No overarching plot. The story just meanders wherever it likes with no purpose or resolution. Extremely flat characters that attempt to give the illusion of depth and fail.

>but muh heckin christcuck allegories
>but muh rereadability
>but sam hyde said…

Yawn. Double yawn even. Don’t waste your time with this sci-slop.

>>24554440 (OP)
>the illusion of depth and fail.
The illusion of fail?

This is the kind of person that claims that Book of the Long Sun is Wolfe's best work.

>>24554448
yeah it’s secretly good

>>24554450
Long Sun kind of sucks as it's own thing and without Short Sun isn't really worth reading. Same thing with Short Sun too really.

>>24554460
I found the fan service with Severian at the end of Short Sun too pandering. The book didn't need to do the wink and nod hey look readers it's the first book protagonist and his dog bit.

>>24554460
Short Sun is Wolfe's magnum opus. It's a pity that Long Sun really is required in order to read it; I know no one will be able to pick up Long Sun as their first Wolfe and be able to slog their way through and still be excited to read more.

>>24554474
New Sun is better. Wolfe's problem of
>meets new person
>five minutes later
>you are my greatest friend and our bond is one of absolute trust and servitude
is present in all of them but in New Sun at least time traveling Jesus let's you suspend disbelief easier

>>24554484
Horn:
>meets some people he already knew
>meets a pet lion/spider thing that's told to go with him and doesn't like him at first
>meets a girl that has literally never met a human other than him in her life
>meets his grandson
>meets an alien that specifically chose to talk to him because it was sure that he would agree to its request on behalf of all humans (lel)
>meets his son, who he still hates

Silk:
>Is literally a god

How do any of these not make sense?

>>24554499
Pas isn't a god isn't Silk isn't Horn

>>24554440 (OP)
It’s 2 smart 4 U

>>24554448
>>24554450
>>24554460
>>24554467
>>24554474
>>24554499
>Gene Wolfe
Yikes
>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing special.
>Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.
>I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.
>The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.

>>24554607
half this guy's review is complaining that severian is misogynistic

>>24554643
Wolfe’s ability to Accurately depict women is unparalleled I’m sure it puckers many a bootyhole .

>>24554673
Jordan was the absolute master of depicting women in fiction, even women admit it.

>>24555071
>even women admit it.
than he's doing it wrong

>>24554440 (OP)
It is a good product overall. I don't understand the retards who put the fifth book aside from the first four. The fifth book put everything on its place.
It is a good series. Worthy of a read for sure.

>>24554440 (OP)
>No overarching plot

>>24554607
>Fritz fucking Leiber
LOL. LMAO even.

>no overarching plot
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IT CAN'T BE!!!!!

>>24556117
>fritz leiber filters wolfefag
Wolfefags get filtered by literal pulp authors like smith and vance, LMAO

>>24556148
The fat Catholic mogs those hacks into oblivion.

>>24554607
BASED

I finished Long and Short Sun
What was the Outsider?
What was the deal with his dream teleporting?
Where did godlings come from?
How did inhumu get onto the ship almost a hundred years ago?
What was that one assholes problem?

>>24556362

Have only 2/3rds of Long Sun but:

The uploaded consciousness of Typhon, that had been deposed by the uploaded consciousness of his children, but which still lingered as a ghost in the machine.

?

I'd assume they were grown from embryos intended to be vessels for Typhon & Co.

The whorl was parked at its destination a long time ago but people weren't disembarking. They got onto the ship the same way they got between the planets.

Gonna have to be way more specific. If you're talking about Blood, he's basically the devil. There to test and tempt Silk. Probably a tool of the Ayuntamiento, who are probably a tool of one or more of Typhon's family in a struggle for control over the Whorl.

>>24554460
Long Sun is a good and fun story that is the best of the Solar Cycle. Short Sun is a bunch of random disjointed gibberish that ends with REMEMBER SEVERIAN REMEMBER NEW SUN pandering.

>>24556615
>The uploaded consciousness of Typhon
Both Long and Short Sun are pretty clear that the Outsider is the creator of the worlds outside the whorl. I'm pretty sure Silk even says this explicitly at one point.

The Outsider is the Pankreator, aka the actual God.

>>24556645
Yeah Outsider is basically the real God but given the way Solar Cycle works I suspect he isn't actually a god but some sort of being that functions similarly. What I don't know though.

>>24556615
This nigger answering questions about Short Sun when he hasn't even read it.

>>24554440 (OP)
filtered

>>24554440 (OP)
>Sam Hyde said...
literally who cares
ignorant semi-literate fake tradcath incels like this book because they don’t understand it’s making fun of them

>>24556741
>it’s making fun of them
How?

>>24556742
Severian isn’t cool, he’s a pig. His narration is not just unreliable, he actively deceives his readers, he lies, contradicts himself, omits critical things, and his memory isn’t infallible like he claims.
Once you see through this, it’s a completely different story. But the chuds don’t get anything that’s not explicitly stated (and even miss some things that are), so they think it’s just a cool grimdark adventure story about an edgy badass; of course, they quit reading long before the plot descends into self-reflexive metaphysics.

>>24556777
That Severian was a lame and flawed (weak even) character, was clear to me since the beginning. In my opinion the book doesn't "hide" stuff as many people say. Maybe that's because I read the whole series in one pdf file, so I could do fast word search and quick re-read in the same file. Maybe reading that in "book format" is a mistake.
To me the kid Wymar is a good example of a cool intended character, so the example is there to make that statement: "THIS is what a real cool guy looks like".

>>24556665
One of the very few things in Short Sun that easily clicked for me was that the Outsider is the Logos. Silk reverse-engineering a Christian mass and feeling a real presence (on the nose enough?) near him is IMO the most important scene in the series.
As a Catholic my general reading of Long/Short is that

>Silk is perceptive to the Logos because he's a saintly man, even when living in a slum and getting dragged through the brutality of war
>Silk is also a suicidal basket case because his contact with the Logos is completely contradictory to Pas's pantheon, which he's spent his life worshipping
>Horn's willing sacrifice of his life both physically and spiritually saves him (John 15:13, I consider the two of them a syzygy of imperfect Christ figures)
>Silk becomes an Odin figure as he's an enlightened man in a world of barbarians
>Silk becomes a genuine prophet of the true God when he accepts everything that's happened, and evangelizes the cosmos with his space-time warping powers (I've seen some theories that the Neighbors are ascended beings due to Hiero shenanigans but it's been a minute since I actually looked into that stuff)

>>24554474
Both of them suffer from Wolfe's obsession with subtext. Long Sun, Short Sun, Wizard Knight, and some of his one-off novels post-Long Sun all do the same thing, start as very entertaining plots which then disintegrate into vagueness and meander while characters ask each other questions.
It hurts every single story he does it in, and it must be a personal fixation he had because they're only good in spite of this narrative technique rather than because of it.

>>24557159
>it must be a personal fixation he had
I'm not a fan of psychoanalyzing dead people but I'm almost certain he had that high-IQ type of Asperger's. It would explain how he was ludicrously skilled at frame narrative while also constantly killing his own momentum with bizarre logic-puzzle dialogue and random digressions about boats/military logistics/women being evil cunts

>>24557141
Wolfe gives everything else mundane explanations
Angels are aliens that time travel
Eldritch sea horrors are giant aliens
Devils are inhumi
Conciliator is a time traveler human
Whorl gods are brain scans of humans
Higher plane beings etc etc

Outsider being the only true divine or supernatural being would make it stick out like a sore thumb.

>>24557223
>women being evil cunts
Setting aside the rape, he's really nice to them! Then there's the wife in Home Fires....

>>24557159
>Both of them suffer from Wolfe's obsession with subtext
personally I think that’s what Wolfe does best, but I also liked his Roman stuff better than Severian so maybe that’s just me

>>24557257
>>24557257
It's a little more ambiguous than that.

Wolfe gives divine interventions mundane explanations in a way that leaves open the question of whether a truly divine being is intervening through the mundane. Feels like one of the key themes of the Solar cycle, is does God intervene in the world? If so what does that look like?

I.E. when Silk is enlightened on the basketball court at the beginning of Long Sun, he's described as hearing two voices, one male one female, which suggests Pas and Kypris.

At the same time, over the course of Long Sun, he has these brushes with the Outsider, including a different, softer sort of enlightenment when he sees the world outside the spaceship for the first time.

If Silk's initial enlightenment was via Pas and Kypris for their political schemes - is it possible that the Outsider was working through them, to set Silk on the path to this further more "true" enlightenment.

Wolfe leaves these questions open-ish, but they're the most interesting parts of the books for me

>>24557371
Nah you're right, he is best at subtext and it does make his stories good. It's integrated very well into the Latro novels. I meant certain of his later stories where he does it in a particular way.

>>24556633
>Short Sun is a bunch of random disjointed gibberish
filtered hard.

>>24558199
a theme hammered upon through out the solar cycle is the things offensive to the increate, ultimately serve his will. typhon probably the most vain and sinful man in the entire series, orchestrated all these things to serve his glory, but on a long enough timeline, evil ultimately will serve the creator. i think the most specific example of this idea is during silk and horn's conversation on the air ship where silk was thinking about suicide.

>>24554440 (OP)
ADHD zoomer detected

>>24556853
you're responding to the gene wolfe general thread hater. you hang out here long enough and you'll notice the tells of that anon. they simply do not understand what "unreliable" means in this story. it's lacking a frame of reference for what is seemingly ordinary, it's a memoir of his youth exactly how he experienced and remember it in his youth while injecting thoughts from an older and wiser(hundreds or thousands of minds) adult he has become. the mid wit jg keely types simply can't understand subtext what is going on in this story.

>>24558367
>midwit keely types
says the one filtered by jack vance
>>24556358
He does if you're a 90iq pseud

>>24558367
i happen to like cugel's saga very much. i just don't really understand this behavior of shitting up a thread with strawmans and surface level critiques while anons are discussing a work they like or have questions about.

>>24558700
I don't really understand the behavior of trying to pretend genre fiction sci fi novels (good ones at that, but still genre fiction all the same) are literature

>>24559165
ah, so you won't answer the question and pivot to something else, like the definition of literature. lol. same way you bring up vance instead of refuting what i said about your understanding, or lack thereof, of botns. botns isn't genre fiction, btw, sorry to burst your defensive label shield. you clearly haven't read the work otherwise your arguments against it would be much more detailed and specific.

>>24559379
I don't need to debate with midwit /lit/cel retards who spend their days reading and debating genre fiction while refusing to read literary fiction.
And Keely's review so throughly btfo'd BOTNs that it makes wolfefags seethe to this day. Far from surface level critique.

>>24559405
Keely reads Mieville and Moorcock, and you don't read anything which is why you think I should care what a Gooreads critic thinks

>>24559405
You will LOVE this, lol :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2-YPmKyfI

>>24559426
Your idol gene wolfe was best buddies with neil gayman, a jewish rapist
I read actual literature and don't pretend that well written sci fi novels are better than proust

>>24559426
And it's funny seeing you criticize moorcock despite the fact that gene wolfe himself stated that he was one of his influences

>>24559405
you voluntarily join these threads, retard. what is your motivation? i get being constructive and unlocking other works you prefer to those in the thread, but your lunatic fallacious ranting certainly doesn't do that.
>And Keely's review so throughly btfo'd BOTNs that it makes wolfefags seethe to this day. Far from surface level critique.
all his review does is highlight is inability to grasp what i mentioned here >>24558367 and more. 10 years ago that fart sniffing pseud was in these very same threads getting dismantled for his same lack of understanding and poor attitude.

>>24559433
His dementia ridden old dip read the books 4-5 times and fails to get basic shit lol. He’s mad the big sword was just a big sword.

>>24559534
>>24559540
You're so unfamilar with actual literature due to consuming so much genre shit that you see a genre work that uses a modicum of what literary novels use and you consider it to be the greatest book of all time.
You're a manchild who will never read actual literature because it doesn't have le guys with swords seducing women or because your e daddy sam hyde didn't shill it as some based catholic work
Grow up. BOTNs is supposed to be something you read after growing out of normal genre fiction, a midway point between genre slop and actual literary fiction. It isn't supposed to be something you spend entire threads up to bump limit discussing. Read something else for once. For all three thousand or so pages of the solar cycle you could read a dozen literary classics and still have space for more.

>>24558342
I like how you see Typhon's callousness and manipulativeness occasionally come through in Silk, even though he's ultimately using them to tard-wrangle people instead of setting himself up as a tyrant.

>>24559582
>strawman: the post
the last thread was largely about long and short sun btw.

>>24559582
>le guys with swords seducing women
Its more thots throwing themselves at 6 foot 6 pack badass

>>24559652
Like how wolfefags strawman anybody who doesn't think wolfe is le greatest writer ever?

>>24559667
replying with another i see. look anon, wolfe is a good author and people like his work. he's not the most popular or widespread and his works are written with a lot of nuance so there is plenty to discuss. your attitude of, "he sucks and i hate that people enjoy him so here i am with criticisms akin to criticizing moby dick as 'just a whale story'" are just very childish. i personally participate in these threads as an avenue to discuss more of his work outside of botns like the other solar cycle books, fifth head of cerberus, latro and wizard knight with new readers.

>>24558342
>increate
>Outsider
Are these the same thing? Increase is much less directly involved

>>24560011
outsider is the term silk uses to describe what urth understands to be the increate or pancreator.

>>24554440 (OP)
All the preening fagots trying to disparage Wolfe is how you know he’s legit.

>>24554440 (OP)
Jeet hands typed OP

>>24559681
He's a good sci fi author, yes.
Not a literary author.
Not one you should be spending thousands of hours of your life with when you could be reading actual literature.
Moby Dick is an adventure story uplifted to literature. BOTNs never outgrows its genre fiction origins, sadly.
>>24560805
Why are wolfe fanboys so sensitive?

>>24560855
>Not a literary author
What did you mean by this? That he is ignorant of grammar, his style is deficient, he lacks education and refinement, or that his subject is trivial? Because such criticisms are patently false.
A good writer is a good writer, whether his subject is whaling, or the wanderings of a furture messiah.

>>24560855
what "actual literature" should we be reading?

>>24560874
>What did you mean by this?
If you can't differentiate between genre fiction and literary fiction then why are you on this board.
>That he is ignorant of grammar, his style is deficient, he lacks education and refinement, or that his subject is trivial? Because such criticisms are patently false.
Never stated any of those things. As stated previously, He is a good science fiction author. But still a science fiction author.
>A good writer is a good writer, whether his subject is whaling, or the wanderings of a furture messiah.
The difference is that Melville elevated naval adventure fiction into literary fiction. Wolfe didn't do that with sci fi. And stop comparing wolfe to melville. It's like comparing kubrick to tarkovsky.
>>24560922
Read actual classics not genre fic slop. If you don't know what actual classics are then read a /lit/ chart or go to a book store or something.

>>24561081
>If you can't differentiate between genre fiction and literary fiction then why are you on this board.
I'm asking you to differentiate them, and apparently you can't either.

>>24561086
It's not my job to do that for you, midwit.
If you think severian swinging his sword around and having sex with every woman he meets written in babby's first unrealiable narrator is anything comparable to moby dick then you're too far gone.

>>24561089
It is absolutely your job to define the terms you use. Otherwise your posts are ambiguous, if not meaningless.
I can plainly see you're incapable of this. So who's the midwit?

>>24559613
silk was genetically given gifts like some kind of affinity for swordplay and obviously charisma and leadership. it's funny how it worked out completely opposite of typhon's goals. he rejects his "destiny" of tyrant monarch and instead sets humanity free on a new world.

>>24559450
>be gene wolfe
>read behold the man, its gay sequel, and elric
>be inspired to do it better, less sociopathic and not atheist cringe trash
and you missed the point about keely and moor"cock". it's because much of keely's review and following back and forth in the comments section is about his perception of women in literature, completely misunderstanding how it is represented in botns. like moorcock, he is also a gigantic cuck pro feminist. i won't speak on mieville other than it's a shame having an editor is taboo in modern authorship; but that ostentatiousness is right up keely's alley.

>>24561081
>Read actual classics not genre fic slop
BOTNS (The whole five book series) is a classic. You like it or not.
"it's hard to read", that adds to the series's lore. Every classic has its own quirks and "marketing myths".

>>24561119
It isn't
It's your job to stop reading genre slop
>>24561317
>atheist cringe trash
Gene Wolfe was friends with neil gayman, an atheistic jewish rapist
One of his biggest influences was proust, a gay pedophile
stop tradLARPing. Stop insulting the influences your e daddy wolfe took from. You do this to vance, smith and hodgson as well-presumeably because these authors filter your pea brain.
>>24561350
It isn't a classic
And it isn't hard to read at all. It's hard to read if you're a retarded zoomer who has only ever read genre slop but if you have any basic knowledge of the classics then it's a pretty easy read.

>>24555238
Have you not read WoT? It's a story about a degenerate modern age in which evil is about to win because women are eternal fuckups who refuse to accept any sort of duty or responsibility, eventually culminating in a feminist paradise where powerful women live the dream of living in a literal ivory tower on Vagina Island, where they get to engage in constant schemeing and backbiting.

>>24561676
>It isn't
I see we've reached the "no u" phase of the conversation.
Frankly, I thought you'd put up more of a fight.

>>24561676
>Gene Wolfe was friends with
prose stylistically similar to proust from in search of lost time means gene is somehow related to gay pedophilia? and lol and gaiman influencing any great authors' writing. you're impossible to discuss anything with because you gish gallop all over the fucking place. and i'll insult moorcock all i want because he sucks, but you can be inspired by an idea in a book that executes things poorly or is overly cynical and shitty. i gave you three examples of works of his that share some similar devices and conventions. i already said i like vance, but again, you can only respond with deflection and strawmans.

If you want a good Dying Earth adventure, I think you should read Cugel in the first place. BOTNS is decent but way too overrated by the christlarpers that populate this place.

>>24562711
Cugel is way more over rated. Just look at this thread way more people praising Cugel and shitting on New Sun.

>>24562711
Tbh I didn't read New Sun because it's a dying earth setting, I read it because it's really good fantasy. There's nothing about a dying sun in specific that appeals to me, or else I would've read Dying of the Light a long time ago.

>>24562854
>>24561750
This retarded bitch made a whole 35minutes rant "review" shitting on the series without reading the ending in the fifth book, and she says She's "smart", lmao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uhuU7msCLg

>>24562711
I don’t really give a shit about some genre like Dying Earth, just give me good literature. Wolfe I found is one of the few genre fiction writers who actually cares about literary craft whatsoever

>>24563499
>one of the few genre fiction writers who actually cares about literary craft
Not in the opinion of this piece of shit, she says that Gene Wolfe writes like a retard and the plot is beyond retarded and nothing makes sense unless you're some down syndrome special retard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uhuU7msCLg

>>24563524
I didn't see anyone asking what a random cunt thinks of the books they enjoyed.

>>24563524
Why do I get the feeling you looked this up deliberately to make yourself mad, or tried to bait someone else into getting mad? When I see something like this I feel nothing whatsoever except for a similar feeling to what you get when looking at a field of cows

>>24563589
>>24563580
She says something that I've never heard anyone else say before, according to her Severian raped little Severian, and she says that with total impunity and almost laughing. Is there any proof at all of that disgusting accusation?
https://youtu.be/1uhuU7msCLg?t=883

>>24556777
This is a typical misunderstanding of people's attraction to characters with so-called toxic personality traits and values. It isn't due to ignorance, it's due to people sharing those traits and values with the character, or at least aspiring to share them.
Beyond that, I think most are aware that Severian "The Lame" is putting on a show for the reader. He's also often critical of himself. The narration style definitely dampens the hero worship imo
Calling him a pig as your opener seems to be you having a culture war crashout thoughever

>>24554440 (OP)
It's my favorite fic. Just about to start long sun!

>>24561750
Stop reading genre slop buddy.
It's not that hard to understand.
>>24562533
Wolfe was best friends with neil gayman to the extent that books were published about their friendship.
And wolfe clearly didn't seem to think moorcock sucked.
Wolfe fanboys have made it clear again and again that they think the works that created the dying earth genre, namely Hodgsons's Night land, Smith's Zothique and Vance's dying earth are actually bad, probably because they get filtered by literal pulp material.
>>24563499
If he cared about the literary craft why does BOTNs never rise above its sci fi roots?
There are genre fic works that rise to the level of actual literature. Wolfe's work isn't one of them

>>24563876
this is my last post to you as you seem to have a comprehension problem or are just intentionally trolling. you've been asked several times to distinguish genre fiction from literary fiction. i personally bring up similarities in other author's works, but you only seem to care about their lives outside of it. you continually strawman as if liking wolfe precludes liking other works, which isn't ever demonstrated other than the occasional reasonable critique of vance in other threads.
>If he cared about the literary craft why does BOTNs never rise above its sci fi roots?
it does. wolfe creates a theodicy unlike any other fiction does. the problem of evil isn't just solved, it is the entire point as evil is a necessary substrate for consciousness to grow from and produce good and cultivate maximum moral development. the other main theme is memory and the corruption of it and how myths develop, creatively blending and blurring stories as a history of urth. this has obviously gone over your head because "the big sword" remains just a big sword to you, as another poster said in regards to that posted review. the conventions and devices used in botns without question has elevated it to high lit.

>>24563604
BUY AN AD, LADY

>>24564744
>LADY

>>24563604
If it had been me and my kids up on that windy mountaintop it wouldn't have gone down like it did. There would have been a lot of brain fluid all over that acceleration couch and then me saying "OK, kids, let's get you to a more moral universe"

>>24564837
Wait wait wait, are you saying that that shit worked like the thing in Yesod?, or that the height made time change like in the hill house of the old man?

>>24564583
>you've been asked several times to distinguish genre fiction from literary fiction
I don't have to tell you why a michelin restaurants meal is different from mcdonalds goyslop. Same with literary and genre fiction.
>strawman
Wolfefags have been strawmanning this entire thread and detracting authors wolfe himself took inspiration from.
>it does. wolfe creates a theodicy unlike any other fiction does. the problem of evil isn't just solved, it is the entire point as evil is a necessary substrate for consciousness to grow from and produce good and cultivate maximum moral development. the other main theme is memory and the corruption of it and how myths develop, creatively blending and blurring stories as a history of urth. this has obviously gone over your head because "the big sword" remains just a big sword to you, as another poster said in regards to that posted review. the conventions and devices used in botns without question has elevated it to high lit.
It's deep because le quote about severian taking off his boots and walking on the sand.
Read some better books. Of course somebody who has only read LOTR ripoff fantasy slop is going to think wolfe's work is deeper- because it is. But compared to actual literary fiction, and compared to the authors wolfe took from it really isn't.

>>24565008
Jesus, there's always another layer with you Wolfefags. No, that anon is merely channeling Marky Mark, claiming he would have beaten the shit out of Typhon and caused the new sun to return using only his lantern jaw and good old American knowhow, skipping all those metaphysical leg days.
>>24565172
Ignore this fraud, I finally read Hillbilly Elegy like he's been nagging us to and now I'm irreversibly stupid

>>24563604
>itd interesting cause a cunt said it
if tou want me to care tou have to transition

>>24563589
>>24565740
This retard is the worst of them all. Even if you hate Gene Wolfe watching this video will enrage you beyond belief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgk4lYJmBOU

>>24565870
>onions boy upset that "history hasn't been kind to women ever", "jolenta swallows grapes whole" and "main character sleeps with women" despite all of them having ulterior motives and using severian
how much more reddit could this guy be?

>>24565970
I never thought these things existed in real life

>>24566080
the dumbest part is that he didn't understand jolenta was someone who met severian before, the server from the inn, who had massive amounts of work done on her to be this person "swallowing grapes whole", which is a clue, but way over this retard's head.

What did he mean with that last sentence in Urth of the new sun? What caused the eclipse?
> "Nothing Severian writes indicates what the opaque body may have been; but the thoughtful reader will find little difficulty in advancing at least one plausible speculation."

>>24567379
It's Triskele's missing leg, do you even listen to Alzabo Soup?

>>24567950
LMAO!

>>24567950
Do you have a link to that podcast episode?

>>24563876
Get fucked faggot. There is no such thing as "literary" fiction, only good fiction and bad fiction.
You're a snotty prick who's under the illusion that his tastes are somehow better than the rest of us. You can eat my fuck.

>>24567379
i think it was the ship the heirodules traveled in.

>>24567379
>>24567950
>>24568324
I always thought that it was the creation of the new star just at that moment wich was so bright in its birth that caused an eclipse.

>>24568321
>Get fucked faggot. There is no such thing as "literary" fiction, only good fiction and bad fiction.
>You're a snotty prick who's under the illusion that his tastes are somehow better than the rest of us. You can eat my fuck.
The illiterate manchild wolfefag cries out as he strikes you

>>24568371
Strike you? I don't believe in beating children.
Best to ignore them until their tantrums are over.

>>24563876
>If he cared about the literary craft why does BOTNs never rise above its sci fi roots?
That's why he wrote Long/Short Sun
Any criticism of BotNS can be discarded if it doesn't take into account the next 8 books in the series.
honest reviewers should force themselves to hate read the solar cycle to make their points have some value. Otherwise they will be rightfully ignored

>>24568385
>children
You are literally a manchild
>>24568394
>don't enjoy reading 1500 pages of genre slop? just read 2500 more pages of genre slop, trust me it gets better
why are fantasyfags like this?

>>24568352
i'm not sure that is the case. the new sun is traveling from yesod to urth, and in the time of apu punchau, the old sun is still vibrant. gene is a bit cheeky in the appendix implying it was an eclipse, but just not one in the traditional sense. something other than the moon was blocking the sun for most of that morning as it suddenly appears above the roof tops. i'm not sure how much time passed from that moment to the point severian decides to leave and is restrained and killed by the tribe, but he clearly still doesn't have his powers at that point. the heirodules' ship makes the most sense to me.

>>24565172
>It's deep because le quote about severian taking off his boots and walking on the sand.
that scene has nothing to do with what anon said. you clearly haven't read the book and are just a giant troll. they are talking about the system of ascendance in place with the heiros.

>>24561081
I will read whatever i want

>>24569737
No, the tribe kills him when he tries to escape on foot old and weak without powers (only the power of his knowledge). His corpse is entombed, and then he learns that he's dead in that place till the new sun is born, that's the revealing chat he has with the hierodules. When the new sun is born he will be able to escape to his own time again, but he must get away from Apu punchau before Apu revives as well. So the new sun is born and the powers of Severian are available again, he escapes the tomb, right after him Apu Punchau comes out too, who's surrounded by the adoring tribe "celebrating"(?) the rebirth of their spiritual leader, and then he realizes there is an Eclipse happening.
So this "eclipse" can be produced or related to the born of this new star happening at that moment, but too far away, or it can be related to that ritual Severian and the "witches" did on top of the tomb when they tried to kill/catch Apu punchau, or maybe the hierodule ship was there to witness that moment and make sure everything goes according to the "plan", or maybe the eclipse is related to that "black hole" thing that kills the sun, maybe the born of the new sun automatically triggers the dead of the old one, maintaining an infinite cycle of creation and destruction. I'm sure it is neither of those tho..

>>24554440 (OP)
I criticised DFW and Infinite Jest to a friend who loves him a few days ago, who told me to read this in response. I was confused about the comparison.
Is it just because it also has ghastly prose?

>>24554440 (OP)
>plotfag

>>24570007
well this is at the dawn of civilization, thousands of years before the sun was meddled with and became dim. my point was that it doesn't explicitly say how much time passed from the eclipse to when severian decided to leave to seek juturna to regain his powers somehow. it could have been years to a decade living amongst them. the eclipse happens well before he is killed, entombed and raised back to life. it is the litmus test the tribe has for him to see if he's really the sun bringer. gene basically says it was an eclipse in the appendix but conceals what exactly the opaque body blocking the sun was. the effect of the white fountain doesn't happen until thousands of years in the future which brings the flood so it was just a matter of the star's proximity to earth, despite still being a millenia away in travel time, to spring forth severian's powers that far in the past. i don't think the cumean's ritual had anything to do with the eclipse as they were speedrunning through history to the moment apu comes out of the tomb.

>>24570076
many millenia away*. agia says it had been 30,000 years since the conciliator's last appearance which was during typon's reign.

>>24570007
>Sweetly Famulimus sang, "Thus surprised are we, Severian, to find you here where men have scarce begun. Though we have traced the time line down so far, whole ages of the world have passed since we've seen you."
>"And yet you knew I would be here?"
>Stepping from the shadows, Barbatus said, "Because you told us so. Have you forgotten we were your councilors? You told us how the man Hildegrin was destroyed, so we've watched this place for you."

i think this is a bit of predestination occurring. severian tells the the heiros about his story with stone town, and because they experience time backwards, they make his stories happen in their future. the same thing happens in the throne room prior to the flood where he asks juturna if she remembers saving him and she says, 'it hasn't happened yet'. severian more or less asks them "how do you know the future?" and they say, because you told us about it. lol

>>24570076
>the eclipse happens well before he is killed, entombed and raised back to life
No, no, an Eclipse doesn't lasts "years and years". Yes of course Severian spent decades with the tribe till he got old and weak and they killed him. Then it's not clear how many years he awaited in the tomb till the Hierodules revived him, but it's clear that when he comes out of the tomb there's an eclipse happening "conveniently" right at that moment.

And I'm thinking, that it could be the hierodules using their ship, helping Severian to perform that fabricated "miracle". They were there for him anyways, to help him revive and get back into the timeline.

>>24570143
my good anon, i didn't not say the event of the eclipse lasted for years, but that the event itself happened years before severian was killed by the tribe. they were putting his story to the test to see if he could delay the sun like they interpreted his story and when morning was delayed, then all at once the sun appearing in the sky, they worshipped him and he became apu punchau. much later on, he decided to leave and that is when he was killed and entombed. it's at the very end of the chapter "apu punchau" then the next chapter chronicles a bit of his time among the people before he decides to seek juturna.

It's a literary masterwork.

>>24570172
Well yes, of course, Severian uses an eclipse to get his point across the people on the tribe. That's how he becomes a shaman for them, that's pretty much clear.
The eclipse in question here is the one happening conveniently during his "resurrection". And Gene Wolfe leaves you with the task to decipher how "that one" happened. And I can't believe there's not yet an official and canon answer to that one after 30 years.

>>24570189
i don't think you are remembering correctly. point it in the text but i just skimmed passages from claw and urth and i don't think an eclipse is happening when he awakens in the tomb. severian waits till nightfall to break out of the tomb through the ceiling just before apu awakens.

>>24570189
the white fountain, his star, is one he looks at in the night sky among thousands of others. there wasn't an eclipse when apu awakened.

blimp

>>24568394
>they will be rightfully ignored
That's a nice thought but if people weren't eating his shitty bait like it was caviar there would only be about 50 posts in this thread.

Alright I need someone to explain to me like I'm retarded, what actually happened to seperate Severian from Dorcas and Dr. Talos at the end of shadow of the torturer? It feels like I missed a whole novel between Shadow and Claw

>>24572993
it's brushed upon a few times through out the story but the uhlans, autarch guards given the task to keep people off the roads as a way of containing them, attacked and everyone scattered.

>>24572993
>>24573010
It was Severian's fault though, he killed that asshole who whipped Dorcas's face, and all went to shit then inside the gate.
But it is very "convenient" that Severian gets separated from the rest, in that point, It would be hard to "miss" a giant like Baldanders...

>>24573061
it was already going to shit. there was a disturbance among the carts at the gate caused by the uhlans. severian's attack was probably not even noticed. hundreds or thousands of people scattered and fled into the surrounding forests so it's not unreasonable he lost his group outside of jonas.

>My attention was distracted by the sight of daylight ahead of us, and by the disturbance among the vehicles that clogged the road as many sought to turn back, flailing their teams and trying to clear a path with their whips.
it was here he pulled the guy down and says even his screams were lost in the commotion.
>By that time all the gate was ringing with bawling and swearing, and the cries of the injured, and the bellowings of frightened animals; and if the stranger continued his tale I could not hear it.

>>24573010
>>24573061
>>24573090
Alright, this helps clear it up a great deal. I took a pause between finishing Shadow and beginning Claw, and started somewhat lost. This also later explains when Severian has the reunion at the house absolute the sort of guilt that leaks into his narration surrounding Dorcas and co

Im reading Sword of the lictor right now. Its great.

Are Urth of the new sun and The Wizard Knight worth reading too?

>>24574462
Urth explains some things about the series in a really obvious way, then presents more questions. You might find certain sections more entertaining than others, it has at least 3 distinct settings. It's good.
The Knight is worth reading, one of Wolfe's best novels. It's really good fantasy, but characteristically confusing in many ways. The Wizard slows down a lot for most of the book, then gets weird, then gets really amazing at the end.

>>24574470
Sounds cool. Thanks stranger

>>24574462
Urth of the new sun is the 5th and final book of Severian's journey. OF FUCKING COURSE YOU WILL READ IT.
Sorry about that, but I don't understand why people still asks what "Urth of the new sun" is, When it is the 5th book and conclusion of the series. It makes me go insane.
It's all the fault of the publi$hers which can't promote and market the five books together because legal BULLSHIT. Shitting on the fans and ruining the legacy.

>>24574489
lol ok

>>24574470
urth feels like the end to the series, after getting through long/short sun. it reads somewhat disjointed if you go directly into it from autarch. wizard knight is incredible if you can handle wolfe slowing it down in the middle of the wizard to world build; but the knight is great even as a standalone.

In Long Sun they specifically say they call the tunnel animals gods because the are strange dogs and say the name came because god is dog backwards. There are a couple other puns.
Am I to take it they speak English in the Long Sun Whorl?
Because when they time travel to Severian times there is no language barrier there either. And when Severian travels to Typhon's reign too.

>>24574475
>>24574470
Borrowed Man is better than Wizard Knight. Latro is better than both.

>>24575004
Who?

>>24575004
Having read all those, the only books that I think are substantially worse than the others there are Latro 2 and The Wizard. Interlibrary Loan, Wolfe's last novel, is truncated and arguably unfinished, but is very fascinating.
I would put it like The Knight > Latro 1 > Latro 3 = Borrowed Man > Interlibrary Loan