Thread 24701760

Gene wolfe thread for the discussion of BoTNS, BoTLS, BoTSS, and the solar cycle in general.

Mainly because I need to know if I’m fucking crazy or not, but the Hierogrammates/Heirodules are absolutely fucking lutely just the inhummi, mentioned in Urth of The New Sun as the race that mankind found that was not like us but similar to us, that we slowly moulded to be better so that they would mould us, with whom we would trade off in time back and forth each divine year right?
It makes too much sense with the Whorl being launched thousands of years, if not millions of years before Severian’s birth - the inhummi evolve over this time thanks to Silk’s influence and turn into the Heiros of Severian’s time.
Fucking Gene Wolfe, man.

>>24701760 (OP)
Sad experience teaches me

>>24701772
Short Sun is so sad.

>>24701760 (OP)
>Whorl being launched thousands of years
The book has it explicitly stated to be 300 years

>>24701760 (OP)
Actually where the hell did you get Long Sun Whorl launched millions of years ago? Typhon launched it and he is nowhere near that much into the past.

>>24702237
No, in the book it’s been 300 years SINCE it launched, but it was launched when Typhon was the Grand Leader of all Earth - thousands of years before Severian’s birth. This means when the dream-traveled they were travelling to the future. Remember the Hieros time travelling backwards in BoTNS? Same shit. Or evolution.

>>24702245
The fact that literally thousands of mountains in the Andes were carved over the “chilliad” (1000 ish years?) between sev & Ymar and then however much time was really between Typhon and Ymar suggests there is ultimately a VERY long time period between Typhon’s time & Severians. Enough time for at least a few other cultures to spring up in between since there is such a huge discrepancy in tech between Typhon & Severians rules.
That said I probably got overzealous. It’s probably not millions of years. It IS a long time though as the sun hadn’t started dying yet in Typhon’s time, right? And again there’s the problem of the Andes Mountains being entirely reformed. It’s gotta be longer than 1000 years.

I doubt Gene Wolfe was overthinking it this much when he was writing it.

>>24702431
You’re right, he was overthinking it more. Didn’t he publicly state there were maybe half a dozen people on Earth who actually “got” what he was trying to say with the Briah-Solar cycle?

well, maybe he just wasn't a good enough writer to bring that across the abyss

>>24702427
>time was really between Typhon and Ymar
I thought Severian meets Typhon and Ymar in the same time period in UotNS.
The sun is definitely dying during Typhon's time that's when the Concilator religious book is written. Additionally he visits the Citadel already around at the same time as Typhon.
Also Typhon and Severian are close enough in time where they speak the same language easily. Language is a very big deal for the work with examples of sailors like Hethor speaking odd do to time displacement, the other country with their crazy language, and the Wolfe translation gimmick putting Severian far enough in time removed from the readers modern time but not so much removed from Typhon.

>>24702427
>And again there’s the problem of the Andes Mountains being entirely reformed
They were sculpted by advanced tech. If the dude can build a space colony he can probably make a few Mount Rushmores.

>>24702434
why aren't his other books such 'high' quality?

>>24702449
Give the man a break. Solar Cycle is 12 books long. And you're over here going "That's nice but where's your 13th high quality book?" Damn slave driver here

>>24702467
3 books

>>24702472
4 books
Counting Urth as New is like counting Hobbit as LotR

>>24702467
>>24702472
>>24702476
There are clearly 8 books in that image

>>24702479
3 books in multiple volumes

>>24702483
>new
>urth
>long
>short
4 books in multiple volumes

Horny fat self insert scifi

>>24702439
i don't understand how knowing typhon could hollow out an enormous asteroid and create all the environmental things in the whorl but the andes is breaking your suspension of belief. or maybe that anon hasn't read long/short sun.

>>24702449
they are, but just different. peace and fifth head of cerberus(3 novellas i know, but i consider this a work) are certainly up there. he has a few very high quality short stories in his collections and i consider latro and wizard knight to be great. i haven't read much of his novels after that but i've heard good things about a borrowed man and hope to read it eventually.

>>24702510
He's trying to say that the mountains prove the inhumi from short sun evolved into heirodules between Typhon and the main story. Fair chance he hasn't read any of them.

I love the part with the huge public sacrifice at the beginning of Calde of the Long Sun. It's a little rollercoaster with all the developments that take place, and the part where Mint takes command and she's on her horse, holding the azoth in the air, was one of the most striking images from the whole series to me.

>>24702532
When you put it like that I guess that casts doubt on my theory, but since the Hieros travel backwards in time from the far far future I still think it’s possible the inhummi eventually evolve into them. Probably you’re right not in the time period between typhon and sev

>>24701760 (OP)
That's the impression I got, having ONLY just recently finished BOTNS and not touched Long or New Sun yet. It seems from my limited perspective that inhummi/heirodules/cocogens were broadly just different names for the same thing, being a "perfected" being created by humanity who are now perfecting humanity back in turn via the same methods. And they have time travel.
But I wonder how much I'm missing. Finished Severians' story feeling as though I more or less had a foggy idea of what was going on, but I'm definitely missing piles of context that I'm not even aware of. It was such a dense read that I'm in no hurry to pick up the other series just yet either, need to digest this a while first.

>>24702449
filtered

>>24703233
Read Urth, then Long Sun then short Sun, the BoTNS again and it all fits together