Customer Reviews

Book of the New Sun (Fantasy Masterworks 02) (Vol 1)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Be careful. The first time I attempted reading this book, on the recommendation of a friend, I read a few chapters and finally stopped. I was expecting something else. A fellowship on a quest? Swords and sorcery in full technicolor? A straightforward, but dark, fantasy tale of the future? I'm not sure. It just didn't do it for me though. It seemed to meander without going anywhere!

MONTHS later, I still found this little snippet of book nagging at me. Something there...something deep, dark, and mysterious. Colors, sounds, tastes. Something beautiful, but overwhelmingly sad.

"The play's the thing"

It dawned on me that I had to drop whatever it was that I was reading at the time, and start again and read it without distractions, without assumptions, without trying to shoehorn it into my idea of what a fantasy novel should be. Just let it flow. I am so glad I did.

My advice is to just read it and open your mind [possible (small) spoilers below].

If you don't get chills when Severian dreams his dog is alive again and is sleeping next to him in the field, and he awakes, and finds that it really might have happened...

If you don't smile when you realize the ancient "painting" (perhaps millions of years old) that he sees of a knight in a desert with a visor of gold and a strange stiff banner is probably of Neil Armstrong...

If you aren't shocked at the real relationship between Dr. Talos and Baldanders...

If you find yourself wondering if Severian is actually telling the truth...or maybe he is completely insane?...

etc. etc. etc.

No, it's not for everyone. Try it though. If it is "for you", you'll be so relieved that you experienced it in your lifetime.

Have you ever read one of those books that you keep thinking about a year after first reading it, until you find yourself cracking it open to read it again? This is one of those books, and on a second read it is every bit as enjoyable as the first. Through the eyes of Severian the torturer, we see a far-future Earth under a dying sun, where we encounter a variety of interesting people and strange creatures. We witness Severian's rise from apprentice to journeyman in the guild of torturers, see him banished from his home, and follow him on his journey to a new life in a distant village. Wolfe's prose and diction are often archaic but always beautiful, and his characterization and story development are brilliant. Don't go into this expecting light reading. Severian is a liar. His world is unfamiliar to us, but familar to him. For this reason, he is not going to waste words telling us a great deal about ancient history, which for us has yet to happen. If we are careful readers, we will understand certain things about Severian's world better than he leads us to believe he understands them himself.

Beware of those reviewers who would have you believe that this book is anything less than great. I have seen some say that the writing is dull; they didn't read the same book that I read. Some say that it is full of events that don't advance the plot; Severian tells us nothing that is unimportant. Many people don't pay attention when they read, which I suspect is the reason that those people don't understand a book such as this one (remember that your narrator is a liar). Wolfe is going to make you work, but he rewards you for it. Wolfe has been called the best writer alive, and after reading this beautiful story, I find it hard to believe that anyone would disagree.

SWORD AND CITADEL is an omnibus containing the second half of Gene Wolfe's four-volume work The Book of the New Sun, the novels THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR and THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH. The Book of the New Sun, a work in which science and myth, mystery and enlightment mix, is one of the finest works of speculative fiction in the English language. Anyone who is not familiar with The Book of the New Sun is encouraged to read my review for SHADOW AND CLAW, the first half. Be aware that this Amazon listing describes the UK edition, which is inferior in typesetting and paper to the US edition published by Orb Books.

THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR marks an key point in the wanderings of the exile Severian. The volume begins a few weeks after he has arrived in the provincial town of Thrax, where he performs the duties of a lictor, a sort of double-duty jailer and executioner. Like his exile from the Guild which began the saga, here Severian is soon forced to flee Thrax because he has again shown mercy to a woman set for execution. Over the course of this book, he slowly loses all material comfort as he goes north through the wild and is eventually tempted by a diabolical figure from Urth's past. Obviously meant to symbolize Christ's fasting in the wilderness, SWORD provides through Severian a showing of imitation of Christ. The end of the novel shows Severian as a man who has cast off the role of torturer. THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR contains, as a reading from Severian's brown book, a curious story called "The Tale of the Boy Called Frog," in which the myth of the founding of Rome, the Jungle Book, and the Thanksgiving story have all been combined over the eons into a single tale. Lovers of digging up Wolfe's buried allusions will find a feast in this and other parts of SWORD.

THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH is the fourth and final volume of The Book of the New Sun. Severian arrives in the north country of Orythia, where the Commonwealth is waging its endless war against Ascia. Severian joins a group of irregulars who pitch in to the battle and eventually he encounters the Autarch, whose successor he becomes. Thus, Severian's claim that the Book of the New Sun is the long story of how he has "backed into the throne" is unfolded. The last portion of CITADEL tells of Severian's return to Nessus to claim the throne, and includes of four beautiful chapters. "The Corridors of Time" tells of Severian's annointing by the Hierodules that he may bring a New Sun to Urth. In "The Sand Garden" Severian experiences an epiphany besides Ocean that ranks among the most beautiful religious writing in history. In "The Key to the Universe," Severian recounts the secret history of Time given to him by the Hierodules where Wolfe has wonderfully meshed science and religion. Finally, the last chapter "Resurrection" is penned by Severian moments before he is to board the ship of the Hierodules in order to stand trial for Urth. It contains some suprising conclusions about his role in Time and ends with his returning to the first girl whom he loved.

The Book of the New Sun is a masterpiece, a poetic tale in which the reader is dazzled by Wolfe's style and entertained by his literary allusions. Once one has read SHADOW AND CLAW, the ombibus of the first two volumes, the second half SWORD AND CITADEL will continue to delight until the last word of Severian's saga and the "translator's" appendix.

I read this series many years ago, probably about the time it came out in the early 1980's. Now, with a long daily commute, I'm always looking for good books to listen to while driving. The Audible version of this series is very well done, and the type of book you just can't stop listening to. I find myself transported into the strange and dark world of the future, and I love it! When I read the books, I enjoyed them, but they are dense and somewhat hard to get through. Listening, however, is a gripping experience thanks to the reader, and, maybe because I'm older now and more interested in the nuances and twists in the story, and more tolerant of the weird tangents the story takes, I like it a lot better the second time around. Highly recommended!

As other reveiwers have mentioned, the plot of this book is so involved it is almost impossible to summarize, so I'm not going to try. I've read a lot of science fiction, and literature in general, and I have to say that Gene Wolfe is one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure of reading, hands down. It doesn't matter that the story line is so complicated and sometimes confusing; the quality of the writing draws you in and keeps you captivated. I, for one, could not put the book down, even though I should have been doing other things. You should start with the first book, though, or this one won't make very much sense. Have fun!

This is by far Gene Wolfe's greatest work (I have made every honest effort to like many other of his books and failed completely). It is one of the hardest books I have ever seen to criticize, because pretty much everything said by both its supporters and its detractors is equally true. It falls short of being the masterwork many proclaim it to be, for a variety of reasons.

Its merits are obvious: Wolfe is a very talented prose writer, even if his sentences are too long and too full of dependent clauses. And he is very inventive. Where the book is good, it is so, so good that one wants to read it over and over, just to get to those parts. Some of these incidents and characters have a truly poetic vividness that few writers can approach. Its main virtue is Wolfe's facility for creating extraordinarily memorable, haunting scenes; and it doesn't hurt that he had one incredible idea in making the protagonist a sympathetic torturer, of all things.

The flaws, though, run too deep to overlook. The main thing is that Wolfe is so self indulgent in so many ways. He uses a modernist style of first-person narration, where the narrator cannot be trusted and we are left to figure out the "real" book, if there is one, for ourselves. This kind of thing can be amusing enough, but it isn't what most people want in this kind of fiction. If readers want to play this kind of game they read detective stories, not science fantasy. (And the thing is, these aren't deep or interesting mysteries; when you find out the solutions to Severian's family tree, for example, it is merely trivial and a little disgusting).

By the same token, Wolfe often wastes page after page on scenes that really don't go anywhere or do very much to advance the story. They are just dreamlike images and little else. There are, in fact, multiple "stories within the story" that are simply throwaways; they can be skipped with profit. I suppose he enjoyed writing them, but not everyone is going to enjoy reading them. The pacing is bad enough to begin with, and making the lead character a sort of Lothario adds more silly, unnecessary complications.

This is, in short, a book that would be twice as good if it were half as long. But the reason it falls just short of greatness is that it doesn't have a great theme. When a book takes a relativistic position, as all Wolfe's do, it means whatever you want it to mean, that is, in the end it means nothing.

I do recommend that you try this one out, but only after reading the source materials from which it is utterly derived, in both setting and spirit - Jack Vance's brilliant "Dying Earth" stories and of course Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. It is the dying earth theme, that we live in a world whose best days are behind it, that gives Wolfe's work what real power it possesses, for that is the secret truth behind all great fantasy (and the basic theme of Tolkien, to whom Wolfe is foolishly compared). But the dying earth setting is not Wolfe's, but Vance's, and Smith's. The Dying Earth books or the Zothique tales are a much better investment of your time. They are the opposite of Wolfe: the compactness of Vance and Smith will give you more in a thousand words than Wolfe can give you in a thousand pages.

This book is incredible, make no mistake about it. The story is rich and powerful and all that good stuff. The thing is, there is one thing that's a little ridiculous about it, and I'd like to expand upon that, as it's more entertaining than listing its numerous positive qualities.

Specifically, the dude bones freaking everyone he comes in contact with. Seriously, if there is a woman anywhere in this book whose initial description doesn't include the words ugly, old, wrinkled or fat, you can bet that he'll be doing the no-pants dance with her in about as much time as it takes to describe her career and culture, and possibly to extricate her from some unsavory situation. He's like the Captain Kirk of the dying planet, no exaggeration whatsoever.

Indeed, the character's amazing ability to ply the entire female gender out of its collective underclothes gives rise to a notable incongruity in the storyline. Without spoiling too much, in the first book there's a woman who he wants desperately, her being a gorgeous lady of high class, but he's specifically warned against impregnating her, even should she offer herself, lest there be political entanglements. At no time during his initial encounter with her does he mention any sex, but later on he describes in some detail how he was with her numerous times. Perhaps I'm just missing it, but it seems that this man is endowed with the ability to take women RETROACTIVELY!

In spite of, or perhaps in part because of these little niggles, the Book of the New Sun is an enthralling read. Even a fast reader will take the better part of a weekend to finish the whole thing, and is practically guaranteed to lose sleep in order to see it to its conclusion. I know I did.

I love science fiction, and I love fantasy. While I do not read often and do not know a great deal about the current 'scene', I do know a good story when I read one.
On the strength of reviews read here on Amazon, I decided to purchase Book of the New Sun volumes 1 and 2. Big mistake!

This novel is incredibly slow. The author paints a rather oblique objective world in which scene by scene passes by without any reader involvement whatsoever. I have literally struggled over the past several months to read 100 pages. Having read the blurb, I feel this novel does not really deliver the fantastical world or story at all, rather, we are treated to page after page of forgettable feedback. I honestly feel like I am reading the journal of a mental patient from the 17th century. I am sorry to be so negative about it, but I do feel that the author (who apparently has some degree in engineering - how apt!) has given much thought to the plotline, I cannot help but think that this novel is in need of major editing, not to mention an overhaul of its entire storytelling approach.

Wolfe has butchered his own story but taking any and all magic out of it. There is no magic here, no life, and the protagonist appears to have zero presence whatsoever. If you are anything like me and want to be gripped, page to page, whether it be a powerful story, a well told story, or something interesting and different, then you will not find those things in Book of the New Sun v1 or 2. Unless you are a hardcore sci fi/fantasy buff, avoid these novels.

I've also been reading Sci Fi and fantasy for a long time and have never run into such a long, tedious, plotless bag of nonsense in all that time... until I started reading, then skimming then ignoring this book.

I think this book is a product of the 'All form, no substance' school of writing. Dark moods, sullen characters, irrationally placed tech; be honest, did you learn anything useful about the world, yourself or others from reading the series? SOmetimes simple entertainment is good too. The world described in this series is not worth visiting.

Remember, you aren't immortal. Start with masters (real ones, not those dubbed by book marketers) Heinlein, Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Anne Cafferty, Herbert (father and son) are just a few; when you've run out of all of them, maybe read this series.

Sorry to be such a downer, I like a lot of different books and ideas. This one offended by wasting my time. I can get some of my money back but my time can never be replaced.

This is four novels in one volume.

The story takes place one million years in the future of Earth (Urth). The sun is red, cool, and dim. The author does not say how this happened. According to contemporary astronomy, a red giant earth would reach to the orbit of Mars, engulfing the Earth.

Apparently, Earthlings long ago settled other planets. At some point, however, most of society sunk to a medieval level both socially, morally, economically, and technogically. However, the rich and the powerful maintain contact with other worlds and purchase their technology. So, most persons and battles deal with swords. Some soldiers have 'spears' that fire 'bolts' of 'energy.' This and other matters are only hinted at and rarely if ever explained.

The dialogue and characterization is frighteningly boring. The events narrated do not always further the plot, giving the book an eerie, stream of consciousness-like feel, when it is not overwhelmingly tedious. Every character is stock: the ignorant but tough adventurer, the cunning charlatan, the vain beauty, the frail and needy woman, the stupid giant, the eccentric ruler, etc. Some characters disappear in the middle of the story for no apparent reason.

The main character is a member of the guild of torturers. They live in the gigantic capital city of an empire. For a misdeed, he is exiled. He has a variety of adventures, after which he becomes the ruler of the empire. Exactly why he became emperor is never explained.

The main character has a variety of "encounters" with most all of the female characters of the novel. Twice, he put himself in serious danger for their sakes.

The details of the various scenes of the book are sometimes highly interesting, like the one in which a particular extraterrestrial beast uses the voice of the people it has eaten to entice others to let it into the house. But the tale as a whole was very disappointing. From the beginning of the story one knows that the main character will be emperor. He is imprisoned and nearly killed uncountable times, but always makes it. Every woman desires him, but he is ineffably modest. The story seemed to be an awkward patchwork of vignettes that suddenly stops. The characters were not endearing. There are a variety of irritating loose ends and unexplained developments.