For me, line by line this was perfection. I went into New Sun with a lot of trepidation about it being super bleak and impenetrable only to find a shockingly enjoyable and warm read. It just really hit right.
On to the next one! ( )

This book is incredibly odd. I started it months ago and just finished the last few pages today, but what I remember of the book is this: the plot is terrible, but the writing is occasionally fantastic. There are some really interesting points throughout the book, most of which are a result of Severian's philosophical musings and conversations, and are a direct result of the personality Wolfe builds up for Severian. The story itself, however, is extremely mediocre to the point that reading the book is like trying to find literary gems in the rough. That being said, the gems are probably worth it, and if you're the type of person who likes reading what essentially amounts to surrealist literature, I'd recommend the book. It is also incredibly literary and dense, probably more so than any other science fiction I've ever read. ( )

Oh I did not like this. Plotless, meandering, boring. I truly do not understand why people hype this book. UGH ( )

Difficult to say what I think about this book. Lots of depth in imagery, language and narration. Reading other reviews, I understand that one needs to read all 4 books, to really appreciate. I'm determined to do so. ( )

DNF @78%, but will be returning to the text in the future


With a heavy heart, an autistic meltdown, and a disproportionate amount of grief and frustration with myself, I had to call this, regardless of how close I was to the end.

I just couldn't get beyond the misogyny to the apparent greatness here and know that Severe ADHD X audiobook didn't help. I'm not saying the book/ anyone who loves it is bad, and, like, the years of attempts and trying and failing it took me to *get* my beloved Dark Souls, which has led to probably over a thousand hours across various FromSoft games that have been an indescribable boon for my mental health, I will return to the text later. In the same way many read such meaning into The Book of the New Sun, Dark Souls and so many other things I enjoy are not free of their issues, and I would not deny or denigrate anyone's critical enjoyment of anything that is important to them. Hell, I had the same reaction as Willow to 1Q84 (https://tinyurl.com/2dkvex3w), but absolutely adore KDBook's joy and confusion and glorious chaos energy to it too (https://tinyurl.com/hvktj64y). Just as I appreciated Liene's perspective on The Book of the New Sun (https://tinyurl.com/2243x78h) and I am very intrigued by my own feelings on Babel when I get to it and how I relate to Willow and Liene's polar opposite (judging by thumbnails) views on it.

Books with problematic elements can still be works of art, even if that element isn't something a prospective member of that audience cannot get past. The Joys of Subjectivity. I am not attacking anyone or their favourite works and authors--I wish I didn't feel the need to make this explicitly clear when it should be implicit in everything else I have said, but I have seen the Murak-army and Wolfe Soldiers unleash their big-brained hate and denigration on anyone who doesn't agree with them, particularly any not cis male who takes umbrage with the misogyny, so yeah. Love the books, many people of all genders do and don't like them. It's OK to not like them, as it is to like them. It's just worth acknowledging the misogyny and male gaze for what they are.

Hopefully, I will have a better time next year. We shall see!

If you are still overly upset by this please remember I am an unreliable narrator.

I've been getting back into and reading more sci-fi these days and really enjoying it. I've heard a lot said about The Book of the New Sun series and what I heard was always "it's one of the best sci-fi series of all time that really sci-fi fans know about" and then "don't ask me anymore until you read the book". So the fans care about the reading experience and that says a lot. So my review will follow that similar pattern of no spoilers but a few tidbits of help that might help you in deciding to read it or in your reading.

The story is told from a first-person perspective from our main character, Severian. He is part of a guild of torturers (him in training) who are tasked not with the extraction of information but just carrying out torture and executions in this world. Wolfe also has this higher metanarrative concept from him that the autobiography of Severian is given to him through some sort of time travel means. While not actually central to the story this helps further build the lore of the book.

Just a straightforward reading of the book makes one believe that this is a typical fantasy setting and even most of the book artwork you see has that old-world feel to it. However, this book takes place far, far into the future where it does seem that adage, that almost is never true is true here, "technology looks like magic from some perspectives". So here is your hint, dear reader, to look for things that seem like they are out of place in a fantasy story are supposed to be there because you're in a sci-fi story. So there are maybe elements of aliens, robots, clones, and maybe other sorts of sci-fi elements there.

Another interesting concept that I haven't had much experience with is the possibility of Severian being an unreliable narrator. After watching some discussion videos on just this first book, I'm not sure if Wolfe is writing Severian as unreliable or just adding in aspects that we, ourselves, use in our everyday talk. "I have a perfect memory of this incident" and then later you say you didn't remember this one thing happening isn't necessarily a "liar revealed" trope. However, this is only the first book. Severian is telling the story from his position as leader of this world and that's another element I missed until I saw it come up again in the book later.

As for the story, the plot is there and it is interesting but it's the way Wolfe unfolds the world you're seeing and experiencing through Severian. Not everything is explained to you because Severian doesn't have your context to explain why "this picture" or "this structure" is the way that it is because of a) Severian limited experience based on his position of this Torturer and b) to Severian those items aren't of note in his world because they've been there or are just there. Wolfe does a great job of crafting this story and he does have two, almost three, different layers to this story. I get why hard sci-fi folks like this because to get a lot out of it you need to put in the effort of paying attention and asking questions of you to what you're reading. I gather re-reads of this book are common for fans and multiple reads still reveal new questions or observations.

This story stuck with me after finishing it almost a week ago now. That's usually how I know something that's a good slow burn is there to stay in my mind. Just now getting into a bigger world of sci-fi than I have before I'm kind of surprised I hadn't heard about this before. Whether this is post-modern sci-fi or hard sci-fi or fantasy with a veneer of sci-fi is up for discussion but the story is just plain good. I will continue this series and believe I'll go on enjoying it. Final Grade - A ( )

Great work of fantasy. Gene Wolfe's use of language is incredible, and I'd probably read pages of him describing how toast is made. Bit slow going at first but the story really picked up right at the end. I look forward to reading the next volume about Severian. ( )

The tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim -- and follows his subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.

So this week may not have been the appropriate week to read this book. Like, by a long shot. This week may have even been one where I’d have had trouble digesting something simple and YAey since we had lots of family drama, which usually (and this time, too) leads me to indulge in weird daytime TV that mostly involves HGTV and little else.

SO. I read the first half of this pre-drama, enjoyed it but didn’t really look too closely at it, which I gather is not the way to read this book. Then drama happened, I took a day or two off from reading, and came back to it a bit lost. I gulped the second half of the book down today with the frequent periodic outbursts of a video gamer cursing at his game coming from my husband, and I totally did not understand the significance of anything that happened. Woo. From about where we met Dr. Talos, I felt like the whole story took a loop for the genuinely odd, and while I got the greater riffs of the story I don’t really see what was so significant about them or whether I should continue on. Sigh. ( )

From the highly regarded science fiction /fantasy author jointly responsible for the creation of Pringles crisps, comes an epic and elusive cross-pollination of Ursula LeGuin and Christopher Priest.

A lot has been said about this series, most of which is overwhelmingly positive. It's so rare for a book to live up to its hype, especially when it comes to epic fantasy, and I really hoped this would. Granted, these are impressions of the first book in the series only, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

The prose is its ultimate strength, often making it a pleasure to read in spite of its convoluted diction and archaic terminology. Wolfe knows how to weave a sentence, and there is many a pretty turn of phrase.

Unfortunately, the characters are terribly drawn, including our protagonist. They are rarely described on a visual level, let alone revealed on an internal level. I wouldn't have been able to predict or refute any decision made by anyone because I did not know who any of them were. I knew their names, but nothing more. Some like Roche and Drotte could easily have been merged into a single character; similar with the masters. Our protagonist is detached and without passion, and I blame that on the voice of the author; that it is meant to be emotionless and impenetrable is not an excuse (should it be presented as one), because all the characters have the same issue. They are names on a page, occasionally rising to the status of cardboard. The women are particularly poorly presented. The possible exception is that of the theatrical Dr. Talos, who is just animated enough to set himself apart from the rest of the cast.

The world building is at least what it claims to be - original and well thought out. This, combined with the novel and seemingly implied concept of an unstable narrator, lays an interesting foundation, though I didn't find myself as drawn in as much I would have liked.

Still, there are sparks that show promise, and I intend to check out the next entry before dismissing the series. A further pull comes from my mild to moderate curiosity, the annoyingly abrupt ending, and the fact that I already own the next 3 books.... So, you know, may as well. ( )

This feels akin to an acid trip. Starting off in an enclosed and understandable space, it then opens up to the bizarre and surreal. You slowly begin to understand that this is very much the beginning of a high fantasy story, so the many questions that build up become much more palatable. Still though, one of the more thought provoking books I’ve read in a while. I was surprised by how many philosophical insights were sprinkled throughout. ( )

I like the prose style. ( )

This was a very interesting read. Gene Wolfe creates an absolutely fascinating world on the page with each word he chooses - and he chooses well. He writes excellent prose. My only problem is with how the female characters are written, an all-too-common problem in fantasy and science fiction. In this case, I'm not entirely sure if this is a feature or a bug, so to speak. I also think that it's a pretty slow read, so I chose not to continue on to the sequel. ( )

I like Gene Wolfe's books and I respect them a lot. I've always considered the fact that I don't love them (except maybe the Death of Dr Island collection) as a failure on my part. I don't get emotionally caught up in them.

Shadow is picaresque, not as humorous as many, but not as grim as it might seem given the point of view is that of a journeyman torturer. The setting is (or appears to be, since this Wolfe) a far future Dying Earth set up, combined with a Gormeghastian massive citadel that the protagonist barely gets to the edge of in the first book. Companions are collected, but I make not assumptions about how many will still be there with the next volume.

Like a speaker who needs no introduction, the Book of the New Sun is a series that needs no recommendation. Read it. ( )

I could barely get through the book. Did not find it an enjoyable read. ( )

When this book first appeared back in the early 1980s, I disregarded it, as fantasy wasn't my thing and this definitely looked like fantasy. But then a number of people whose opinions I respected said that it was worth reading, and so I relented. And of course, it isn't fantasy, but a story set in a distant future when the sun is dying and human civilizations have lost all sense of time. We don't find this out immediately, but Wolfe's world-building is so clever that he gradually gives us clues as to where we are, both in space and time. Humanity has been to the stars and come back, and mainly forgotten what it did out there. So despite what looks like a classic fantasy setting, despite there being figures with swords and archaic speech, the reader has to keep alert, because references to 'pistols' almost certainly mean energy weapons, and 'ship' may refer to a vessel on the water or one travelling to distant suns.

The first time I read it, I seem to remember not really grasping the objective of the book, and the power and achievement of the author only sank in as I progressed through its sequels in the series making up 'The Book of the New Sun'. But that was more than 35 years ago. Recently, I was browsing some back issues of an academic journal and came across a series of papers on Gene Wolfe and his novels; and I thought perhaps I'd better revisit these books, and catch up with what else he'd written in the same universe later, whilst I still had time. Think of this as a bucket list read, then.

So what do we have here? On the face of it, a simple story. Severian is an apprentice torturer, of the Guild of Torturers in the great Citadel in the city of Nessus, which may be somewhere in South America or possibly South Africa. He may be destined for high office in the Guild, until the day he betrays the Guild and allows one of those committed to them to be subjected to excruciations to take her own life and thus escape her fate. For this, he is expelled from the Guild; but it is politically convenient for him to be sent to the distant city of Thrax, where he would take up his duties as their resident torturer and so expiate his guilt to the Guild. This first book tells Severian's story up to the point where he reaches the gate in the city wall of Nessus.

You will gather from that description that we are not looking at a high-powered, thrill-a-minute adventure story. Neither are we talking about a novel of horror, despite the title, though there are accounts of Severian's trade which discuss the calling of torturer with some degree of professional detachment. Rather, we are shown the society of the city of Nessus, its inhabitants, and get an insight into what living in such a society might be like. Along the way, we have the benefit of Severian's inner musings; he is telling his tale in hindsight, reflecting on his history. Severian is not a cruel man - indeed, if he were, he would not have been allowed to become a torturer, for torturers are not allowed to take pleasure in their work - but he gives clues that he may be an unreliable witness.

But if there is little action (though the story does advance in terms of the people Severian meets and the situations he gets into - fighting a duel, falling in love, carrying out an execution and starring in a play), the description of the setting is memorable. The city seems huge to Severian and its ways strange, he having been sequestered in the Citadel for most of his life; so he is something of an innocent abroad, and everything is new to him. And above all that, the dying sun casts its feeble light. The descriptions of the scenes and settings are reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast', but this is a sombre setting, its colours and shadows reminiscent of the English painter Joseph Wright, renowned for his canvasses of contrast between light and shade.

I enjoyed this start to my re-read, and am looking forward to the next volume in the series, 'The Claw of the Conciliator'. ( )

On the book itself, I doubt I will be able to say more than others have (certainly I won't say it any better). There are reams of deconstructive groups, books, essays, etc.

What I will say is this - Gene Wolfe is everything that modern readers are being taught to hate - subtle, thoughtful, introspective, unusual. He breaks all the rules because most of the rules probably don't matter; you really can do what you like as long as you do it well, in writing.

Increasingly the writing advice I see being given to authors and editors alike is to basically write/edit everything in super active phrasing at the expense of actual prose, and to create a series of hooks with an incoherent plot (ie Frozen, Tomb Raider in films; Name of the Wind in Patrick Rothfuss) because this sells better despite a total lack of payoff. But hey, who cares, because you sold a million copies and you're the next Dan fucking Brown or 50 Shades of Shite.

I respect Gene Wolfe for not treating his readers like they're incurably stupid, and being self-assured enough to not worry that at times he provokes a bit of a marmite reaction. To the book itself - I loved it, even if I'm not clever enough to get every reference, or to follow every argument. ( )

I love these books so much. They are far-future fantasy, ruins on ruins on ruins, everything crumbling but the winking light of hope suspended between ancient trees and crumbling towers. They give off Dark Souls vibes. Also, the audiobooks are incredibly peaceful. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of Shadow, only to be confused by the direction later on. The story itself and the characters were interesting -- meandering without a focus as Severian wanders. ( )

This is a 5500 word essay on a reread of the full TBotNS, focusing on the narrative trap Wolfe has set, and my theory that his literary sleight of hand serves a religious/mystical goal, much more than it is the supposed puzzle for the reader to unravel. There’s also a short section on free will, and it ends with my overall appraisal of the book’s enduring appeal.

(...)

Even though Wright might be right in spirit, Aramini’s law still holds: “One of the most fascinating aspects of the critical discourse surrounding Wolfe involves how infrequently any two people will agree with each other.” That is because Wolfe has indeed set a trap – but his trap isn’t there to catch readers unwilling to question their assumptions in a post-structuralist way… The trap is there to catch post-structuralists and puzzle-solvers altogether. To understand that, I’ll have to turn to the Spiritual.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It ( )

The start of a wonderful, dark, meandering, and ultimately transcendent tetralogy by the recently deceased Gene Wolfe. I've been holding off on reviewing these books, but I'll make an effort to marshal my thoughts in the coming weeks. In the meantime a quick piece I drew in tribute to this great author, and this series which has been rattling around in my brain for the last few years.



( )

This was an excellent book. It is a challenge to read because it gets confusing between what is real versus what is a dream and what is Severian's experience vs his "excellent" memory. I really enjoyed the little clues indicating when this book takes place which allows the book to straddle genres: is it fantasy or is it science fiction? I suspect I am going to need to read it again once I complete all four books in The Book of the New Sun and the final fifth book The Urth of the New Sun. A challenging yet rewarding reading experience. ( )

There isn't much torture in this, in spite of the title. The friend that recommended the book warned me about the worst and it was a nasty piece of work. But, it was past tense and that made it less horrible. It was something that had been done, not something that was BEING done. The other incident was introduced and then jumped to carrying the "client" back to their cell.

It took me a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the writing style. But, I think that was just my head when I started. I intend to read the rest of the series. ( )

I am not going to review this book because I have no idea how I feel about it and I don't think the book is complete at all. I am going to read the next book to see how the story pans out. Also I am possibly going to add to this review ( )

Torturous indeed.

I read this book years ago, but time has not dulled the hatred that arises within me whenever I come across it in my previously read list.

Unfortunately, when I start a book, I'm compelled to finish it. Trying to complete this one though was agonising – the plot and writing was boring, and the female characters were sickeningly obsequious. How on earth this is a classic is beyond me. ( )

Well that was a bunch of nothing wasn't it ( )