Gene Wolfe

it's no chillwave the genre

wolfe or lewis?

I'm no kind of book collector -- I mostly have shelves of old paperbacks -- but for whatever reason I was searching around for Book of the New Sun volumes and got seduced by the Easton Press editions. (Leatherbound, but way cheaper than the Centipede Press ones.) I found the first two on ebay and ordered them before I discovered Easton never got around to Autarch -- so the best I can hope for is to have the first three. Oh well. I read them in middle/high school as they were published, and then again in my 20s. I remember the story making way more sense to me the second time through. Looking forward to revisitng.

yay!

please start this up!

gene wolfe's book of the NEWSUN!!!!! reading club

Finished Claw of the Conciliator last night, torn on continuing - the back half of CotC was a slog, the completely tossed-off rape of Jolenta was WTF.

I'm going to guess Poochie/Jonas did not die on the way back to his home planet and will return.

I read and enjoyed Shadow of… but didn’t feel motivated enough to continue, as I assumed (rightly or wrongly) that they would all be on similar lines. I feel like a bad Wolfe reader but I prefer the plotty, early sections to the episodic rambling afterwards.

I gave up after Claw, my first time through, but I’ve since read the whole thing three times and consider it one of my faves. There is a lot to dig into when you steer considering why Sev elides certain events and emphasizes others. I don’t want to get into spoilery and meta theories but do want to encourage folks to keep reading. Someone on the other BOTNS thread, prob Vahid, suggested reading the narrative voice as an oblivious pompous ass and I think that helps, especially in the earlier volumes.

I read Book of The Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun last year and I think they’re brilliant as well.

gene wolfe's book of the NEWSUN!!!!! reading club

it may help to read my posts in the thread similarly

I didn't like Sword and Citadel as much as Shadow and Claw, maybe, though there are some sections in the former as good as anything in the series. Especially that descent in the mountains. Absolutely worth reading imo.