The Gene Wolfe thread - In Sneed's Jungles

[Sexual Chocolate]

Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was a father of four, Korean War veteran, Pringles potato chip engineer, and the greatest fantasy/sci fi author these United States have ever produced. He's been called the Herman Melville of science fiction, but I would compare him to JRR Tolkien on account of his most famous work, The Book of the New Sun.

BotNS is a sprawling, mythic tetralogy documenting the strange adventures of Severian, a young torturer cast out by his guild for the crime of showing mercy to a client.

This is Gene Wolfe at his most heavy metal, and most sublime. The setting is pure 1980's metal album cover kino, with torturers and witches living in a medieval citadel whose buildings are ancient spaceships. There are ape-men and monsters guarding hidden treasures in forgotten catacombs, miraculous relics that can raise the dead, and the Autarch has an elite guard of topless flying chicks carrying laser pistols.

Illustration by Dr. Ronald Chevalier

But if this sounds shlocky, it's not. Wolfe was a master storyteller, his best works are palimpsests, full of subtle allusions and lacunae hinting at the even grander and stranger plots operating in the background. You could read BotNS twenty times and still find something new on the twenty-first reading. He uses words like a medieval gemsmith reverently choosing the most scintillating jewels to adorn a holy reliquary.

And those words can give the new Wolfe reader the idea that BotNS is a "difficult" read.

His eyes were refulgent, brighter than any woman’s. He mispronounced quite common words: urticate, salpinx, bordereau.

It's not that difficult, we've just been fed a literary diet of TV dinners all our lives and Wolfe has laid out a real banquet. It's worth persisting with his desuetudinal lexicon because it's fun, and a major part of the incredible atmosphere he brings to Severian's world. Wolfe is challenging but never frustrating. It's good to be challenged, sometimes, by what we read, for how else can we learn? And grow? And grow to appreciate the finer things. There are no finer authors than Wolfe.

So it would be a mistake to focus only on Severian's journey. Wolfe wrote several other great novels, and my favorite of these are collected in The Book of the Long Sun.

Enlightenment came to Patera Silk on the ball court; nothing could ever be the same after that. When he talked about it afterward, whispering to himself in the silent hours of the night as was his custom—and once when he told Maytera Marble, who was also Maytera Rose—he said that it was as though someone who had always been behind him and standing (as it were) at both his shoulders had, after so many years of pregnant silence, begun to whisper into both his ears. The bigger boys had scored again, Patera Silk recalled, and Horn was reaching for an easy catch when those voices began and all that had been hidden was displayed.

BotLS is also a four volume epic story, this time concerning Patera Silk, a young cleric who was born in a massive generational starship that has been traversing space for so many centuries, the inhabitants don't realize they're in a spaceship. Or that their long journey is about to end.

Long Sun is far less baroque in its language, but more narratively satisfying imo. It's often referred to as a lesser work to BotNS, but I think that's a mistake. It's a more accessible story, yet its depths are just as cavernous and filled with mysterious treasures as Severian's cycle.

I could sperg for much longer but that's probably enough for an OP. What do you think, dear reader? Have you read Gene Wolfe yet?

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I could sperg for much longer but that's probably enough for an OP. What do you think, dear reader? Have you read Gene Wolfe yet?

BoTNS and Cerebrus are on my TBR.

 

[Grotesquependulum]

One of my favorite parts of the setting is how alive and lived in it feels, despite the sun and human civilization in regression. The in-world mythos reminds me of R.A. Lafferty's Past Master, where the meaning behind stories and imagery get warped overtime, but you can still trace things back to the original. Like with the painting of the astronaut. I can't think of another series that does sword and sorcery in scifi this well. I will say one writing choice I did not like was that Severian will begin a thought and then totally derail himself, only to finish the thought later in an offhand comment. I get that it helps establish his character as he narrates, but it was still pretty annoying.

 

[Privilege Power Hour]

Very glad this thread finally got made! Wolfe is fantastic, and very glad to see more people getting into him. If anyone reading this is on the fence, I second the OP's advice that they aren't nearly as hard as the memes you see online say they are. You'll get a great experience your first time as well, and do not need to read multiple times and listen to three different chapter-by-chapter podcasts and read multiple secondary sources on Reddit and in print by possible schizophrenics to get the general idea of what Wolfe is going for. Go in, be patient about a lot of things not being obvious, and enjoy yourself. BotNS is where I started and is great if you just want to jump into the deep end, with Fifth Head as a good first choice too if you don't want to commit as much. I recently finished Sorcerer's House for the first time since I had never read any late Wolfe and it was a lot of fun, though I feel like I must be missing something about the very end since it seems a little too on-the-nose. Could be a fun first read for some lighter Wolfe.

BotLS is also a four volume epic story, this time concerning Patera Silk, a young cleric who was born in a massive generational starship that has been traversing space for so many centuries, the inhabitants don't realize they're in a spaceship. Or that their long journey is about to end.

Long Sun is far less baroque in its language, but more narratively satisfying imo. It's often referred to as a lesser work to BotNS, but I think that's a mistake. It's a more accessible story, yet its depths are just as cavernous and filled with mysterious treasures as Severian's cycle.

I liked Long Sun a lot the first time through, but not as much as New Sun. Then the final 100 pages of Short Sun was one of the most emotional things I've ever read and made Silk one of my favorite characters ever created. He very clearly planned both together and meant for them to comment on each other.

 

[TheBridgeburner]

Nice to see a thread for the Pringles chad. Absolutely loved BotNS. I had a reread planned after I'm done with the Xeelee Sequence.
Ideally while also consulting Urth of the New Sun this time around which I hadn't before.
The slow realization of what's up with things like the painting of the "staff bearing knight" in the beginning and peeling off the facade of Severin's narration
Which also sadly means that it's 1) hard to recommend without giving too much away and 2) that it's hard to translate into any other medium. It does work exceptionally well as book.

with Fifth Head as a good first choice too if you don't want to commit as much

I haven't read anything by Wolfe other than BotNS but I've been curious about both Fith Head as well as Soldier of the Mist. How do they compare (if you read them)? I gather the setting in both is a bit more grounded?

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

I've been meaning to read him for quite some time, but I don't know what order to read his huge multiple interlinked mythos in, nor the best place to get his books as complete series. I have a bunch of used editions from the 70s-80s, but no complete arcs.

Any advice on where to start the odyssey through Wolfe's oeuvre?

 

[Shig O'nella]

I've been meaning to read him for quite some time, but I don't know what order to read his huge multiple interlinked mythos in, nor the best place to get his books as complete series. I have a bunch of used editions from the 70s-80s, but no complete arcs.

Any advice on where to start the odyssey through Wolfe's oeuvre?

I'd start by trawling ebay etc. Start with the first series you complete. /sneed

That bit from Captain Obvious out the way ...

The book of the new sun tetrology. It really is a complete masterpiece and it'll take you a while even if you're normally a speed reader. It's one you need to think on for a while.
As far as missing books goes - you got a library in town right? Use it.

 

[Privilege Power Hour]

I haven't read anything by Wolfe other than BotNS but I've been curious about both Fith Head as well as Soldier of the Mist. How do they compare (if you read them)? I gather the setting in both is a bit more grounded?

Fifth Head is far more contained since it's just three novellas, each about 80-100 pages each. Been a while since I read it, but I remember the feeling of it being very tightly written with very little time wasted (not that Wolfe wastes your time in his other books.) Never read the Latro books.

Any advice on where to start the odyssey through Wolfe's oeuvre?

For something shorter, Fifth Head is a good starting point, though it doesn't connect to the Solar Cycle (the big overarching mythos you're talking about) directly, just when Wolfe is thematically reprising his whole career in Short Sun. Otherwise just start with Book of the New Sun and take the big plunge. It starts with Shadow of the Torturer if you've got old editions, or Shadow and Claw if you've got the omnibus editions as they're sold nowadays. The edition doesn't matter since the text hasn't ever been revised or censored, just go with your favorite cover.

 

[oldTireWater]

I'll be honest, I didn't care for the books of the Long Sun, and thought the New Sun series was mediocre. However, the Latro series was amazing and most of his stand alone works are very good. I think The Devil in a Forest and Pirate Freedom would have to be my favorites.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

I haven't read anything by Wolfe other than BotNS but I've been curious about both Fith Head as well as Soldier of the Mist. How do they compare (if you read them)? I gather the setting in both is a bit more grounded?

It's been a while since I read Cerberus but I remember finding it a little drier than his solar cycles. It was Gene Wolfe's breakout book and I liked it, there's Wolfian concepts he later fleshes out more fully in New Sun and other works. I don't find myself re-reading Cerberus though.

Soldier of the Mist is excellent. It's set in Ancient Greece so definitely a bit more grounded than the far future of Severian, but it's brilliant. Latro is a very sympathetic main character, one of Wolfe's best. He tells his story in a way that takes you into the mental worldview of a man living in 479 BC.

So, there are gods, magicians and lycanthropes, and the world of Latro is one of superstition and wonder. A lot of historical fiction fails because the characters are just 21st century people in costume, but Wolfe has the imagination to show the ancient world on its own terms, treating their beliefs seriously, with characters who are believable in that setting - even though it's somewhat fantastical.

But it never forgets to be an adventure story. It reminds me of a high IQ version of Casca, the Eternal Mercenary. Wolfe doesn't look down on pulp fiction, he takes the best from pulp and synthesises it with grander creative ambitions.

But I would also recommend Wizard Knight

This is Wolfe's most accessible major work imo. It's deceptively easy to read, as simple to follow as the Arthurian legends it riffs on. But as always with Wolfe, also read the story between the lines - it's heartbreaking and beautiful.

 

[oldTireWater]

Something I'll say for Wolfe is that he embraces his characters natures and settings. If they're good people in a contemporary setting then their morals and behavior match. If they're sketchy and in a setting with different values then he's unapologetic about their raping and murdering. He doesn't pass judgement on his characters.

 

[JON CENA]

Has there been a wave of people getting into Gene Wolfe recently? I just finished the first six books of the Solar Cycle (reading Lake of the Long Sun currently), and I’ve been seeing a lot of Youtube videos and forum posts made just in the last year about the series.

Funnily enough I learned last week BotNS is apparently one of Sam Hyde’s favorite books; I’m not totally surprised because the MDE crew in general is very big into surreal fiction (the artist formerly known as Jace Connors was a huge Michael Kirkbride fan).

Also worth noting there’s a lot of great fan music inspired by the setting, including some great dungeonsynth. The first track really hits the “mysterious degraded space empire” vibe of the first few books.

 

[VM_]

The solar cycle is mostly an alchemic/kabbalistic allegory of the transmutation of man into a light being (the sun), reaching the highest sphere of Kether (crown = autarch) during his cosmic trial in order to resurrect and regenerate the earth into a new cycle. Yesdod means foundation, and the earth is malkuth - the lowest sphere. He passes the trial, which means he transcended the rest of the spheres (allegorically speaking) and reached the final one in order to become the sun. This whole ordeal was a cosmic initiation managed by the alien gods (ascended humans) from the pleroma. He even literally fuses with his Jungian anima/alchemic white queen (Thecla) through a eucharistic ingestion, fights an alchemic Salamander and the two-headed inverted alchemic rubedo in Typhon - an obvious demiurge/satanic archetype.

 

[Moral plague]

I bought the first book of short sun a year or two ago after a reread of New Sun and Long Sun, and I've been meaning to read it. The appearance of this thread is clearly a sign from the Outsider that I need to read a book before I turn into a fucking nigger.

Funnily enough I learned last week BotNS is apparently one of Sam Hyde’s favorite books; I’m not totally surprised because the MDE crew in general is very big into surreal fiction (the artist formerly known as Jace Connors was a huge Michael Kirkbride fan).

That's news to me, and makes me wonder what other obscure stuff they have in common with my interests. Spooky.

 

[JON CENA]

I’m reading Caldé of the Long Sun at this point and I’ve been listening to different ambient synth albums while going through the series, Onto the Three Whorls and Beyond by Halindir absolutely hits the mystical science fiction feeling of the Long Sun series. Also heavily recommend the Minecraft Volume Beta album for the same reason.

That's news to me, and makes me wonder what other obscure stuff they have in common with my interests. Spooky.

It’s fairly weird because I never heard about Gene Wolfe before this year outside of vague references to Shadow of the Torturer that I must have heard from Sam Hyde, but Wolfe’s fandom intersects with a ton of stuff I’m into. I’ve been a fan of MDE for over a decade and have pretty mixed feelings on Sam to say the least, but the whole crew has very good taste in art and literature. It’s pretty clear when you listen to them talk why they’ve been able to corner a pretty underserved market of Millennial and Gen Z men.

And for the Elder Scrolls fans in the thread, Michael Kirkbride and Kurt Kuhlmann apparently bonded over a shared love for Gene Wolfe when they were working at Bethesda so it’s pretty safe to say Morrowind is also downstream of him as well.

Yoshitaka Amano, the guy who’s probably best known in the West as the Final Fantasy concept artist also drew the covers for the Japanese release of BotNS.

 

[Glyphs0997]

It's been a while since I read Cerberus but I remember finding it a little drier than his solar cycles. It was Gene Wolfe's breakout book and I liked it, there's Wolfian concepts he later fleshes out more fully in New Sun and other works. I don't find myself re-reading Cerberus though.

Soldier of the Mist is excellent. It's set in Ancient Greece so definitely a bit more grounded than the far future of Severian, but it's brilliant. Latro is a very sympathetic main character, one of Wolfe's best. He tells his story in a way that takes you into the mental worldview of a man living in 479 BC.

So, there are gods, magicians and lycanthropes, and the world of Latro is one of superstition and wonder. A lot of historical fiction fails because the characters are just 21st century people in costume, but Wolfe has the imagination to show the ancient world on its own terms, treating their beliefs seriously, with characters who are believable in that setting - even though it's somewhat fantastical.

But it never forgets to be an adventure story. It reminds me of a high IQ version of Casca, the Eternal Mercenary. Wolfe doesn't look down on pulp fiction, he takes the best from pulp and synthesises it with grander creative ambitions.
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But I would also recommend Wizard Knight
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This is Wolfe's most accessible major work imo. It's deceptively easy to read, as simple to follow as the Arthurian legends it riffs on. But as always with Wolfe, also read the story between the lines - it's heartbreaking and beautiful.

I read the Wizard Knight earlier this year and i think it'll be my favorite thing I read this year. I agree it's more approachable than BOTNS and less of the literary allusions went over my head. In like the last 20% or whatever when all the pieces start to fit together it kind of broke me. It's incredibly bitter sweet but a well earned ending. I really loved it

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I read the Wizard Knight earlier this year and i think it'll be my favorite thing I read this year. I agree it's more approachable than BOTNS and less of the literary allusions went over my head. In like the last 20% or whatever when all the pieces start to fit together it kind of broke me. It's incredibly bitter sweet but a well earned ending. I really loved it

Wizard Knight's on my radar simply because it looks fun. Wolfe seems to be one of those writers with a dedicated following.

I do hear that he's considered one of the great "what-ifs" by high-lit snobs on /lit/ because "he just rehashed existing SFF settings and etc".

 

[Troon Petty and the 41ers]

Holy shit a Wolfe thread

I like the different Wolfe podcasts as occasional background noise, but I don't put much stock in their theories. A lot of what those guys say, at least the one guy on Rereading Wolfe, is essentially trying to come up with the wackiest theory that has some level of logical consistency, even if it doesn't contribute to the world or narrative. They'll go on an aside for 90 minutes on something Thecla said about Father Inire, which can be fun in moderation. There's clearly a ton of layers and I don't think it's possible to unravel everything unless you're Mr. Wolfe himself, and he ain't around to tell us. Especially since he was clearly fucking around at some points just to amuse himself, like

Spoiler: minor New Sun stuff

after Little Severian gets vaporized by Typhon's death ray thingy, Sev stresses that he never did any gay shit, buuuut, Jolenta and Dorcas definitely explored each others bodies when he wasn't around and it's such a shame he didn't get to see it.

I liked Long Sun a lot the first time through, but not as much as New Sun. Then the final 100 pages of Short Sun was one of the most emotional things I've ever read and made Silk one of my favorite characters ever created. He very clearly planned both together and meant for them to comment on each other.

The ending of Short Sun made me cry. Everything that Silk, Horn and all the people of the whorl had been through, how flawed and fundamentally human they were, even the inhumi. I haven't read anything of his aside the whole Solar Cycle, but I have a collection of his short stories that I want to get to. A lot of the copies you can buy new online seem print on demand and kinda crap quality, and that's a shame.

 

[Moral plague]

Just finished rereading BotNS, about to start Urth, before rereading Long Sun, and reading the next series. Always a good read, and as the OP said, always realizing new things on subsequent reads.

Especially since he was clearly fucking around at some points just to amuse himself, like

Specifically what makes this funnier in-context is what Severian has to say about a certain leech-barber toward the end of Citadel of the Autarch.