Saw pic related at my school library and considered picking it up. Does it live up to the hype or is it just a meme...

Saw pic related at my school library and considered picking it up. Does it live up to the hype or is it just a meme? Why is this book so highly regarded on even on Veeky Forums where people generally shit on genre fiction? What does it do right that similar books dont?

>Why is this book so highly regarded on even on Veeky Forums where people generally shit on genre fiction?

cantbeserious

It's sci-fi with a solid literary bent and many layers, but it's alot more straightforward than people meme it to be.

It's basically the EYE Divine Cybermancy of Sci-Fi.

its one of the few memes out there whose hype is justified.

try it out for yourself. it is not very difficult from the first chapter alone to see that it is very unique.

Meme pushed by impressionable teenagers trying to impress each other. I stopped about 8 chapters in. NOT REMOTELY GENRE-FICTION.

It left me feeling cold and empty. I don't care how delicate the prose it, or how many times you have to reread it. How could anyone enjoy reading that crap?

>NOT REMOTELY GENRE-FICTION
Man you can't be serious. It's a sci-fi series pretending to be fantasy.

But it's nowhere near as profound (or even as well-constructed) as people make it out to be. All the Catholic stuff is overstated too. Still good though.

Not even close to a sci-fi or fantasy in the traditional sense. If Keeping Up with the Kardashians was set in the year 3000 would that make it a sci-fi?

Perhaps, if technology and society of the year 3000 played an important role in the story. I'll bite, what is this "traditional sense?"

The setting doesn't push the plot forward. Pretentious musings and an unreliable narrator do.

>Does it live up to the hype or is it just a meme?
read it and see.
but you'll have to read it twice, it's pretty deep and doesn't hold your hand.

>What does it do right that similar books dont?
language, setting, plot, meaning/philosophy, everything is just well crafted. Wolfe is a good writer.

I really, really, really dsilike this cover.

Man you read like 8 chapters. There are fucking aliens and seers and shit later on. There's a cyborg, and magic space drugs.

I can understand disliking the book, but to say it's not genre fiction based on some classic criteria which you refuse to define is bullshit

Why don't you read it and find out you massive fag

Yes
Cry about it

>There are fucking aliens and seers and shit later on. There's a cyborg, and magic space drugs.
Oh true. That's an reassuring, but if the narrator remains an annoying creepy fag then I'd rather read some actual genre-fiction where i can project myself onto the MC.

Read some Lafferty you simpleton. Science is another word for knowledge. Science-fiction, real science-fiction that is, is writing stories which encompass what we/the individual writer know. With Book of the New Sun Wolfe isn't just writing about the future super-king of Neo-Argentina. He's writing about Catholicism, war, memory, identity, society, politics, biology, conflict, the book is Wolfe giving the world everything he's got in that genius brain of his, only he's so good to us that that wasn't enough, all of this hard earned knowledge and experience needed beautiful and intricate packaging to be worthy of presentation. That's what Book of the New Sun is. That's what science-fiction is.

Severian is probably the least self-insert protagonist in the history of genre-fiction. If that's what you're after why not just read some boring hentai? No shortage of faceless non-characters in enviable situations there.

Also, seriously, if you stick with the series Book of the Long Sun has one of the nicest and most personable heroes in fiction. Of course, however, the Solar Cycle only gets denser and weirder as it goes on so it's never quite easy reading. But again, if you want easy reading go on Sadpanda and search 'Vanilla'. You'll be set for life.

>He's writing about Catholicism, war, memory, identity, society, politics, biology, conflict
That's what I was hoping for. Instead what I got was some fag obsessing over a dead dog he found.

>if you want easy reading go on Sadpanda and search 'Vanilla'.
I've never bothered to learn how to use Sadpanda sadly. I am resigned to using nhentai.

>dead dog
Does the fact that he found a dead dog which stopped being dead after he touched it not strike you as remarkable? It's not a slow-burning story. Shadow of the Torturer kicks into the main narrative in under 100 pages. By fuckhuge genre series standards it's a rocket ship racing tortoises. If you're finding yourself bored this easily download Cold Turkey and block Veeky Forums while you still have some spark of intellectual curiosity left in you.

It stopped being dead?
Damn nigga. I thought that was just him narrating things like a fag. I might actually give it another shot.

Severian does narrate everything 'like a fag' end to end but the whole story is full of things like that. There's what Severian writes and there's the real story. He won't share everything he knows and he also doesn't know everything. With a bit of careful reading you can easily spot a mountain of subtext and hidden meanings. The second reading is much more enjoyable than the first because of this, but even the first offers plenty to appreciate for the not retarded.

Indeed. I was listening to the audiobook so I have have missed some things.

DElet this

>but if the narrator remains an annoying creepy fag then I'd rather read some actual genre-fiction where i can project myself onto the MC.
>If I can't like the character's personally it means they're a shit character
Jesus Christ

Honestly the most pleb post itt

I struggle to read, what choice do I have? Also, I can listen to audiobooks anywhere, while doing anything. The only problem is that during sad parts of books, I can become a dick to those who are trying to talk to me.

>him narrating things like a fag