Gene Wolfe?

[Belgarion]

I am going to read Gene Wolfe next. Is he any good?

I purchased the whole series of "Something something....Sun or Dying land" whatever!

[ezchaos]

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[Belgarion]

Is that a face emerging from the leaves?

Looks evil.....

[lacorte]

I agree that's deffinately a face. As for the books, they're great. Took me a while to get into them but once I got going I just couldn't put them down.

[ezchaos]

That's why I'm wearing a mask-you just can't tell what's going on in there.

[Belgarion]

Cool Avatar!

Looking forward to read Wolfe.

[Llama]

THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is excellent.

It's not necessarily an easy read, though, particularly if you haven't read Wolfe before. These aren't light fantasy books by any means.

http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm

[Belgarion]

That's the series I have acquired. Thanks, I couldn't remember the name of the series!

[Cadfael]

I agree the Book Of The New Sun may take a while to get into... he has a very distinct writing style... but if you can gel it is a brillant series IMHO. I nicked the sword 'Terminus Est' from this series...

The follow up series in another matter... I was bored to death with the first book... and I just could not face the rest of them... maybe I should give him another go?

[jfclark]

The Book of the New Sun, the first series, is, as you've said, absolutely unique among fantasy/sci-fi literature. It's got a stunning secondary world, intricate puzzles of identity, numerous layers of mythological and religious metaphor and a dense, sophisticated prose style designed to make you read slowly and reread often.

The Book of the Long Sun, the next series, is (somewhat tangentially) related to the world of the New Sun sequence. It is also wildly different in scope, style and atmosphere. It is an even slower series than New Sun; most of the plot is developed through dialogue between the main characters (identity isn't so much of an essential element of the story as in New Sun) and all of the events occur in a much more compressed time frame. It's therefore got a languid pace, but I found it to be beautifully written, evocative and (as it proceeds) quite moving. It's so different from the New Sun books, though, that you can't be blamed for not liking the former even if you loved the latter.

The Book of the Short Sun, the third series, is a direct sequel to the Long Sun series. However, the styling and characterization present yet a third approach for Wolfe. There are some intersections also with Severian's world from New Sun. This series was, in my opinion, better than Long Sun but with twice the intricacy. It's a three-volume literary puzzle built around a reverent exploration of human identity worthy in my estimation of some of the 20th century's great fiction-writers (Joyce, Nabokov, Borges).

I'm currently rereading The Book of the New Sun to try to unravel some of the puzzles encoded into the book as well as to relive the intoxication of the first read.

[orty]

Try doing an internet search on Wolfe. You'll come up with some really interesting stuff. There has been quite a lot written about his series. It's very thick with mythology and philosophy. Heavy stuff. Enjoy

[milamber_reborn]

I know someone who likes him. He read Feist and liked him, read Wolfe and liked him more, I got him reading Jordan afterwards and he loves him.

[Belgarion]

JfClark,

Wow, I'm impressed with your analysis. I am even more hooked into reading Wolfe now!

If I can get through Stephen Donaldson's two series of Chronicles of TC, then surely I can handle the prose of Wolfe.

[Rob B]

Wolfe is a bit more dense than Donaldson's TC books. Not bad, but different.

This is a set of books (BOTNS) that almost demands more than one reading. When I eventually get around to picking up the sequel to the series, The Urth of the New Sun I will give the series a re-read.

Not a set of books to skim over, no wasted words or things to easily interpret (ahem Brooks), but a piece of LITERATURE that Wolfe produced that can be enjoyed on a word-to-word sentence-to-sentence basis.

JFClark, Cadfael and EEEEEEVil LLama did a nice job of summing up the series.

[Belgarion]

Thanks Fitz, I will have a look at the summary of the books. It is nice to read other people's views as I value their opinions highly.

This is the backbone of this website.

Keep up the good work!