Is it really on the same level as Lord of the Rings though?

Is it really on the same level as Lord of the Rings though?

irrelevant

No.

it's a completely different type of book, they just both get grouped into speculative fiction

This and Tales of the Dying Earth (the way its written and the many archaic words) I actually found were more challenging compared to lotr
I'm not smart or a good reader yet lotr is just a young adult book with a lot of pages, even when I read the silma afterwards it had the same shallow depth as the "deep" lore in morrowind
Languages were interesting enough though

Nothing is. But this is next in line.

I've finished the first 2 books and no, it isn't as good as LotR. It's a good book but I don't understand why it's held in such high regard around here. Probably just because it's a good book that doesn't make any of the top fantasy lists so Veeky Forums likes it.

Because Gene Wolfe's books are full of puzzles.

I think the same, but the more I read the comfier it gets. I don't get why it's held in the highest of high regards though, I can't explain why it should be, but then again I was never a huge fantasy fan.

BONTS is good and intricate but I wouldn't say it has the same emotional resonance as LOTR, it's more like if Borges actually wrote a novel.

Far surpasses it.

LotR is a compelling read, but it offers no philosophical insight. It may have been the first such story, but it still is Star Wars tier: Good vs evil, and all the characters (except Bombadil maybe, so obviously he was cut for the movie) are defined by the side they are on.
This book offers nothing to ponder on for one’s own life, because reality is not as simple as Middle Earth: There is no pure good, there is no pure evil. Decisions are hard.
Personally, reading LotR makes me feel hollow, because it makes me miss something to fight for, something to believe in. This is what gets people into political extremism. But that doesn’t make you happy, it doesn’t solve your life.

Meanwhile, The Book of the New Sun contains a world more similar to ours. Is Vodalus good, or evil? Is the Autarch good, or evil? These are questions from the beginning, and the story offers a funny resolution. And then it’s not even about this conflict.
Severian on his journey is not looking to become ruler of the world. He is not looking to attain anything specifically. He is trying to survive – and trying to be a good person. He is finding out what is right and what is wrong – to him.
I think Gene Wolfe is right to identify this as the road of a Philosopher King and Meschia.

>LotR is a compelling read, but it offers no philosophical insight.
Fuck you

cringe

This is why I hate pseuds.

its an edgy young adult novel that is insanely dated (its basically an anime) but it's way more enjoyable than LOTR

>its a young adult novel
i can actually agree with this

Who is more pseud?

Lotr isn't written all that well, but it's much better than Bots. I seriously can't figure out why you guys meme it so much. Why should I be impressed by an unreliable narrator when I'm not interested in the narrator? Severian isn't Humbert Humbert. I stopped reading the books around the time they put on that play, so maybe I missed something, but I doubt it.

It's a fun ride with lots of brilliant moments, but I'd say alot of its best moments are buried in the small details. If you're not really into it though then you needn't bother.

Alot of people seriously overstate the books depth and complexity, sure there's lots of subtext but it still makes it's case pretty damn clear by the end. All the tidbits are really just supplementary

>dude heres my fanfic
>ok basically right the main guy is a fucking torturer for the state with no empathy and hes 6 feet tall also he wears all black and a mask
>then like he meets this wicked hot girl and starts to feel again because of her and one day hes gonna break her out of prison but bottles it so he lets her kill herself,its really sad
>now he has feelings and shit right but his boss is like go on an adventure lol and take this massive sword (think cloud from final fantasy, you know the on I mean)
>OH also he has DANK fighting skills so he kills everything and gets tons of pussy throughout the book(s)PLUS this cool gem that heals shit using TIME
Not saying its not fun to read but you gotta take it for what it is.

Sev does display empathy before he event met Thecla you retard, and I'm the one agreeing it can be considered YA from a certain perspective.

You are incapable of reading it as a play on the tropes of pulp fantasy with most of the content being outside of the bare plot, which seems to be the only thing you understood.

Ah, the "It is bad on purpose" argument.

It's not even bad on purpose, it's you having the most retarded reading possible where you ignore everything except the superficial in a novel that has an unreliable narrator.

>Ah, the "unreliable narrator exempts bad writing" argument

They have different strong suits.
Both inspire a sense of enjoyable mythology, but for LOTR you admire the in-universe myth, while Wolfe makes you appreciate other existing myth.

I know
It is not a play on tropes whatsoever

Botns has a less compelling plot -the motive force of the novel is the characters. Gene Wolfe writes more psychologically complex characters than Tolkien (I would here emphasize that Severian is reliably unreliable. He is an attempt at rendering a person who wants to tell the story as it happens but, and this is crucial, he is ashamed of how he comports himself at times.)
BoTNs is largely about why salvation along transcendental lines is necessary. (Wolfe is Catholic as hell). Typhon, Baldanders, The Autarch, Vodalus -all represent worldly, and thus necessarily flawed solutions to the world's problems, the answers they provide/typify are all however functional/attractive -they have an enduring appeal. LOTR -which is certainly more exciting- portrays good and bad with little psychological complexity -evil is reduced to greed.
Botns is not Wolfe's best, I prefer Book of the Long Sun or Peace or Latro, but it is far from a young adult novel.