploration of past feats of mankind, desperate pursue of solutions to save the Earth/humanity... like the Earth being a father in his last stages of terminal cancer and mankind finding ways to cope/deal with it. It's the fantasy and societal degradation elements of the genre what I find boring.
>>24463727
He absorbed her soul o algo

>>24463727
not only is she now literally part of him, she was his first genuine human connection and the reason he was exiled from the guild.

>>24463803
>>24463836
I'm talking about Valeria, not Thecla. Thecla moping is entirely understandable, especially since fully half of his Thecla moping is actually Thecla herself being salty about being dead. But why is he constantly making completely unwarranted comments about how he doesn't want to talk about Valeria?

>>24463855
because Valeria is his wife

>>24463863
Only because literally the first thing he does as autarch is to go find her. Well, second I guess, first he visits the torturers. Either way, some girl he met once as a young child is an unreasonably high priority for him, he goes to her before even making sure his grandparents hook up so he can be born.

>>24462384
>The Last Continent
there's a cool Wolfe story in there called A Traveler in Desert Lands, I think. Anons should read it.

>>24463960
just read it. What did wolfe mean by it?

>>24463727
>>24463855
I know that's lame but I was curious about it so I asked Chatgpt about it and the answer was kinda interesting, check it out

Short Sun > Latro > New Sun > Wizard Knight > Borrowed Man > Long Sun

So the secret of the inhumu is that they need blood to reproduce and their offspring is a copy of the last mind from which they drank blood from? I thought it'd be more terrible.

>>24461672 (OP)
There's nothing to get. It's as straightforward as a story can be. You just read one word after another and everything makes sense by the end.

>>24464473
close. they would cease to be if humans were kind to eachother. the inhumu wouldn't prey on humans if humans didn't prey on eachother. that's what frightens them them the most because they gain their "humanity" and unique identity in feeding on them. i also think they couldn't possibly fly between the planets either. they stow away on landers, probably auk's, and go back and forth.

>>24464558
They definitely can fly between planets, that's made very clear. They don't need any of the things that humans need to live and can go days, maybe even weeks without blood.

>>24464558
I'm certain Jahlee said it involved reproduction.

>>24464996
Yes, because them reproducing like humans is the clue to figuring out that they take on the qualities of what they prey/parasite on. Logically the other anon has to be right or close to it, because the secret is emphasized several times as being worth killing to protect and the only way that makes sense is if it threatened the inhumani's survival.
Personally I thought it was slightly different, that not wanting to kill inhumani but loving them would, reciprocally, render them incapable of preying on humans. Still, it is confusing. I couldn't quite get it to make sense in my mind.

>>24465032
>Yes, because them reproducing like humans is the clue to figuring out that they take on the qualities of what they prey/parasite on
Also, more than that (continuing), it shows that the inhumi want to be like humans, but if humans knew that it might begin to endear them to the inhumi to some extent which in turn would have the opposite effect from what the inhumi want.

>>24461672 (OP)
You have to put down your fedora to get it

>>24464870
if a snowstorm is life threatening, the vacuum of space would destroy them. i don't buy it. not to mention the velocity they would need to escape an atmosphere. there also isn't an instance of one of them doing it, you just have to take their word for it, but they are massive liars.

Which characters do you think were inhumi but never revealed?

>>24464558
>>24465032
>>24465038
You guys have it backwards. It's the fact that humans prey on other humans that allows the inhumi to prey on them. Once upon a time, the neighbors had powerful empires that waged war on each other. The result was that nearly all of them were replaced by inhumi. The survivors formed a society that wasn't based on warfare, so the inhumi born from them were incapable of reproducing.

>>24465476
Space isn't cold.

Is it true Green is Earth and Blue is Mars?

>>24461739
Urth is such a piece of garbage that it soured the previous books a bit for me and took away any interest I had in reading the rest of the solar cycle, but I still loved the first four books.

>>24461672 (OP)
Elric of Melniboné and conan are the better SF than this book of the new snooze. even morbeus from sandman comics is a better character than severian.

>>24463727
She was crazy hot and I bet she must have had MASSIVE tits, being a giantess and all.

>>24466302
>>24466300
these posts trigger me. Don't do that again... or else... *disappears into the shadows*

>>24466300
Yeah, all the epic build up during the four books just for Urth to suffer a global flood, destroying everything and everyone, good and bad alike. What the hell did Severian the Conciliator conciliate? A new beginning for humankind to eventually go astray all over again? What's the appeal in putting the cyclical nature into everything?

>>24466252
Urth is Earth.

>>24466386
Did you actually read it? I don't understand how you could make it all the way through BotNS and then get filtered by the book that explains everything for brainlets that couldn't figure it out on their own.

>>24466582
Proof?

>>24466386
because that is the very nature of the universe itself, my good anon. do you understand what the divine year refers to? do you understand the relationship between humans and heiros?

>>24466605
Because it's still called Earth, just spelled slightly differently, and it has a rocky moon (which was terraformed by the time of BotNS), and the Earth and Mars don't get close enough for space vampires to fly across.

>>24466386
>Uncultured redditor is surprised and enraged when he finally one of the constant biblical references at the end of the fifth book
Holy shit lmao

>>24467308
>great flood just like jew book
just pooping out references isn't enough to make it a good ending

Got Castle of the Otter. Feel pretty happy with this. I know I could get Castle of Days, but I like this name too much.

>>24463855
This is a question that was never satisfactorily answered to me.

>>24461672 (OP)
It’s Reddit shit that Sam Hyde mentioned on his podcast now all the teenage losers with no fathers promote it as a work of art when it’s all very amateur and embarrassing

>>24468830
the main explanation I think people have come up with is that since it's his wife he wants to write as little personal information about her. Which seems shitty? But its to protect her. But that's not good enough. It is still mysterious and strange.

>>24468783
My favorite books are books about books

Short Sun is what people pretend New Sun is.

>>24468867
for the amount of people that get filtered by new sun, probably 1/10 go on to read long sun. Then maybe 1/5 of those go to short sun.

>>24466302
They're not SF you utter retard.

>>24469647
ignore the anon that visits these threads to just post hateful garbage and attack made up wolfe fans.

>>24468848
This just occurred to me but they might be related (distantly, as he's a bastard). The end of Citadel was one of the most mysterious parts of the story for me. He's been having a series of revelations, and the final one occurs when he revisits Valeria and recognizes the portraits of all the people on the walls. Her family is part of the Autarch bloodline and they were predestined to be married.

Feel like showing off my Wolfe shelf. The one hidden behind the post is >>24468783.
I honestly thought that anon stole my pic when I first saw it.

>>24469762
Fuck.

>>24469762
I have a nice one but I still haven't taken pics of it. All the original UK hardcover editions of New Sun, all the PS Publishing editions of his later stuff except the short story collection (albeit not the traycased versions), the single-volume Short Sun, and less remarkable editions of the others but all hardcover.

>>24469766
Glad I inspired you to share your shelf. It is very nice.

>>24469777
>the single-volume Short Sun
That is really the last rare Wolfe book that I want... Someday...

>>24469766
Where should I start with his standalone novels? The only one I've read so far is Cerberus.

>>24469827
It was honestly not that rare or expensive to amass what I have, since none of them are first editions. I did it all in 2021. There are probably copies of that available on eBay or AbeBooks right now.

>>24469846
NTA, Just choose one that seems to speak to you the most. :*)

>>24463890
Ouen isn't his grandfather the man in the lake was. Ouen is his father. He was just reuniting him with Dorcas because it was the nicest thing he could do for her at that point.

>"Ah, I am finally home free" Silk thought. "Nothing can possibly stop me now."
>Duck comes down from the sky and punches the living daylights out of him

>>24469846
The Sorcerers House

>>24469766

>>24468846
Oh shut up you newfag
BotNS has been a staple on /tv/ for years and years

>>24469766
Good stuff
I don't really buy books anymore but the Folio Society edition has been tempting me for years

Viron ain't free. The charter gotta be litterd with the blood of the ayuntamiento. Scalding Scylla aka "/ss/" is not my goddess, she is a false goddess and probably killed Pas. MINT and Marble not POTTO and Loris ok. Silk for Calde

>>24470460

>>24464420
brains yum

>>24470559
jej

>>24470391
>/tv/
uhhh...??

>>24470559
Is this from something?

>>24470559
>MESCHIA and Meschiane, not Meschia and JAHI ok. praise the conciliator.
ftfy

>>24470460
False deity*

>>24468926
I can't imagine finishing Long Sun and not going on to Short Sun immediately.

I think Wolfe was a bit off here. At the very least, it is not something I experienced.

>>24468926
Sadly true. People will only read BOTNS and then call themselves Wolfe fans.

>>24470295
I do want to see if I can get Letters Home from that guy selling it on the google docs form. Would be a great addition to my collection.

>>24469651
>anon
Most of this board hates you pseudo intellectual newfag retards and your shallow defense of a mediocre science fiction series
Read real literature
Grow up

>>24472237
It's hilarious that you keep making these posts outing you as both low IQ and insecure about it. Never change auster-kun.

>Silk nodded

I wish there was someone I could talk to in real life about Wolfe's books. You fags are too fickle and barely talk enough.

>>24471831
I met many, but no true friend.

The airship part in Long Sun really filtered. I got the feeling there was something really important going on but didn't understand it at the time with the weird way Wolfe wrote that book. Only later people here told me Silk caught Hyacinth cheating on him with another woman.

>...the daugther who had pledged herself in secret to one of the sea gods of the Short Sun Whorl that would in time become our Red Sun Whorl.
Explain this, the Short Sun Whorl in Urth in the distant past?

>>24472810
The people on the Whorl understood that prior to being in the Whorl with the long sun their ancestors had lived on a whorl with a short sun. That would be Urth. So yes, Silk-Horn is saying that the red sun whorl, the Urth of Severian's time, that they've been astrally traveling to, was the short sun whorl their ancestors had come from. Typhon's daughter, Cilinia, took the name Scylla for her god persona onboard the Whorl.

>>24472816
I should add that between the launching of the Whorl the sun has continued to be devoured by the "worm" in its center and has become large and red.

>>24472816
Got it, thanks. Will they ever explain Abaia and Erebus? Are they just alien allegories for devils?

>>24472816
I should add that after the launching of the Whorl, the sun either started or continued to be devoured by the "worm" in its center and has become large and red which it was presumably not prior to the Whorl launching. It is assumed that the sun began to cool during Typhon's reign. So, there are really a few short sun whorls in the Short Sun books: Blue, Green, and Urth.

>>24461672 (OP)
it definitely feels to me more like where's waldo for adults than an actual book, but that's a bit unfair because as a one-off read gene wolfe's books are all interesting, it's just i find that once i've found waldo, the actual story in even my favorite wolfe book, latro, is less filling than it should be, as if he's sacrificed the soul that other books have so that he can create this magic trick where you read the book once, have a view of it, and then turn that view to the side and see a completely different book. i assume that's op's 'puzzle.' like i said though, after you've shaken the book back and forth, there's actually so little of value to be found still in it. severian is also more of a literary tool than a character, as are most of wolfe's characters (or hell, on a moments introspection i think all of them are).
so i agree with your points op, but not your premise. just because a book has no/little value on re-read doesn't mean it's boring, or that it shouldn't be recommended. it just probably means that when you say it's a good book* you make sure to explain that it's good *because it tells a strange story in an unusual way.
i just can't continuance calling it bad when it so accurately distills that experience of being a kid again and piecing together words whose definitions i didn't know
realizing that this concept was probably really why the book of the new sun ever got written at all does ruin the magic, but it's still impressive because he's not just done this magic trick with the language, it is quite literally present in every facet of the book. you pass over the strange words, you pass over the strange descriptions, you pass over the strange behaviors of characters, sometimes it's more subdued, other times wolfe slaps you in the face with it when his aliens remove mask after mask, going from monsters to humans and then becoming monsters again from a different perspective. maybe not a where's waldo for adults, but a literary hall of mirrors?
except for this thematic force to exist, whatever you want to call it, wolfe has to butcher a traditional narrative and characters, and in doing so brings us back to the beginning.

his books are good*

I can't figure out what the homunculus is supposed to be. It feels really fucking important but not really. Why did Wolfe add that?

>>24468783
There are so many great tidbits in this book. Hearing more details about the original draft for the Saint Katherine short story was great, except that he left the original planned ending a mystery (taken with him to the grave by all appearances).

Even hearing about his bad convention experiences or an off hand comment about how he is glad the Claw of the Conciliator was taken down from the best seller slot by a classy book like the 'God Emperor of Dune' instead of some random book is just amazing to me. I live for to get these little pieces of information about artists I am interested in.

I am saving the joke section for last. Can't wait.

>>24472827
NTA, but I always liked the idea that they were lovecraftian horrors from other worlds. An Invasive Species that seeks to consume Urth.

>>24472827
I think the best way to think of them is in the analogy of a hammer and anvil. The Hierogrammates and other forces of "good" being the anvil and the Megatherians and the forces of "evil" being the hammer (or vice versa, I suppose) in God's hands. There is a long running idea in the books regarding God using both good and evil to achieve his ends, for he is able to work good from evil. Famulimus's comment to Severian about the world being more than a battle between good and evil I think also gets at it.

Wolfe said that the powers interacting with Severian are responding to his actions in a previous time cycle.

There is also Father Inire's letter where he says his alien "cousins" don't view the Commonwealth as being much better than the Ascians. I think we are meant to think of these alien cousins of his as being far more enlightened than the petty humans that are squabbling about on Urth. Urth has turned into an awful backwater where no side in the conflict seems much better than the other and this planet's future is also crucial for the Hierogrammates' creation. The humans that populate Ushas are going to become the Hieros. To get to that point so much has to happen, good and bad. And so, we end up at that hammer and anvil analogy. So, I see the Megatherians as playing vital roles in the Hierogrammates' plan and, even further, in God's plans.

>>24472899
As to what they are and what we know about them more directly. We are told by Jonas of a woman bringing a handful of beans from some foreign planet and that she would cast them into the sea and that they would destroy Urth. Severian sees a book title that mentions seventeen "Megatherians" meaning great beasts. The number seventeen crops up a few more times. There is Cadroe of the seventeen stones during Severian's duel. Stones also being similar to beans. And the Ascians are ruled by a council of seventeen. It is confirmed in UotNS that Erebus and Abaia united with others of lesser power but similar cunning to devour the leaders of the Ascians. The giant monsters are never called Megatherians directly, but most people think it refers to these sea beasts. Whew, all that to say there seems to be seventeen of them.

Additionally, they seem to have telepathic abilities which they use to control their hordes and send dreams, have access to the corridors of time, can't leave the water while on Urth (if they can even leave at all is unknown), and they are also aware of the Hierogrammates and Severian's test. Erebus rules Antartica and has pale soldiers. Abaia rules the warmer waters. And as you know, another Megatherian named Scylla allied with Cilinia during Typhon's reign. And that these sea monsters had already gained control of the waters. Wolfe said that there is around 1,000 to 2,000 between Typhon's time and Severian's time, so they've been around for a while. And of course, the Mother is a "sister" to Scylla and presumably the other Megatherians. Finally, it is unclear if they actually die in the flood. Baldanders says that those living underwater will survive and Juturna is obviously still alive after the flood happens and seems completely unbothered. Severian even sees them in the distance when he jumps from Eata's boat into the water. If Severian doesn't bring the New Sun, we know what happens from Master Ash- the planet freezes over. That doesn't seem to benefit the Megatherians if you ask me whereas a flooded planet... So perhaps all the efforts to stop Severian were really just a part of his test or maybe they wanted him to bring it but do it while under their control... who knows?

>>24472846
Have you actually read Wolfe?
You never find Waldo. You can only guess where he is and why should he be there and not somewhere else

I'm too stupid for these books and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

>>24472748
Silk nods 197 times in LS but only once in SS

>>24461672 (OP)

>>24472857
I've always been somewhat partial to the theory that it's a clone of Typhon. Severian calls it a mandragora meaning man dragon. Typhon is the name of a mythological creature with serpent/dragon parts. The mandragora also has psychic abilities as does Typhon and Silk (as confirmed by Wolfe). Typhon tells Severian that he wasn't born in the sense that Severian meant. Typhon has made at least one clone of himself and there's no way to know he isn't a clone, too. We know it's been kept in the Citadel for a long time. Even an image of Typhon and the mandragora plant look alike. I would post the image, but there is a connection error, so I'll post it later.

>>24472857
The whole Baldanders subplot felt like an allusion to Faust.

>they met like lovers, not, they met as lovers
Worst bait and switch of my life. Thanks, Wolfe.

>>24473543
?

>>24465476
>you just have to take their word for it, but they are massive liars.
Horn lies more often than any inhumi in the whole series, lmao. The dude's a massive piece of shit by any species' standards, that's why he's such a great character. Since apparently you missed the whole point, I'll explain it for you: the inhumi become like whatever they drink the blood of. They drink human blood, and so they become like humans. That's why they lie: because humans lie. Although there's an added level of cognitive dissonance there because humans hate inhumi, so inhumi hate inhumi even though they know they're inhumi and not humans.

>>24473924
that addresses nothing of what i said. i was the anon that posted this >>24464558 so i know the origin of their deceitfulness, but that doesn't change what i said about surviving in the vacuum of space and that they are in fact liars by nature. "since apparently you missed the point", more like apparently you didn't read my post. quetzal, brought to the whorl by the vanished, and krait both relied on stowing away aboard a lander. if you can show me in the text that confirms it, that's fine, but it seems more likely they just commandeered a lander to transport humans back. it seems to me auk's lander ended up on blue, but auk did not. i believe it is implied he was one of the big slave men brought into the room when they "traveled" to green and that chenille was still a prisoner there as well under sinew.

from the end of blue when horn reaches pajarocu:
>They are cunning, but like all cunning people they put too much faith in cunning. That was how it was in Pajarocu, when they allowed me to inspect their lander, never dreaming that I was the one man in thousands who would recognize it as Auk’s.

>>24474076
I didn't address the matter of the transit between worlds because honestly it doesn't matter a whole lot to me either way, I'm not the anon you were arguing with. With that said, I don't really see a reason to doubt the inhumi when they talk about flying between worlds, certainly not just because Horn, the biggest hypocrite on three worlds, accuses them of all being liars. I also don't find your argument about Krait and Auk's lander compelling, either. Krait was ostensibly boarding the lander to get to the Whorl, which is much smaller and further away from Blue and Green than they are from each other, but in reality it was just an excuse to travel with Horn. Auk's lander wasn't being used primarily to ferry inhumi between worlds, it was being used to transport humans.

I'm not going to say that you're wrong since it's entirely possible and there's not enough information to disprove it, but at the same time I haven't seen any reason to doubt the explanation presented in the book.

>>24472805
>Only later people here told me Silk caught Hyacinth cheating on him with another woman
I got that much. I think in Short Sun he murders her.

>>24472827
That's fair to say. There's (pretty brief) mention in New Sun that humanity started to colonize space and accidentally brought back a bunch of aliens.

>>24474232
Pretty sure she gets raped and murdered and then Silk kills himself, at which point Horn gets stuffed into him.

>>24474251
Of course that makes more sense. Silk isn't that kind of person. It's just cause of her nature I imagined it there could have been a lot of friction or even violence in their relationship over the years.

>>24473217
Alright, here's my schizo image comparing the two.

>>24474146
listen man, you're not reading everything. it's not JUST because their are deceitful, it's the mechanics of the actual flight. if fava died due to the harshness of a blizzard, how would an inhumu handle the harsh heat/cold radiation over a few hundred thousand miles traveling to blue. unless it's just a 'chalk it up to the blend of sci/fi fantasy mix' gene uses sometimes when describing the mirrors in botns, it makes more sense for that aspect of them to be made up to terrify. it's been a few years but i remember rereading bits to find out if that was actually true, but i'm open to being wrong.

>>24474251
the farmer silk encounters says she was sick so i'm guessing something related to being a prostitute her entire life like cervical cancer or hpv. she likely just simply passed away and drove silk over the edge. the house was destroyed and his wrists were cut.

>>24474306
I vaguely recall the books describing an orbital phenomenon where every few years blue and green would be really close to one another and that was the only time they could fly to the other planet. I also think there was mention of their atmospheres intermingling. I could be entirely incorrect.

>>24472792
same. I haven't met one person in real life that has even heard of him and they call themselves sff readers

>>24474351
The inhumi come to blue en masse during the convergence when the planets are close, but they're not *that* close. They definitely talk about coasting through the void until they're caught by the gravity of the other planet.

>>24474306
It's generally accepted by everyone in the books that inhumi are much stronger than humans, but they're also much less physically resilient and can often be killed with a single solid kick. In humans, strength and resiliency are positively correlated, so if you were to look at one way they were weak and try to extrapolate that out to mean they can't be strong, you'd be wrong. In the same way, just because they can be killed by extreme cold doesn't mean that they can't be more resilient to extreme heat and radiation. They did come from an exceedingly hot and humid planet where sweating wouldn't be effective at controlling body temperature, after all. Clearly they have adaptations for heat that humans don't.

Of course, this could all be bullshit and they might use landers or ancient neighbor teleporters or something, we don't know. But none of your arguments have been evidence one way or another.

>>24474429
He's in a weird spot because slop enthusiasts won't read closely enough to get a real appreciation of his work and pretentious fartsniffers won't make it past the cover.

>>24474451
I recommended Soldier of the Mist to my friend who likes fantasy, he couldn't get into it, although in fairness he's much busier than he used to be.

>>24474467
>>24474451
they need to start with the sorcerers house or fifth head of cerberus.
But when I meet someone who likes sff and they mention they read sanderson my smile fades and I won't even bring Wolfe up

>>24474473
His narration style is too unconventional. I've recommended three different novels to three different people and the reception has been only good to lukewarm, but two of them finished the books (Wizard Knight and Sorcerer's House). I deliberately did not give them Shadow of the Torturer.
I agree those two you mentioned are some of Wolfe's best and great starting points. It's just that people have no experience with that kind of style.

>>24474481
>His narration style is too unconventional
Such a baffling statement.

>>24474505
You can't explain why, so you're wrong

>>24474473
How about his short stories? They're actually a really good demonstrations of his style, or rather his technique of letting hints and clues ferment in your mind after reading so the story becomes better and better with the aftertaste.
Like Hero as Werwolf, Forlesen, The Tree is my Hat...

>>24474473
Yeah, I think Cerberus is a great place to start with Wolfe. It's a great story, it's relatively short, if someone just reads the first story and decides it's not for them that's fair enough. It's very representative of the rest of his work.

Meanwhile with something like BotNS you really have to finish all of Torturer to get a feel for the way things are.

>>24474467
For someone that's into the typical elves and wizards kind of fantasy I'd have sooner recommended Wizard Knight or even BotNS over Latro. Latro has some fantastical elements but the vibe is very historical fiction with a touch of Borges. It's also got a fair amount of wordplay that requires prior knowledge of the period, some of it is easy to infer like the city names but I know that there was a lot of stuff that went over my head. I can very easily see it not being the kind of thing a typical fantasy reader would be immediately interested in.

>>24466307
she was almost certainly tall and thin

The secret of the inhumi is that they all have BPD.

>>24474528
>Yeah, I think Cerberus is a great place to start with Wolfe. It's a great story, it's relatively short, if someone just reads the first story and decides it's not for them that's fair enough. It's very representative of the rest of his work.
NTA, but that is all exactly why I would recommend Fifth Head over everything else as a first book if I were to give out a Wolfe rec.
>>24474522
I am one of the biggest fans of Wolfe's short stories. I think they would be a solid rec, although Fifth Head is ideally better because it represents the best of both worlds from Wolfe's SS style fiction and his longer form fiction.

>>24474439
>. They did come from an exceedingly hot and humid planet where sweating wouldn't be effective at controlling body temperature, after all. Clearly they have adaptations for heat that humans don't.

come on, anon. green was perfectly fine for humans too. colonies of them live there. we're talking about blizzards and tropical climates vs outer space which is hundreds of degrees above or below zero at a given time. like i said, i'm open to being wrong if someone points out something in the text but that is evidence enough.

>>24474611
not to mention achieve the flight velocity needed to escape a planet's gravity, like i mentioned in an earlier post.

Theres a lot people just assume of the inhumi. Nobody would guess that they were set in the humans by Vanished People. They think the inhumi beat the Vanished People when in truth the Vanished People likely stopped killing each other and that defeated the inhumi. It's the same with the flight between the planets too. They probably just go to Blue with landers and return to Green with landers.

>>24474640
i think you hit on why they didn't dare feed on silk.

>Horn gets a black sword on Green
Is Elric really the most influential "sci-fi" hero?

>>24474611
The thing that kills humans in outer space is not being able to breathe. That's not a problem for the inhumi, Silkhorn digs them up after being buried alive and rehydrates them and they're fine. Once you solve that, the next big problem is radiation. We have no evidence one way or another how resilient inhumi are to ionizing radiation, but we know they're very different to humans so you can't just say "it would kill a human, therefore it will kill an inhumi." Also it's possible that the planets come close enough for their ionospheres to merge even if their atmospheres don't. After that the problem is heat. Humans can survive in jungles, but an animal that evolved on a jungle planet would be better able to handle hot conditions and less able to handle cold conditions than a human. That could explain both how the inhumi are able to survive the heat of the sun in space and why Fava jobbed to a blizzard. Cold is not that big of a deal in space, without a medium for convection. For a satellite made of metal with a lot of surface area to radiate from, cold can be a problem, but humanoid creatures aren't particularly powerful radiators. Evaporation might pose a problem for humans, but it's unlikely that creatures native to a jungle planet would evolve perspiration in the first place since it doesn't work in extremely humid environments.

As I've already said, it's entirely possible that you're right, but none of the arguments you've presented are relevant to the question of whether or not the inhumi did or could have flown between planets.

>>24474721
>The thing that kills humans in outer space is not being able to breathe.
>but we know they're very different to humans so you can't just say "it would kill a human, therefore it will kill an inhumi."

nothing i've said is in comparison to a human being. the evidence is purely on the capabilities of the inhumu to survive space vs what we know from the story. i've opened up rttw for context. this is chapter 3 with jahlee talking to horn about the tower they were staying in and if she had ever been to it before.
>“When I was very young. When I’d just learned to fly, and before I’d decided to hunt your frigid, hostile Blue.”
“Before you came the first time?”
>She did not answer. “I was not at all sure I could make the Crossing. We heard stories. How much strength was required, how much endurance. If you’re not strong enough, not a strong enough flier, you fall back to Green a failure. If you lack endurance …” She shrugged. “Only your frozen corpse gets to Blue. It crosses the sky there, a little scratch of fire. No doubt you’ve seen them. I have.”

doubtful that a small living body would create a shooting star effect but ok. she goes on to say on a clear day she spotted the tower and knew she'd be ready to make the journey if she could reach its heights and how she wanted to return to it one day after her return crossing but never did. could the reason possibly be due to lack of a lander, the real way they traversed the void? wolfe is a science guy and he surely knows the sort of power you need to escape an atmosphere. she discusses developing the endurance to endure the travel through space without freezing to death but here we are discussing how fava died and so nearly did jahlee during a mild in comparison snowstorm in winter. space can be hundreds of degrees below zero. the only way this works is if the planets are so close where only a few days of travel are needed and the temps aren't much beneath freezing. fair, but i can't help but feel this story reeks of bullshit. inhumu exist to lie, deceive and leech off others so it makes perfect sense they'd go so far in spinning up this story to get what they want. hopefully a good anon can shed some more light as i've read short sun twice and haven't a satisfying answer to believe the story from the inhumu.

>>24461672 (OP)
It's an overated pulp by American christlarpers that infest this board, don't bother

>>24474895
Shut up, faggot.

>>24461676
Lol

>>24472108
Grown-ups don't call themselves fans at all. Fandom is for teenage virgins.

>>24462477
>OP never claimed to be interesting
He thought he'd be interesting enough to give a terse opinion on something widely considered to be a classic, lol.

Where are retards going to learn simply being a contrarian doesn't convince anyone they're smart? Lol

>>24474915
I've read it all, and I will prevent other anons to fall for this meme like I did

>>24474895
lol atheistcucks are so predictable.

>>24474873
>wolfe is a science guy and he surely knows the sort of power you need to escape an atmosphere.
We don't know the gravity of blue and green, and we don't know how the tidal effects of the convergence affect the height of the atmosphere. We also know that inhumi are simultaneously much stronger and much lighter than humans, which means they're made of magical space shit because a very strong human would injure himself if his skeleton was much lighter.

>space can be hundreds of degrees below zero.
This doesn't matter if there's no medium with which to conduct heat. You're thinking of space like it's winter in Antarctica. It's nothing like that, it's an entirely different species of inhospitable.

>the only way this works is if the planets are so close where only a few days of travel are needed
Which is presumably why it only happens during the convergence. Why would landers need to wait years for a convergence to travel between planets? There's several examples of landers moving back and forth between Blue and the Whorl, which are much further apart, multiple times.

>inhumu exist to lie, deceive and leech off others so it makes perfect sense they'd go so far in spinning up this story to get what they want
Once again, you're missing the point. It's humans that exist to lie and deceive and leech. Inhumi bred from human blood become like humans. There is nothing in the story that objectively shows the inhumi to be any worse than humans in that regard. You're just taking Horn directly at his word, and he's said many of the same things about his own son.

Look at Krait. Literally at no point does he ever treat Horn any less than completely fairly, and yet Horn hates him immediately and still assumes he's somehow playing him right up to the very end. Why does Horn hate him so much? Because Krait was born from Sinew's blood, and Horn subconsciously senses Sinew in him. Whether Horn was deceiving himself about Krait or concealing what he suspected, you'd be a fool to take him at his word regarding the inhumi.

>>24475167
>We also know that inhumi are simultaneously much stronger and much lighter than humans,
they can be burned to death and they can freeze to death.

>This doesn't matter if there's no medium with which to conduct heat.
anon, she says they freeze and has supposedly made the journey to blue that way.

> You're just taking Horn directly at his word,
it doesn't matter the root of deception unless you're suggesting that silk, the person writing these parts specifically, is misrepresenting inhumu dialogue. remember, horn is completely out of the picture as silk leaves gaon. the bulk of this story is silk writing it. even as horn wrote sinew, you can see the flaws in some of it by suggesting, for instance, sinew throwing the knife at horn was to harm him but most likely was because sinew did love him and wanted him to have the knife; the former makes little sense. later on there is even a line about how sharp the knife was when early in blue horn mentions how sinew couldn't sharpen well. flaws existed.

>Why would landers need to wait years for a convergence to travel between planets?
who says they do? it's not like dozens of inhumu that we know of aren't already on blue through the text. it's not out of the question for that to be "the story" just to instill terror in the humans of blue. maybe upon commandeering auk's lander, hundreds came 20 years prior to the story and that's how the legend grew, all the while repeat trips have been made. and i believe it was said the lander takes 6 weeks to get from whorl to blue.

>krait
horn hates him because he broke him down in the pit for days but comes to love him more as a son than sinew. horn understood that, at the end of the day, humans are cattle to the inhumu, no worse than a farmer bringing livestock to pasture. the same way quetzal treated silk and horn kindly, but at the end, still wanted to go to green over blue. krait's death, being loved by a human is written as the entire planet of weeping for a hero.

>>24475204
>remember, horn is completely out of the picture as silk leaves gaon.
Holy filtered, maybe you should try reading the book.

>who says they do? it's not like dozens of inhumu that we know of aren't already on blue through the text.
Obviously, since Blue is where all the good food is. Inhumi on Blue don't really have any reason to go back except to breed. But there's absolutely more inhumi all over the planet during the conjunction, it's taken for granted in multiple communities all over the world.

>maybe upon commandeering auk's lander, hundreds came 20 years prior to the story and that's how the legend grew, all the while repeat trips have been made.
The conjunction happens every 5 years or so, I forget the exact number but it's mentioned in Waters and Horn makes a guess at how long it must be between conjunctions with the Whorl.

>horn hates him because he broke him down in the pit for days
Horn hates him at first sight, long before he falls into the pit. Also while he treats Krait like a son earlier (which isn't saying much, given how he treats his sons), it's not until revealing the secret of the inhumi on his deathbed that Horn finally accepts that Krait wasn't taking advantage of him.

>>24475231
>Holy filtered, maybe you should try reading the book.
i've read it multiple times, like i told you. horn is spirited away into babbie at the end of blue. this is strengthened more by babbies astral projection and interaction with hide during their travel. the bulk of the story is written by silk, i don't know how you don't understand that. the time on whorl and the end with remora was written by hide and his family, but goan narrator through dorp and the climax is silk.

you conveniently forgot to respond to my first few points, the ones that actually matter from the onset, so have a good night, anon.

>>24475239
You should have just said at the start that you were a schizo so I could ignore you. Don't forget your meds.

>>24475240
final chapter of blue. this is a one eyed bearded man as rajan, prior to being known as incanto in blanko and then simply silk through dorp and its trials. while traveling through the forest
>Someone on shore called again for Babbie, and I understood that he meant me; it never so much as occurred to me then that I had sometimes been called “Silk” or “Horn.” He who called me seemed quite near, and he called me with more urgency than Seawrack ever has. I searched the shadows under the closest trees for him without result.

a few breaks later...

>Good-bye again, Nettle. I have always loved you. Good-bye, Sinew, my son. May the Outsider bless you, as I do. In the years to come, remember your father and forget our last quarrel. Good-bye, Hoof. Good-bye, Hide. Be good boys. Obey your mother until you are grown, and cherish her always.
***
>I found him in the forest, sitting in the dark under the trees. I could not see him. It was too dark to see anything. But I knelt beside him and laid my head upon his knee, and he comforted me.

final line in blue:
>Little space left. I am ashamed of many things I have done, but not of how I have lived my lives. I snatched the ball and won the game. I should have been more careful, but what if I had been? What then?
most of the story is simply silk in denial due to his low personal opinion of himself in light of horn's sacrifice. you're resorting to personal attacks because you can't answer on the inhumu surviving space, but whatever man. i've read these texts twice and "get" as much as there is.

>>24475240
I disagree with this 'weird statement' you are making. I want you to know that.

>>24474873
>wolfe is a science guy and he surely knows the sort of power you need to escape an atmosphere
He can still make mistakes. In Sword of the Lictor he has Severian kill Typhon by palm-striking his 'nasal bone' into his brain, like Nic Cage's character did at the start of Con Air. There is no such thing and that's impossible.

>>24475252
Accepting for the moment that Horn is now in Babbie and Silk knew about Horn's quest from Mucore, how would Silk know that Horn died, and more specifically how he died, and know to include the bit about Horn now being inside Babbie?

>>24475287
it's a revisit of the severian/thecla dynamic. he's silk with all the experiences and ideals of horn. it's how in the end he can even recall his wedding nuptials to nettle. the entire bit with remora is about silk coming to terms with his identity as he's denied it since the merging on the whorl. it's why, when retelling his journey on green during inclito's story contest, he refers to horn as "the man" and tells it in the third person.

listen to silk at the end of rttw while waiting for remora to fetch the passage he neglected to say at horn's wedding.
>He rose and began to pace the length of the little garden, left toward the docks and the sea, right toward the farms and the mountains, then left again. “I am a prisoner in a cell,” he told Oreb, “and that tall man in black will return with my death warrant. I know it, and can’t do a thing about it. Tell Nettle I loved her, please. Will you do that?”
horn's spirit has been gone and this is silk coming to terms with everything.
He wept; and another distant voice, Remora’s, said, “Horn did not fail us, Patera. Caldé. You see that now?”
Silk nodded.

>>24475312
>it's a revisit of the severian/thecla dynamic.
Yes. The same way that Severian is just Severian with a few of Thecla's memories cropping up at first and then eventually integrating into a Severian/Thecla hybrid that isn't wholly either of them, at first it's just Horn's mind inside of Silk's body with a few of Silk's memories, and eventually they integrate into Silkhorn who is neither Silk nor Horn. Horn's healthy mind/spirit is transported from his dying body into Silk's body that could still be saved except that his spirit had deserted it. Being in another person's body has the same effect as integrating another person's body into yours using the alzabo drug, the spirit exists wholly and inseparably in every part of the body.

>"You do not wish to fail." Pig's hand tightened on his.
>He said, "I would give my life not to fail," and meant it.
>"You already have."

>>24475204
>the entire planet of weeping
One of my favorite parts.

“On the night we met, I drank your hus’s blood.”
“I remember.”
“It made a beast of me until I fed again. We feed to share your lives, to feel
as you feel.”
“Then feed of me,” I said, and I offered my arm as before.
The tips of his fingers slid along its skin, leaving thin red lines that wept
tears of blood. “There’s another reason. Swear. Swear now that if I tell you,
you’ll never tell anybody else.”
I promised I would not. I am not sure now just what it was I said.
“You’ve got to swear…”
I leaned closer to hear him, my ear at his mouth.
“Because I have to tell you, Father, so I can die. Swear.”
And I did. It was the oath that Silk had taught me aboard the airship. I will
not set it down.
Krait told me, and we talked together until I understood the secret and
what had happened almost twenty years ago; then Krait, seeing that I
understood everything, clasped my hand and begged my blessing before he
died; and I blessed him. I recall his face very clearly; it was as though Sinew
himself were dying, forced by some mad god to wear a serpent mask. I saw the
serpent face, but I sensed the human face behind it.
At the moment of death, it seemed to me that the mighty trees bent over
Krait as I did—that he was in some sense their son as well as in some sense
mine. I was conscious of their trailing lianas as female presences, wicked
women in green gowns with gray and purple moths upon their brown
shoulders and orchids flaming in their hair. Looking up in wonder, I saw only
vines and flowers, and heard only the mournful voices of the brilliantly colored
birds that glide from tree to tree; but the moment that I looked down at Krait
again the green-gowned women and the brutal giants who supported them
returned, mourners sharing my sorrow.
If ever you read this, Sinew, you will not believe it, I know. You have
nothing but contempt for impressions at odds with what you consider simple
truth. But my truth is not yours any more than your mother’s is. Once I
watched a mouse scurry across the floor of a room in the palace I occupied as
Rajan of Gaon. To the mouse, that room with its cushions, thick carpets, and
ivory-inlaid table was a wilderness, a jungle. It may be that as Krait lay dying
the Outsider permitted me to share Krait’s thoughts to some degree, and to see
Green’s jungle as Krait himself did.
To see it as our blood allowed him to see it.

>>24475381
>"I have been happy twice," he told the bird in a voice that he himself could scarcely hear. A shellback comb floated before his eyes. He murmured, "Most men are not happy even once"

Does Long Sun have the same "I Gene Wolfe didn't write this but translated this thing I found one day" gimmick New Sun has? First chapter reads like a regular narrative.

>>24461672 (OP)
Literally only christcuks like this shit. Dont dont get enough brainwash from their bible

>>24468926
Yeah but short sun was a fucking masterpiece

>>24470559
Fukkin based

>>24472748
Gutted

>>24474251
>>24474272
yes this for the most part - their perfect romance faded and she died and he tried to kill himself at which point horn’s lifeforce was added to his own to save him and keep him going. Long before the end of the last book though, horn has already left or at least been absorbed, and Silk is Silk living in denial.

>>24475240
No he’s literally right - that’s what wolfe wrote moron

>>24475276
Wolfe knows this and did it to illustrate that Typhon was so modified as to be entirely seperate from the mainline human race. Normal people don’t have two heads either anon…

>>24475434
Thank you for your wonderful, barely literate take, anon. I’ll be sure to count it amongst the most illuminating of commentaries we’ve seen in this thread.

>>24475312
>>24475327
>>24475454
You're all wrong, Horn died in the pit. He says so outright, and the chapter where it happens is called The End. After that it's a steadily growing clusterfuck of souls being chopped up and stuffed in other bodies.

>>24475420
Long Sun even more so than New Sun. New Sun is ostensibly a memoir, Long Sun is revealed at the end to be essentially the Gospel of Silk written by one of his students and his girlfriend. Large portions of it are either inferred or fabricated, and it's all colored by a thick layer of nostalgia and hero worship. Also he freely admits that several characters were shortchanged in the story because he didn't like them personally.

I feel like I should spoiler this post, but I also feel like this revelation was the one thing that even partially salvaged the series, which is frankly crap and only serves as a drawn out and boring preface for Short Sun.

Anyone who shit talks Long Sun is mega filtered as far as I am concerned.

>>24475565
You were filtered if you think Long Sun was any good compared to rest of Wolfe's work. Maybe if it was two books shorter it might have been passable.

>>24475571
Cope

>>24475575
Name a worse Wolfe series than Long Sun.

>>24475577
Wizard Knight

>>24475577
>>24475581
That anon wasn't me, but I agree. Wizard Knight.

>>24475581
Long Sun is on par with Wizard Knight. I'd put WK slightly ahead since it offends me that LS went four entire books without a single embedded story.

>>24475565
Yeah the Long Sun books were incredible. I preferred them to Short Sun.

>>24475522
horn did die in the pit, but as he writes, his spirit was returned and in conflict with the memories of the spirit vs the body because he was resurrected as some sort of neighbor type. this conflict plays out the same in silk/horn through the story until silk's spirit recovers. you see how their astral projections even change where hide no longer recognizes horn as his father later. this doesn't change the fact that horn's spirit was shepherded away into babbie; which again as i've said, is supported by babbie's astral projection and interactions with hide(he protects him and tries to say horn while pointing to his mouth "huh-huh-huh") during it(chapter 17 rttw).

>>24461672 (OP)
It's a very fun little series in Dying Earth aesthetic with Christian and cyclical themes.

People ruin it for themselves by expecting much more than what it is. I blame pathological wolfefags for overhyping it.

>>24475394
solar cycles most moving death, for sure. that entire segment into what happened to horn is crushing to read.

>>24475252
Budd, you need to consider how POV works. That scene is part-of-Horn-riding-inside-Babbie being reintegrated into Horn-Silk, or else his experience wouldn't be written in the book.

Horn fully leaves the body at the end of RttW when Hide remarks that "father" no longer appears as a Horn-Silk fusion while dreaming.

>>24476138
Babbie is Horn? Then who was Horn that came out of the pit?

>>24476309
horn out of the pit was something of a hybrid as i said in the last post. the conflict of the spirit body memories suggests this. babbie taking on horn happens much much later in the story. it's written at the end of blue >>24475252, but chronologically this happens after horn's journey to green, the whorl and then returning to gaon as the much older, one eyed bearded rajan.

>>24476333
You're saying that Horn leaves Silkhorn's body at the end of Blue's Waters and goes into Babbie, the rest of the trilogy is written by Silk who has vestiges of Horn's memories? Is that what this >>24475381 means?

>>24476349
But then how could Silk write the last parts of Blue, the ones that talk about Babbie? >>24475252 Did he make this up?

>>24476138
A soul can exist in multiple bodies in its entirety. This is addressed directly in BotNS.

>>24476349
>Is that what this >>24475381 means?
order of events is important. this moment with pig happened on the whorl which precedes what happened here >>24475252 even though this is written in blue. a portion of the narration in blue is after returning from the whorl; the rajan of gaon's perspective. i don't have all the answers, but it is clear to me that this is significant to the dominant force inside silk's body and how it explains babbie and silk's astral projection later.

>>24476356
this is even made apparent in the long/short sun series. silk, for instance, is obviously in the narrator as well as pig, mainframe and the i believe the giant he encounters outside of blood's mansion. similarly scylla, iirc, is inside oreb or seawrack. i'd have to reread that bit. but just as seawrack is a "piece" of the mother, i think this illustrates the dynamic between silk/horn and later babbie.

>>24476399
thinking about it more, this is even in long sun with pieces of pas obviously being in silk, but also one of the pateras they seek to sacrifice. chenille, hyacinth and auk also carry pieces of kypris and tartaros. short sun, they seem to manifest more actively in the spirit/body memories.

>>24476416
Was the correct thought reasoning Silk (Horn) thought up part of Typhon personality in Silk then?

>>24476416
chenille carrying scylla*

>>24476419
i don't understand your question, but silk is a clone of typhon with some obvious built in modifications like leadership, charisma and sword play(lol); but the outcomes due to their upbringings(and enlightenments) probably set them wildly apart as adults.

>>24476425
Horn is the one who wrote Long Sun, and in Long Sun Silk has some kind of schizophrenic mental reasoning about how thinking is not enough, you need to have correct thought (exact words) which sounded a lot like the stuff Erebus feeds the Ascians in Urth.

>>24476142
>I blame pathological wolfefags for overhyping it.
Because they don't really read that much challenging literature
>>24472311
Start reading real literature
Stop reading genre fiction
It's that easy

>>24475088
You have no foreskin.

>>24476142
Yeah, I liked it, but I ended up enjoying some of Wolfe's other work way more. I do wonder if it was due to overhype.

Ultimately, it is still an action packed hero's journey starring an edgelord teen that has sex with many women and eventually becomes the ruler of his land because he is the chosen one. Of course, sophisticated elements are thrown in there that elevate it somewhat. However, it isn't hard to feel that people like it because it is has the same beats in narrative (as stated above) that those SF and fantasy fans with arrested development demand again and again except more adult and sophisticated this time so that they don't feel embarassed for reading YA lit.

It is a good book, but I do think there are better Wolfe works if you aren't obsessed with those trappings.

I wonder if people read the Bible and also think it's a hero journey story about a Gary Stu Chosen One who gets betrayed and killed at the end except not really since he comes back to life, thus making the story pointless.

>>24476600
>wolfe fanboys are unironically comparing their sci fi book series to the bible
i always knew they were delusional and not that well read but holy shit i didn't know they were this bad

>>24476533
>Ultimately, it is still an action packed hero's journey starring an edgelord teen that has sex with many women and eventually becomes the ruler of his land because he is the chosen one.
Ultimately it's ACTUALLY a story written by someone about himself. Absolutely none of it could be true, and it could all just be a larp that Ouen the bartender wrote for himself after meeting an autistic executioner and his gf about how his family line would ackshually become kings of the universe because he felt bad that he'd knocked up some lady who gave up the kid to the torturers guild and the torturer's GF looked kinda like his mom.
We don't know. That's the point. Wolfe loves that.

Horn is cheating on Nettle with Tamarind even before he leaves to find Silk, and everyone knows about it. That's why he knows that Nettle will leave given the opportunity if he doesn't.

>>24476600
Jesus may be a Gary Stu, but he it is not really a hero's journey. He starts perfect and ends perfect. He gives people advice, fulfills a blood debt by dying and resurecting so we don't go to hell, and then fucks off.

I lost interest after I found out it’s a metaphor for “a world without Jeebus.”

>>24477161
is this bait?

>>24461672 (OP)
Same OP, I think this series got too hyped up on here and now I'm just disappointed with what I'm reading. Read Shadow in a couple days and have been sitting on Claw with no real want to continue. I got to the play and I'm just bored with the story and Severian.

>Severian recounts in detail the way that Eusebia explained how she orchestrated Morwenna's execution and claimed credit for killing Morwenna's husband and child
>Severian later contemplates what events caused Morwenna to murder her own husband and child
Was it cope, seethe, or brain damage?

>>24477506
https://youtu.be/FFuewSVcdMU?si=UHgO-KKNj__vBXE7

>>24476142
There is actually very little dying earth in it.
Somehow that's the only thing most people think when they want to talk about it which is weird to me.
Are they trying to downplay the originality of a novel that came out 44 years ago? I can't tell

>>24477532
I'm halfway through and all I'm hearing is cope and seething from people who aren't Severian.

>>24477506
you misread. eusebia had no idea who or what killed morwenna's husband and child but she used the opportunity to accuse morwenna for it anyways because she was jealous and hated her. it turns out, morwenna did in fact do it and justice is served for both a murderer and the "false" and envious accuser.

>>24477600
What do you think about Wolfe's letter?

In terms of being a "dying earth" type story, I think Emphyrio and other Vance books do it better. BOTNS is better overall though.

>>24477607
The one about Thecla or is there one about Morwenna that they wait until the end to read?

>>24477621
The one about Thecla. Irrespective of the Morwenna discussion, I want to know what others make of it.

>>24477616
But that's deceiving. Botns is no more of a dying earth story than Severian is an unreliable narrator.
Do people really get caught on these platitudes when reading other books? I hope not

>>24477640
I don't know, it seems pretty straightforward to me. Even as someone that's not particularly religious, Thecla's argument didn't seem very compelling. The idea that something is a paradox and therefore it can't be real is awfully sophomoric in my opinion. There's a line about paradoxes in Blue's Waters that I find more poignant, something along the lines of "paradoxes explain everything, and because they explain everything they can't be explained." I would say that Thecla is right about all religions being founded on paradoxes, but rather than that being some sort of disproof, I see it as religion being based in deeper meaning that can't otherwise be understood.

>>24477506
As the other anon said, you should re-read the section. Notice how Wolfe includes that Morwenna had a hand free while Severian was leading her around on the platform. And it was at this point that Eusebia was shoving her bouquet, which she had already been sniffing, towards Morwenna. This is where the "off-page' poisoning happens. It could have been as simple as a slight flick of the wrist.

There is also similarity to Saint Katharine's execution in the beginning of the story. Saint Katharine features a good woman being condemned. Roses bloom and she returns to life. Whereas at Morwenna's execution, there are black roses that end up having poison on them and Eusebia dies. I think this shows that Morwenna was not an innocent woman like Saint Katharine.

Severian has a vision of Morwenna's bloody head mouthing words but not saying anything as an image of her husband and child writhe in agony in her mouth. Empty words, perhaps? She says at her execution that she loved her family and didn't do it.

Spoiler for Urth, but there is a moment when an eidolon of Morwenna appears besides Agilus. She has her cheeks branded still, perhaps signifying her guilt, and Agilus was a killer. I think it was a deliberate choice of Wolfe to put two killers next to each other. They then redeem themselves.

And finally, on a more structural level, the whole thing is set up in an almost humorous way by Wolfe. Morwenna is condemned to die but we don't know if she is guilty or not. She *seems* innocent as she is portrayed as this poor helpless woman with the nasty Eusebia mocking her, but Severian gets the sense she is guilty. But Severian is not omniscient, so we as the readers are still left feeling uncertain. Then when she is finally killed, Eusebia gloats and figures Morwenna must have really been innocent after all because she would have had poison on her person, but she doesn't care. This is her big moment. I think at this point Wolfe wanted us to think an innocent woman had just been executed. And then wham, Eusebia drops dead after sniffing the very bouquet she had just shoved near Morwenna from, you guessed it, poison- the very thing she thought Morwenna would have. Morwenna's guilt is thus established to the reader.

>>24477532
>>24477600
I went back and finished it and it's actually a good discussion, they just wait until around the 40 minute mark before they actually say anything of substance.

If Horn died in the pit and had his soul merged with someone else's to revive him, who was the someone else? Was it the Neighbor that also called himself Horn?

>>24477596
See? This is the shit I was talking about.

>>24461763
fantasy is actually sci-fi

>>24478348
those are my thoughts. the first line after horn "comes back" is what i spoke of here.>>24476333. the memories of his spirit were at conflict with the memories of his body. this implies something was different and i think your second question is related.

>>24477749
I think you're reading too much into it. We have this whole idea that Wolfe has hidden so many things in his books, but we have to consider why he wrote them too. Sure he wrote random stuff for the sake of it like the "prison" in the House Absolute but most of everything has a purpose. What's the purpose of showing that scene with a deceitful woman we'll never be sure if she was guilty or not? Compare it to have a scene in which Severian kills an innocent woman for his job, making him re-consider the righteousness of his profession and ultimately of his own character. Why did he choose to describe that execution of all he performed?

>>24478958
i'd argue the prison was purposeful to show a contrast in human spirit from the period jonas is from, exploring the cosmos, to the current very diminished one of human beings content to live imprisoned underground. jonas has a planet of the apes moment here.

>Why did he choose to describe that execution of all he performed?
my belief is that this execution put him at odds with the "secret" of the guild his master told him, which is revealed i think in autarch. "we obey". regardless of if justice is actually served or not, "we obey" removes accountability from any injustice and this becomes a very uncomfortable thing for severian.

>>24478977
I don't think it's uncomfortable for him at the time, though. And probably still not, looking back on it. For all the time that he's a torturer, justice isn't his concern. The only attempt he ever makes to mete out justice is to give the whetstone to the green man, and that's an awfully cut-and-dry case. It's not until later on when Thecla's influence is stronger that he empathizes enough with Cyriaca to let her go, and after that he no longer sees himself as a torturer and therefore judgment is no longer outside his domain.

>>24477183
Yes most likely

>>24477342
>filtered so close to greatness

>>24479460
If he continued, he would just get filtered by the greatness. Anyone who makes it through Shadow and isn't feeling it should just drop the series and maybe try again when he's smarter.

>>24477749
Very good post

>>24479328
I think the opposite is true. Thecla is the worst part of him unironically. In part because of Wolfe’s own (warranted) hatred of women who didn’t seek perfection. Look at Severian in Short Sun - severian the narrator of BoTND (typo but im keeping it because it’s funny) starts writing the book after becoming one with all the previous Autharchs and is therefore really hard on himself. The “natural” or original Severian is just a sweet kid trying to save his buddy triskele

>>24479464
Many such cases!

>>24479464
I wasn't feeling Shadow at all, but I enjoyed the next 3 books a lot.

>>24479328
it may have not been uncomfortable, but i think the silent, somber dinner with jonas following it is more than just "these are nerves and this always happens", as he tells jonas. to answer, "why include this one?", we have to remember this is a memoir written 10 or more years after the fact and it may have been the starting point for him being at odds with the code of the guild. the saltus execution was a kangaroo court spectacle. the mayor really didn't care if morwenna was guilty or not, it was about the theatrics and creating a big event for the people. also, like the other anon said, thecla wasn't some angel. she tortured the people in the house absolute waiting room.

>>24479470
I don't think it's a matter of one being better or worse than the other, it's just a matter of who and when. Severian just wants to do his job well and take pride in a job well done. Thecla is upset about being dead, and empathizes with Cyriaca when she talks about being a girl in the House Absolute. She doesn't want to kill Cyriaca, which is why Severian/Thecla lets her go. Remember, Cyriaca isn't innocent, either. Maybe death isn't a just punishment for adultery, but adultery is the crime she's to be punished for and she literally has sex with Severian right there, there is no case to be made for her innocence. Is Thecla any more guilty than that? She was never accused of anything the Autarch himself didn't go.

Anyway, once Severian lets her go he realizes that he's blown his second chance and that even if he could continue as a torturer he'd just do something like that again. Now he's no longer a torturer, so it's time for him to start judging like other people do.

>>24478958
The problem is that if Morwenna is innocent then Eusebia's death makes very little sense. Morwenna is dead. Everybody is having a blast: Eusebia, Severian, the crowd. This is Eusebia's big, happy moment- her triumph. The woman she despised is dead and she claims responsibility for killing her. Why does she then die? Severian thinks it's from excitement until the body and flowers are examined by an official and it is revealed she's inhaled poison that was on her flowers. Did she kill herself? It seems rather goofy from a storyteller's perspective to have a character mention that they thought another character, there arch nemesis, would have poison and then have that character poison themselves immediately after saying that. Especially when it has already been included that Eusebia has previously been sniffing her flowers with no issue, that Morwenna had a hand free, that the flowers were near Morwenna in-between the initial sniffs and the deadly sniff. Surely, Severian isn't making these details up because he feels guilty. They seem to just be factual observations. Eusebia doesn't seem to have much of a motive for killing herself either. The crowd is loud to the point Severian can barely hear her even though she is standing just below him and frankly doesn't seem to care about her confession. So, it doesn't seem like she would be concerned about someone coming after her. Additionally, it seems rather odd to kill yourself in the middle of a festival crowd with your corpse sprawled out in the mud at everyone's feet else especially when you seem to be having such a great time.

As to why it was included. Severian says he included it due to its strangeness. Wolfe may have included it because it's an interesting little murder mystery, it shows the brutal nature of executions that would affect a man regardless of the guilt of the prisoner, it shows the fallen nature of the world which was a large theme with the books. It also shows how Severian grows. He is jubilant on the platform when the execution is over, and I think this is a starting point that we are supposed to maybe look back to when we compare an older, more mature Severian.

Also keep in mind, spoiler for Urth, that Severian feels terrible over cleansing Urth with the flood even though it is ultimately presented as a good thing. So Severian feeling bad doesn't necessarily mean that the person is innocent. Morwenna even reminded him of Thecla in some ways, so that could easily get under his skin, too.

And finally, I still think the comparison with Saint Katharine's execution is still very relevant. Morwenna's being a corrupted version of it due to her guilt. And Severian's vision her head and seeing her next to Agilus and later redeeming herself add weight to it, I think.

>>24479859
I will also add the other anon's point on how it is an example of justice still being served and evil taking itself out. Morwenna gets executed for killing her family and Eusebia gets poisoned for blaming Morwenna out of jealousy, not even being sure if she was really guilty or not, so Morwenna would get killed.

>>24478958
>Sure he wrote random stuff for the sake of it
holy filtered

>>24479976
there's not much fat in botns for sure.

This Morwenna argument reminds me of the before bridge vs after bridge drowning arguments on /tv/ and /aco/ for months after Arcane s1 aired and I love it. I wonder if maybe it had a similar cause: a good idea from an earlier draft that got cut and then restored with just not quite enough glue to really make it fit the story either way. Morwenna being guilty makes sense to me, but Morwenna being able to poison Eusebia without anyone noticing while she's the main focus of the crowd just seems too convenient to me.

>>24480532
A slight flick of a wrist with a little bit of fine powder doesn't seem too outlandish all things considered (it's BotNS, after all). Think of what magicians can accomplish with their dexterous hands and how people's attention can easily be led astray and miss things.

>>24480551
If it got enough of a concentration to the flowers that it killed her instantly with a single whiff, the people around her should have at least gotten ill.

>>24461672 (OP)
It's a biopsy of mental illness. It's actually intriguing.

>>24480600
There are lots of things in the story that aren't scientifically or medically realistic. Seriously, there's mirrors to other dimensions where aliens crawl out from like fire worms that can be launched to assassinate people or notules that fly around and feed on body heat. Severian can break a man-ape's neck with a single hand, kill Piaton with a punch to the nose, people can live forever if they just keep growing etc.

>>24463727
>literal milf you tortured to death and then drank her memories
I'd be preoccupied too

>>24480633
Meanwhile, it's also important to the story which elements are fantastical and which only seem so at the first glance, and there's fewer fantastical elements than anyone thinks at first.

>>24480680
You know, when I first typed that post days ago, I expected that a couple of people wouldn't read it all the way through and jump to a silly conclusion. I would not have expected that nearly a week later people wouldn't bother to read any of the discussion at all and assume that it was about Thecla when:
>He's in his mid/late teens when he meets her
>He certainly knows her for longer than a few minutes
>He has plenty of justification to mope about her
>He doesn't actually spend that much time moping about her, considering that she's half of the person writing the story and also one of the most self-absorbed people in it

>>24461672 (OP)
I don't know how you could read Severian's autism and not find him hilarious.

>>24480696
Eusbia being the only one poisoned isn't even fantastical, that's the thing. Morwenna isn't wildly flinging poison into the crowd. Eusebia is right up front with her bouquet stretched out to Morwenna. I only brought up fantastical elements because you seem to think that it would be too bizarre to happen naturally and I wanted to point out that even if that were true there are plenty of elements that aren't realistic that do take place in the story. And as I've already pointed out, there are good reasons for thinking Morwenna poisoned her, and I haven't seen any good arguments against them.

it was ok episodic fantasy

>>24480713
seconded. it wasn't a tall platform as severian jumped onto it. eusibia pushed herself to the front of the crowd with the thorns of her bouquet and held it up as morwenna was walked around the platform by sev "with her right hand in mine". it's completely reasonable morwenna was close enough to even brush the flowers with her left hand. i think the big thing misunderstood sometimes is eusibia's line about how morwenna was careful and would have saved some for herself. well, she DID but rather than kill herself, she made the decision to keep it for eusibia after she harassed her while morwenna was chained by the river. just as eusibia knew morwenna, morwenna knew eusibia would pull the stunt she did.

>>24480740
Also note how Eusebia pushes herself to the front after Morwenna's insistence of her innocence and love. It could very well have been that Morwenna was planning on offing herself here after her little proclamation to the large crowd, she would die a quick, painless death all the while insisting her purity to everyone, but when she saw Eusebia at the front sniffing her flowers, she changed her mind. She even says right after Eusebia's taunt that she has achieved "bliss" before Eusebia, which is kind of ominous, and I think when she settles on killing her.

>>24480710
He's literally me except that women are constantly throwing themselves at him. Maybe I should walk around shirtless.

>>24480783
Does Gap have fuligin clothes I could wear?

>>24463702
I hate Jack Vance's writing specifically because he was the reason for the worst magic system of any TTRPG ever made.

What do you think Gene's solution was to the original Severian story?

Finished Short Sun. I think I... understand. Sort of. Horn actually died on Green, and the request he made to the Neighbors was to fulfill his mission. The Neighbors sent him memories to Silk, who was about to kill himself. Silk then thinks he's Horn. At the end, he realizes the truth. All pretty sad and touching, but what was the point of this? Silk doesn't become Calde, Viron is pretty much finished, and they go back to the Whorl without really accomplishing anything. It's one hell of a road but it feels like there was no destination.

>>24480895
it's a sci fi odyssey. silk spreads his influence and ideology and brings order to many parts of blue(twice a war hero before addressing dorp's corruption and leaving behind his writings) before returning to the whorl to rebuild it and venture off. Good fishing!

>>24462384
>hardcover of Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's saga
>hardcover of The Dying Earth
>hardcover of the entire BOTNS series
>Long Sun compilation hardcovers
>The Short Sun hardcover that has all three books in it

Fucking excellent collection my man

>>24463702
BOTNS is like the antithesis of "surface level"

>>24463803
>o algo
Go back to the sharty pedo

>>24463836
>genuine
The girl was literally manipulating him

>>24462384

Nice selection bro. Schweitzer, Vance, Wolfe, CAS are excellent.

Shea seems competent but I can't get into Nifft for some reason, so it languishes on my shelf.

Vicronium was ok, but I get the sense he went the Moorcock route, tried to be 'a serious writer,' and his work just got worse with each publication (maybe I'm too harsh).

You should add McNaughton's Throne of Bones to your collection, it fits and it's the next smartest thing to Wolfe and CAS

>>24481749
>McNaughton's Throne of Bones
I actually got that a year ago and havn't read it yet. Are you telling me its a dying earth story? I had no idea brb reading it now

>>24481825
It's very much inspired by Clark Ashton Smith.

The sun might not be on the verge of snuffing out like a candle, but yeah it's a decadent, decayed world where everybody knows the good days are lonnnng behind them.

I won't spoil anything - enjoy the ride. It's one of my all time favorite books.

>>24481838
awesome. Thanks for reminding me about it. I had kept putting it off but now's the time.

>>24480895
The neighbor does exactly what he says he will. He puts Horn's soul in Silk's body after Silk tries to kill himself. Over time, Silk's memories and personality seep into Horn the same way Thecla's did into Severian. In the end, Silk has greater precedence than Horn since it's his body after all, and Horn himself always wanted to be Silk.

If the Horn-Silk twist was spoiled for me, is short sun ruined for me?

I loved the Short Sun trilogy, but the one thing that sticks in my craw is:

It doesn't make sense to me that Nettle would join Silk/Horn at the end of the book for a journey back to the whorl. In fact, I don't even really understand Silk's desire to do so. I would have thought he would help the fledglingly civilization on Blue be decent to each other (for its own end, and to 'beat' the inhumi).

But for Nettle in particular, why wouldn't she rest easy and be a good grandma to the next generation of her bloodline? Mend the kids' slippers, sip an iced tea on the porch, etc. Why would she go with Silk and grapple with him and Seawrack's fine little ass? Just seems totally improbable for human psychology.

>>24481899
nettle idolized silk the same as horn did, it's just not articulated as much. the boys were grown up and starting families so they could take care of themselves so she could leave to be apart of silk's ministry. and silk's intended role was to rule as typhon, but instead he sets humanity free from typhon ever coming back and leaves for the whorl. after spreading his ideals and leaving behind his story(transformative powers of love and devotion, inhumu's secret, etc), he lets humans rule themselves while converting civilization from polytheism to monotheism. he led humanity to a new world, gave them the tools to grow and mature and become better, and then left to wander among the stars. i'm not so sure on silk and seawrack's relationship being one of intimacy rather than one being a parent type figure and returning scylla to the whorl.

>>24481884
No, it's Wolfe's magnum opus. If you don't enjoy it, you don't enjoy reading Wolfe. Also the merged Silkhorn is obvious early in the first book, it's barely even a spoiler. Would BotNS be ruined for you if the fact that Severian merges with Thecla's soul was spoiled?

>>24481884
no because it is still an amazing story about humanity and metaphysics. it is written in a very interesting way, epistolary, and is not told chronologically.

>>24481884
It's a story about human nature. More specifically, the nature of man (male). It's a beautiful self-realization of ourselves.

One of the great things about the long sun/ short sun story is how the soul is portrayed. How it exists in every part of all living beings. People will ask: how can artificial life like chems and monsters like the inhumi have human souls if men made them without Gos? Wolfe replies: because God intended it so. If you have a mind, you have a soul, and God gave it to you. Nothing is artificial.

>>24480895
I think the destination really ended up being the Book of the Short Sun itself. In the same way that Long Sun became a sort of in-universe Bible for the people of Blue, Short Sun became a sequel to it (New Testament?).

Horn succeeded in his mission to bring back Silk, but the people in Viron weren't morally ready for him, so the book of the Short Sun exists as a moral/spiritual resource to whoever would read it in-universe. The book itself is also a pretty good resource for civilization building in general, with Horn's musings on building a printing press or the knowledge of how to properly grow the corn seeds he obtained on the Whorl.

Why is Horn in Long Sun tall (long?) but Horn in Short Sun is short?

>>24482415
>Why is Horn in Long Sun tall
Horn is like 13 in Long Sun, he's definitely not tall. Was he ever described as tall? Even if he was, calling a 13 year old tall and calling a 40 year old tall are two very different things

>>24482415
Horn and Silk are both tall. It's just that Silk is a bit taller though Horn is stockier.

>>24480895
Now read again.

>>24480862
As I was reading, I thought the answer would be to burn the letter and ignore it. Then I was instantly BTFO. I really have no idea.

>>24482589
i'll take a shot. thecla has to die. if there are no satisfying outcomes or reconciliation, she needs to be removed.

>>24480862
Invite her to join him instead.

When I read "Many Mansions" in a recent short story collection, I thought it was a really cool campfire scary story that simultaneously like a fever dream. Little did I know it was supposed to represent "Halloween" in the Book of Days collection.

>>24482599
Almost right. It's Severian who has to die. The secret dies with him, the guild is spared and Techla can mourn him and pretend she never met him.

>>24482599
Yeah. Thecla is the counterpart to Saint Katherine in this story. So after the 'wheel broke'/Thecla survived, the parallel would dictate that she should also be executed after it is found out the first execution failed.

Then again, maybe Wolfe set out to subvert the parallel.

>>24482634
NTA, I almost suggested the only way out was to kill himself, but then that sounded too humerous to be right.

>>24482653
The problem is that Severian is honest and a patriot. If he kills Thecla he is committing a crime, since her life is not his to take, if he reveals the truth the Guild will be disgraced, if he ignores her, Thecla will destroy the Guild because of her love for him. Killing himself is a sin, but doesn't goes against the Guild or society.

>>24482676
It would just be completing the crime he already committed and was forgiven for.

>>24482684
But he was already forgiven, which is not by any means permission to commit it again.

>>24482687
He wouldn't be committing it again, he would be finishing the original job.

>>24482752
That's not how things work, man.

>>24482770
Either he killed her and paid the price for it and by rights she should be dead now, or he didn't kill her and was unfairly punished for something that didn't actually happen, in which case he's justified in balancing the scales.

>>24482634
but for all intents and purposes, she should already be dead. like this >>24482782
anon said, it would be bringing balance.

>>24482782
>>24482809
"It is a curious thing, that trick of the mind which, having once been burdened by guilt, seeks in retrospect the absolution of justice—not from others, who have long since gone, but from oneself. I recall a man I once knew, who once sat beside me beneath the waning fig tree of our courtyard, peeling a pomegranate with slow, deliberate strokes. He had been punished, or so he believed, for a crime that—so it was said—he had committed in youth. Years later, as the bruises faded and his hair thinned, he learned it had all been a fiction, crafted by one who cried even as she whispered lies.

"You see," he told me, lifting a seed to the light, "the fruit was bitter then, though I had not planted the tree. It should be sweet now."

And then came the thought—insidious, yes, but not unfamiliar to the hearts of men—that if the world had already chastised him for a trespass he had not made, might he not now commit it in earnest and let the moral accounts be reconciled? As if justice were a ledger, and the soul no more than a clerk’s ink.

But this, is where the trick lies. For punishment endured does not sanctify a later crime, nor does innocence once lost to error authorize guilt reclaimed. One does not become a murderer because the noose once grazed the neck in error. The soul, if it is anything at all, is not a balance sheet.

And so, should we walk the same road and feel the same temptation, it would do well remember: to commit the sin after being wrongly condemned is not to balance the scales. It is to affirm the lie that condemned you. Better, I think, to leave the scales unbalanced, and the truth, however bitter, intact."

>>24482818
in this example, that applies to thecla as well if indeed this is driven by guilt for how she manipulated and used him.

>>24482434
>>24482467
>Horn was standing as straight as a Guardsman on parade now. With a slight shock of insight, Silk realized that this unaccustomed perpendicularity was in imitation of his own, and that Horn’s clear, dark eyes were nearly level with his.
13yo Horn is almost as tall as Silk.

>>24483431
>Nearly
Now post a passage from short sun.

>>24482415
who wrote long sun and then who wrote short sun? heh. rereads are fun.

>>24483489
>who wrote long sun
Horn
>and then who wrote short sun?
Horn (but taller now)

>>24483501
>Horn (but taller now)
reread it. silk with horn as a passenger wrote short sun. as discussed earlier, horn essentially leaves silk at the end of on blue's waters when leaving gaon. parts on the whorl and the ending with remora were written by hide and daisy.

>>24483437
Short Sun made it seem Silk at lot taller than Horn.

>>24483507
See >>24476260

>>24483509
Imagine you're 6'1" and you meet a kid that's 5'10". You'd say he's nearly as tall as you. 20+ years later you're both still the same height, and now you'd say he's a manlet.

>>24483431
>13
In Exodus, Silk is talking to Horn and Nettle, and he asks Nettle how old she is, and she says 15. I think Nettle and Horn are about the same age.

>>24483538
They're within a couple of months of each other.

>>24483523
That's not even half a palm difference.

>>24483545
You're new here, I see. Allow me to educate you.

>>24483548
Hornbros...

>>24483516
same way silk remembered horn's nuptials remora read when he married nettle. horn left into babbie, satisfying mucor's prophecy of being the three horned beast, but a piece of him, his memories and experiences, still remained in silk. there's also the fact that silk has freedom to take liberties with his writing to include a piece about him finding the neighbor in the woods after saying his good byes to his family.

Why would Horn even go into Babbie? For what?

>>24483570
that's the sacrifice. it's the giving of his life pig and remora spoke about. the person from gaon onward is pure silk, but in denial due to the guilt he feels.

>>24483568
>horn left into babbie, satisfying mucor's prophecy of being the three horned beast, but a piece of him, his memories and experiences, still remained in silk.
See >>24476356

Come on anon, we've been all over this already.

>>24483548
>>24483567
Horn gets mad pussy though.
>Nettle
>Tamarind
>Seawrack
>A dozen wives in Gaon

>>24483619
what is the purpose of his good bye in blue? why is a distinction made at the very end with remora? horn's attributes in babbie and the way he violently protects hide, hugs him and points to his mouth saying 'huh-huh-huh'. the story clearly spells out that silk is here and horn's sacrifice wasn't in vain. that anon said horn left at the end of rttw when silk's projection was more apparent but that doesn't explain silk remembering horn and nettle's wedding.

Posting relevant sections from the books that might help settle the Babbie ordeal.

>I see long journeys, fear, hunger and cold, and feverish heat. Then darkness. Then more darkness and a great wind. Wealth and command. I see you, Horn, riding upon a beast with three horns.

I've always been skeptical of the Horn-Babbie theory, but it is interesting that she seems to be going in some kind of chronological order and the last thing she mentions in her prophecy after wealth and command, Gaon obviously, is the three-horned beast.

>Maytera’s prophecy regarding me was entirely accurate. You may object that save for the part about the beast with three horns—which I will treat separately in a moment—it was very general.

>On Green I rode a three-horned beast, as Maytera foresaw. Indeed, I was riding it at the time I was wounded fatally.

>Our boat was water, and Babbie was a hairy man with thick arms and real big shoulders, and glasses, and a couple of Babbie’s eyes (the little ones).

Note that it was Silk who wore glasses not Horn.

>He looked more like our father there, not really like him, but more than on Blue. He was shorter and thicker, and his hair had some black in it. His face was more like father’s, and his eyes were not sky-colored anymore.

>There was a man with him I had never seen before, a man with yellow hair and a big hawk nose. His eyes were not sky-colored either. I have seen ice in the winter that was that color when the sunlight hit it, big chunks of ice floating in the sea.

As an aside, do you guys think it is important that Wolfe decided to make Juganu's soul also be a blonde haired, blue-eyed guy? The only other person who has that combo in the whole Solar Cycle, as far as I'm aware, is Silk.

>So while I was worrying about all that, I bumped somebody short and hairy and as hard as rock. I knew who that was right away, and how dangerous he was, too, so I said, “It’s me, Babbie. It’s Hoof,” very quick. Something happened then that surprised me as much as just about anything I saw on the Red Sun Whorl, except for the part right at the last. Because Babbie threw his arms around me and gave me a great big hug, saying “Huh! Huh! Huh!” and lifted me off my feet. Babbie’s arms were shorter than mine, but thicker than my legs, and he was the strongest person I ever met. About then the mate came up, and Babbie put me down. The mate had a lantern, and he kept holding it up in my face, and then in Babbie’s and then in Juganu’s.

>>24480862
The answer is severian killing her sorrowfully. “We serve.”

>>24462384
>casual $500 short sun hardcover
Noice

>>24481884
No it’s painfully obvious for everyone BUT silk the entire time, like from chapter 3 or 4

>>24483671

>Babbie was sitting on the mate and had both his arms together in one of his hands. His hands were a lot bigger than his real ones back home, but he still had the really thick nails he walked on, and only two big fingers on each hand.

>Babbie was pointing to his mouth. “Huh-huh-huh.” I thought he wanted Father to change him so he could talk, and I did not think Father could do that. But Father knew right away what he wanted. He gave Babbie a big curved knife with a double-edged blade, and then another one just like it, telling him he had to be careful how he used them.

>Father sat up then, and Juganu. Juganu looked the same as on the river boat, but Father looked the way he had in Capsicum’s big house, only younger. Before he had looked a lot like our real father, and Hide says that is the way he always looked on the Red Sun Whorl. Now he did not. He looked serious, but he had two eyes again and they just shone.

>>24483688
>>24483671
Silk-Horn describing Oreb-Scylla:
>Oreb dropped onto a pile of rubble, looking as he had on Green—a dwarfish man in feathers.
I was thinking, if the theory is true, shouldn't Hoof recognize Horn in Babbie's transformations? But I guess we can't fault Hoof for not recognizing if Horn is in Babbie since Scylla appears as a dwarfish man when merged with Oreb.

>>24483637
>horn's attributes in babbie and the way he violently protects hide, hugs him and points to his mouth saying 'huh-huh-huh'. the story clearly spells out that silk is here and horn's sacrifice wasn't in vain.
Horn is in Babbie.
>that anon said horn left at the end of rttw when silk's projection was more apparent but that doesn't explain silk remembering horn and nettle's wedding.
Horn is also in Silk.

Why is this confusing?

>>24483671
>The only other person who has that combo in the whole Solar Cycle, as far as I'm aware, is Silk.
And therefore Typhon/Pas, as well as his other clones. Also that's a description of grey eyes, not blue.

>>24483671
>>24483688
>>24483708
>“Babbie can talk,” Seawrack insisted. “He talks to me and to you all the time, it’s just that you hardly ever pay attention.” Babbie stood and shook himself, then lay down again with his broad, bristle-covered back against my legs and his head in my lap. I said, “Can you really speak, Babbie?” and felt his head move in reply.
This is all the way back in Blue's Waters.


>After a time that seemed long to me, three or four hours I would guess, when I was practically asleep, too, I heard myself calling Babbie. Certain that I had been dreaming and had spoken aloud in a dream that I could no longer remember, I rubbed my eyes and rolled onto my hands and knees. The inhumi had gone. I had no idea how I knew that, but I knew it with as much certainty as I have ever known anything. I crawled out of the hut. Our little fire had sunk to a glow so faint that I would not have seen it if I had not known where to look. Oreb was gone, too, and I was afraid that the inhumi had killed him. Someone on shore called again for Babbie, and I understood that he meant me; it never so much as occurred to me then that I had sometimes been called “Silk” or “Horn.” He who called me seemed quite near, and he called me with more urgency than Seawrack ever has. I searched the shadows under the closest trees for him without result. I had on my trousers, with Hyacinth’s azoth in the waistband, and I got my tunic as well and the augur’s black robe that Olivine had found in some forgotten closet for me; I left behind stockings, boots, sash, and the jeweled vest. For a moment I considered taking back my dagger and the sword that I am still too weak to use, but the voice from the forest was calling to me and there was no more time to waste upon inessentials. I waded ashore and set off through the forest at a trot. I have the pen case on which I am writing and this rambling account of my failure, with a few other possessions, because they were in the pockets of my robe.

Then a chunk of time passes as he travels, rests, and writes some goodbyes and then:

>I found him in the forest, sitting in the dark under the trees. I could not see him. It was too dark to see anything. But I knelt beside him and laid my head upon his knee, and he comforted me.

Clearly at this point he is not in Babbie's body as he's been traveling for a bit and is able to write, nor could he have been if he was able to put on his clothes and gather some items back on the river.

>>24483759
>And therefore Typhon/Pas, as well as his other clones
Yeah, I was kind of merging them in my head, but I overlooked that Dorcas is blonde and blue-eyed. And Purn, the sailor in Urth, is blonde though I don't think it mentions his eye color.

>>24483671
>>24483688
>>24483708
>>24483789

>“All right.” He picked up his bowl. “This is pretty good. What’s the hot stuff?”
>“Ginger.”
>“You didn’t get that around here.”
>“I got it out of my bag, having brought it from Blanko when Duko Sfido and
>I left there with our troopers. I’d had more than enough camp food when I was in the hills with General Inclito, so I bought some spices there and took them with me—ginger, red pepper, basil, oregano, and a few others.”
>“You don’t eat much. While I’ve been with you, you’ve hardly eaten at all.”
>“I eat far too much. I try constantly—perhaps I should say I try to try constantly—to keep it in check.”
>“The spices sound like my father, but that doesn’t. Do you like fish?”
>I smiled. “Much too much.”


So, going over this and some other bits I gleaned.
1. Maytera's prophecy can be read literally and that's what Silk-Horn does in interpreting the three-horned beast as the one he rode on Green.
2. Maytera's mention of the three-horned beast comes last in her prophecy and there seems to be a chronological element to the prophecy.
3. Seawrack can tell Babbie is pretty intelligent and can talk to them in his own way.
4. Silk-Horn is able to put on clothes and gather his items when he heard Babbie's name being called.
5. Silk-Horn thought he may die soon or run out of paper to write when he said his goodbyes to Nettle and the kids.
6. Silk-Horn was able to write in his memoir in-between the events of leaving the river and eventually finding the figure sitting under the trees.
7. While astral projecting people's appearances can change, for example, Oreb-Scylla looked like a feathery dwarf.
8. Silk-Horn looked like a mix of Horn and Silk when Hide was astral traveling with him.
9. Hide says that Silk-Horn talking about his cooking spices sounds like his dad, but his fasting doesn't, so there still seems to be a mix of characteristics well into IGJ.
10. Babbie looks like a short, solidly built hairy man with glasses and claw fingers.
11. Babbie only hugs Hoof after Hoof accidentally bumps into him not any earlier.
12. Silk-Horn still looked like mix of Horn and Silk when Hoof was astral traveling with him.
13. On their final astral trip to Nessus, Silk-Horn just looks like Silk.

If Wolfe liked women so much why did he never write romance into his stories?

Why does Silkhorn say he should have been more careful at the end of Blue's Waters?

I preferred Maytera Marble before she merged with Maytera Rose.

>>24483904
*sniff*

This thread will be gone soon

>>24483729
what, then, is the need to shepherd horn into babbie? if silk/horn could live his life as is, and do all the things needed, then why the need to do this? explain to me why the neighbors drew horn's spirit into babbie at all. there is purpose and there is intent for silk to be of body and spirit to fulfill his destiny.

>>24483882
He did, it just went over your head.

>>24483995
it's been years since such a devoted discussion was had towards long/short sun. very sad indeed.

>>24483887
I think because he viewed his life as a failure and was also uncertain as to whether he was going to live much longer so the regrets were piling in.

>>24483999
I don't know, bit if you can find one instance of a "partial soul" in the entire Solar Cycle, let me know. If Silk has Horn's memories, he has the rest of Horn as well. We learn fairly early in Shadow that every part of the body contains the soul in its entirety, although according to Father Inire it's stronger in some parts than others.

>>24484011
NTA but what about in Long Sun where they talk about possession and some of the god still being left behind after the god leaves the body?
>Even then, there’d be something left behind. There always is. Some of Maytera Mint’s own … spirit would go into Kypris, too
After Kypris failed to possess Maytera Mint she says:
>“Only she did, and that’s what you’ve got to understand. She only got a piece of me—of the goddess. I can’t even guess what it may do to her.”
And long after Pas had spread himself out just prior to his family deleting him, Kypris appears and says that the part Patera Jerboa carries may come in handy when battling Echidna.
>“The piece the old man has may aid him in the fight. I hope so.”
There's also in RttW:
>They had hidden little pieces of themselves all over, and Pas was still hunting for them and killing every little piece when he found it.

I don't think it's entirely definitive, as it could mean these pieces contain the whole soul and that it is simply diluted, but it kind of sounds like partial souls.

>>24484011
long sun is littered with a mechanic like this; albeit not as active as the ones in short sun. silk, chenille, auk, hyacinth, patera jerboa, oreb all carry pieces from the pantheon of gods of the whorl. in short sun, we get horn with the proposition to join a dying spirit; two to become one in silk's body on the whorl fresh after hyacinth dies and silk is at his lowest and attempts suicide. horn's spirit carries him through the whorl and perhaps the body giving up the eye to pig frees the silent silk and strengthens the spirit of the body and that is why the neighbors whisked horn away into babbie towards the end of his time in gaon. either way, it's clear to me silk is the dominating force in body traveling on blue and easing tensions.

>>24484011
>We learn fairly early in Shadow that every part of the body contains the soul in its entirety, although according to Father Inire it's stronger in some parts than others.
What part of the books goes over this?

>>24483995
Also makes me sad.
Gene wolfe deserves a general on this board honestly and I say that as someone who hates generals

>>24482531
>reading though Long Sun again
Yeah no