One of these threads

Alright, so give me the bottom line.
Is it REALLY that good???
I see quite a few reviews saying it's trash, and some of them even seem to be from fellow genrefags, so needless to say, I'm feeling skeptical.

I bet those people who say it's trash have read it less than twice.

wolfe's best is latro in the mist. Opinions stating otherwise must be discarded

its very good for genre fiction
genrefags hold it as the holy grail but people who like actual literature don't particularly care for it

it's not

Superior Wolfe coming through

>implying it's my fault you got cucked out of life
You can always reroll lmao

Is this like the STALKER game or i am getting my hopes in the wrong place?

>reading on a screen instead of parchment

>not having an e-reader which is basically paper

is this a Wolfe thread or just a lit memes thread?

...

...

saved
It's really that good. A lot of the subtle themes go over atheists' heads. They're able to spot the obvious ones and assume, as is their custom, that those are the only ones.

...

...

Honestly though, it is really an amazing book. Not saying it's necessarily his best, but I think I personally enjoyed it even more than the Stranger and Exile and the Kingdom.

...

...

I don't get it

who does?

somehow it becomes funny again. what is this sorcery?

...

It fucking rules. I know that’s kind of an autistic and childish thing to say but it’s a great and engrossing series. Honestly I think people who can’t get into it are brainlets. My friend was raving about ready player one (which seemingly took months to finish) and I recommended BOTNS to him and I think he read like 20 pages and dropped it

...

...

I've never been fond of genre fiction. Even the 'classics' like Asimov, LeGuin, Wells, etc. I've never felt were worthy of being called 'great'. They are a cut above most other genre fiction writers but when you put them in context of literature as a whole they are mediocre.

Wolfe is different. Wolfe really is one of the great writers of the past century. TBotNS is THAT good, but I'd start with his short stories of The Fifth Head of Cerberus. I personally feel he is the most underrated and undervalued writer in the world today from both a critical and commercial standpoint.

The only other genre writers I'd consider worth reading are Dick and Delaney.

Latro is great, but Peace is the patrician's choice.

STALKER? Certain parts. But if you want to relieve the video game in a novel format you're looking in the wrong place. The Land Across is Wolfe's most political work and it feels like a fusion of Kafka, Borges, Chesterton, and Stoker all rolled into one.

>no nazis
you didn't get it.

This thread has inspired me to do some more Wolfe "Read, Expected, Got" Memes....

What exactly is so great about Gene Wolfe?

Briefly, he's a masterful stylist with unique approaches and applications of modernist techniques. He's a writer of intense precision and laser focused thematic vision who's work is best understood in context of his meta textual and theological concerns. He's a writer who is truly unique. You know when you read a Wolfe story that only Wolfe could have written said story, much like Faulkner or Joyce or Melville. He has a distinct voice and style.

He gets a lot of criticism primarily because he writes almost exclusively in MUH GENRE FICTION and because plebs who think they are smarter than him don't bother to really study his texts, techniques, and vision in detail. A good way to approaching his fiction is from the eyes of a mechanic or engineer (his trade before becoming a full-time writer). A normal person sees something like an engine and can get a base understanding of what it does and its purpose, but unless that person dismantles and examines every single piece and part of an engine, they'll never fully understand just how complex a mechanism an engine can be. Take one cog, screw, or piece out of the engine and it may not work at all. Once one understands how each part fits together in the engine they can understand exactly how it works and why it works.

Wolfe's fiction functions in much the same way. Readers may understand basic plot points and character motivations, but without dissecting his texts down to the important details, they won't understand the totality of vision Wolfe is trying to achieve.

He's a master of the single character perspective and POV.

I can smell a slimey croat here

...

got him!

...

...

It's really that good. Just find out for yourself, user. I finished them over a year ago, and still get goosebumps thinking about the series, which I think about at least once a week, if this is any signal -- and I read around a book a week.

I'm vacationing in New Orleans right now and I can say this book 100% accurate to its portrayal of the city.

lol his name is slaughterdick

I've slotted a few dykes in my time son.

...

It is REALLY that good. People who dislike it can't understand it for lack of intelligence and testosterone

It reads like a legend of the future, as though it is destined to become a Homeric epic long after our civilization has crumbled.

He's a full-on Catholic who writes science fiction in the style of the Bible.

He's a religious war veteran and is greatly knowledgeable about physics, engineering and Greco-Roman civilisation. He also has a talent for writing. Combined, it makes him very unique. He'd work physics or myth or war or theology or all of them into one of his little stories in the book of the new sun, and it would work. He's genuinity born from experience and imagination which clownish armchair writers like Neil Gaiman can only imitate

>mfw I did not read Lolita, but I've read those two manga

Its very much Gaimanshit, no wonder Gaiman loves it. Scenes that change scenes for no real reason, characters with obscure motivations speaking in riddles, and plot that resolves itself with magic and fate.

All of this is absolutely untrue. Either you never read Wolfe or you're a confirmed brainlet.

>no wonder Gaiman loves it
>it's possible to buy a book without a Gaiman endorsement on the cover
What world are you living in? I must be in hell.

I'd have put a dickgirl on the right.

...

Some people love him and some people don't.
It's a very carefully crafted book from the 80s that has a lot of thrashy crap going on typical of the era (like a dude with a naked torso occasionally raping women). Some chapters are dry and others are kind of boring.

Two things I found fascinating was the language (though my favorite books were written in a similar style) and the scale. Like this guy () pointed out, the frame narrative and writing all fit perfectly. Wolfe is not the kind of writer who makes his character spout thoughts on different subjects just to fill in the space. There are so many layers to his writing that if Eco, Borges, Proust or Calvino are your kind of favorite authors, then chances are you might like TBotNS. Most genrefags are too dumb or consumed by the genre memes to care for any of these authors. They rarely notice how an author might just be just ticking off clichés from a checklist to fill the pages, so they care more about plot and characterization.

I still remember how I felt when the whole setting of the book shifted before my eyes after a few chapters and I felt like I was in a fever dream. To name just one petty thing I loved, I haven't read a lot of fantasy but the subtle role and adoration the sword (in a sword and sorcery sort of niche) plays is unmatched by any other author I read.

This other guy () is spot on.

>like a dude with a naked torso occasionally raping women
Are you mentally ill?

Didn't he raped jolenta?

>nitpicking
Sure thing, buddy.

...

People really read that as rape? Bizarre.

there he goes again

jesus christ i can't wait until realism is finally put into the ground and faggots like you feel like the outmoded retards that you all are

This is a great example of Wolfes style. Severian presents his fucking of Jolenta as consensual when the reader is first presented with it. Later on in the series, Severian slips up and recalls how Jolenta didn't really want him. Was it rape? Well, maybe. Maybe not. But Severian clearly hides the full details of what really happened from the reader. Personal opinion is that he did rape her, but Jolenta also didn't resist him much. It was more akin to a drunk college chick saying, unconvincingly, "oh no stop!" As a chad is finger blasting her.

>Even the 'classics' like Asimov, LeGuin, Wells, etc. I've never felt were worthy of being called 'great'.
This. Calling an Asimov book and a Wolfe book classics in the same sentence is a major insult to Wolfe. Asimov books are great sci-fi books. Wolfe's books are great literature.

Quote the passage where he “slips up”. I think sick fantasies are being inserted. Readers abuse the “unreliable narrator” meme. “Was it rape?” is itself a meme.

rape is not a meme, it's a serious crime

I don't have the novels in front of me, but if memory serves me right, Severian presents it firstly as a totally normal consensual relation only to later on let it slip that Jolenta was essentially near unconsciousness due to the withdrawal symptoms she developed after not having access to Talos' drugs any longer which eventually leads to her gruesome death

Severian smashing the pussy is integral to his character, not "trashy" at all. Jolenta was asking for it and probably loved it so not even rape even if she was drugged. I would do it and you would too. It proves that Severian is only a man like the rest of us

You're wrong, he doesn't imply anything of a sort except that Jolenta didn't resist

if you often have to argue that somebody didn't resist in your encounters with women i have bad news for you

it means they love it and you should go harder virgin

I was REALLY disappointed by Dune which was recommended by those fucking genre fags, but you cursed faggots just convinced me to try Wolfe and I sure hope my ass won't get disappointed again.

Now would you please just give me a book name. I want something shorter, like two to three hundreds pages.

The Book of the New Sun
each volume is 2-300 pages and you will want to read them all

...

TBotNS is Wolfes most widely read book and it is a masterpiece, but start with The Fifth Head of Cerberus to see if Wolfes for you. It's just as good as TBotNS only much shorter (it's three novellas which compose one narrative) at about 300 pages.

>manga
Left one's a doujin you baka.

...

It's good though

...

>No mentions of Lem
>No mentions of the strugatsky brothers

No, its not like STALKER. Its a very unusual Wolfe book. It was very invigorating to read because as far as I can tell its one of the few that readers haven't "cracked" yet, if you know what I mean. Like in the way that many of the mysteries in BotNS and Peace and The Wizard Knight have been cracked. There's clearly something going on beneath the surface of The Land Across. I have a theory, but I'm not going to proselytize it until I've read it again.

Its pretenious Veeky Forums shit. If you are here longer than 2 month than you know that you can't trust 90% of the recommendations.

dumb pleb

...

>reading China Mieville
>not expecting reddit

...

Very good

I'm reading this and I feel the same.

is that Brendan?

Can you give me a link?

archive.org/details/AllAboutWomenWhatBigSisterDoesntWantYouToKnowSimonSheppard1998

Holy shit, it actually made me laugh
just read the book