So, in an honest opinion, how is the Book of the New Sun series...

So, in an honest opinion, how is the Book of the New Sun series? I got them a couple days ago not knowing what to expect.

I've never read Gene Wolfe before if that adds any context.

depend on how stupid you are.

this.

if you're an idiot, they're great. if you have half a brain, it will become readily apparent that these books belong at your local salvation army.

Unless you're really perceptive, you probably won't get much out of it on the first read. It'll just come across as a directionless, anticlimactic story in a fairly interesting setting that didn't live up to its potential.

If you're willing to read it three or more times, though, you'll find one of the most rewarding works of scifi of pretty much all time.

t. pleb brainlet who's buttmad he didn't understand the series

To answer your question , OP, i would pick up some of Wolfe's short stories before you dive into TBotNS. They'll give you an idea of what to expect from Wolfe and what he expects from you as a reader.

If you still are going to dive straight in then you should expect to read the series at least 2 or 3 times. Take copious notes and pay very close attention to whats going on.

To give you some guidance, pay attention to recurring references to water, mirrors, fish, death, and the sun (hurr durr)...it sounds like cryptic bullshit but if you get through it and aren't a total pleb you'll see what I mean.

>le_pringles_man_hitting_a_crucifix_inside_a_book.jpg

...

I've found both these to be true.

In a word, you have to invest a good deal of time and effort to come out ahead in the story. Ultimately, I just found myself saying, "Why am I wasting time trying to decode this when I could be reading something else?" And so I did.

I think if it were smoother on its first read (a la Ulysses), it'd be a worthwhile series. But requiring not just one but *multiple* reads for enjoyment? Nah. No one owes any book that much of their time.

you sound like a pleb

to make full use of it you should know:
>newton, special relativity, wave and particle properties of light
>greco-roman mythologies (IMPORTANT)
>the Bible
>greco-roman history along with terminology, latin roots
I don't even know enough to comment on the philosophical aspects.
You may think this is a bit much for sci-fi but it's just that dense in knowledge and allusion, you may know half of this and not even pick up on it if you aren't paying attention. It's a unique experience, honestly. I have not seen another writer incorporate this width of knowledge into genre fiction.

Truly the Revolutionary Girl Utena ((少女革命ウテナ) of the Malazan genre

>curryslut

I don't understand the plebs who complain that it's not smooth and requires multiple readings, because it isn't as hard and a second reading is more enjoyable, but I don't see why it would be necessary.
It's an enjoyable book by all means and has a strait forward plot anyone can understand if they pay attention.

>>greco-roman mythologies (IMPORTANT)
>>greco-roman history along with terminology, latin roots

Nigga this applies more so to the Latro series....

yeah cool

You can understand the plot, but the plot itself isn't very satisfying. You'll be sorely disappointed if you read it just for that.

The surface level plot isn't the plot. You can read it as a straight forward bildungsroman. Yet the true plot only reveals itself once you understand what's going on.

>reddit spacing
look, i don't read genre fiction. i am of an echelon that disdains in such things. you can foam and champ all you like at the pulp fiction you restlessly pose as divine, but it will be eternally clear to people of my stature that time is better spent enjoying the works of geniuses.
i know how frustrating it must be for you, that you feel one must be utterly insane not to enjoy your rather plebeian fare, but you must recognize that your sacred cow is nothing more than rancid muleflesh.

Keep telling yourself whatever you to to feed your ego.

>telling yourself
ah yes, that's why i posted that, for myself. not for anyone else to read. i certainly can't think anything without posting it to Veeky Forums in faix response to reddit garbage genre fiction scumsuckers. without them as my fount of self reflection, i would be drawn and withered, an egoless stone.
or maybe i'm attempting to communicate with someone and shitting directly into their mouths in the process, and there is no necessity for me to post to be certain of my own opinion, as it is with confidence that i think.
it is the sign of a weak mind to project one's need to post for self-confirmation, what a strange thing to do.

Thanks for continuing to prove my point

yes, and thank you for not bothering to fight the easily won argument that Genre Wolfe is of the same artistic quality as iguana piss in a bowl of ground horse dicks.

Just read it honestly
Right not the Veeky Forums pendulum has swung back to "it's shit" because people liked it a bit too much but I thought it was very enjoyable

The prose is good

The only ones who dislike BotNS are shitposters who don't really and asshurt Malazan fans.

"Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." -Samuel Johnson

>implying i said it was odd or that it won't last
i imagine it will become deeply beloved. much like harry potter. it is certainly not odd, that would insinuate some sort of creative uniqueness, at least. there is certainly no shortage of plebeians to enjoy utter trash.

also, i must say that comparing tristram shandy to genre fiction is pretty sad and offputting in its complete avoidance from reality.

All I was trying to say was that (you) are a dilettante bicurious tween with a future as a delirious cuckslave. Now let's get back to talking about Gene Wolfe.

>get back to
i never stopped talking about him. he has less value than a hunk of fossilized dog nuts. he's appealing to a group of manchildren who have nothing better to do than muse on dark souls lore and sycophantically sucking the still undigested corn flakes from Genre Wolfe's jungled orifice of an asshole. you're the one to sully Sterne's name, who let's be fucking honest, is essentially unknown besides a select group of literature fans.

*suck

It's ok, you can stop LARPing now

Literally what the fuck is "reddit spacing"?

A shitty meme, I assume it came from /pol/

literally what the fuck is google or lurking moar?

I finished the first book and loved it. I think the prose is good and it's notably very rich and dense. It's like Dune in which he sets up the world and you fill in the details. Not sure why people think it's difficult desu. There are a lot of strange words but you can figure out most of them through context or just a quick google. Also it's not very long

don't forget your Herodotus !

fuck you she is pure

>Literally what the fuck is "reddit spacing"
It's a term that retards around here throw out whenever someone uses the return key to make paragraphs distinct and readable.

Genre like spenser's faerie queene, that has a fucking robot? Before 19th century realism everything was genre you ahistorical dumbo

Tristam shandy and wolfe's work are some of the greatest stuff ever written ... hopeless philistines everywhere who are so plebby they dont even know it

Hur dur shakespeare wrote lots of genre stuff like the tempest and so did goethe oh huh. Ovid's metamorphosis? Swift had talking horses but allegory ... oh wolfe is allegory sometimes too? Simpleton

While twilight, 50 shades, and game of thrones are widely known. The unwashed masses aren't good enough for sterne or wolfe.

>you should expect to read the series at least 2 or 3 times. Take copious notes

there's no way this series could be worth the time this would take when i could just read something better instead

That's what I wonder.

Even after all that work, is it any good still?

I honestly expect the answer to be no.

It's fucking awesome if you aren't a retard.
Human fate, desire on a dying world, the problem of corporeal existence and redemption, mercy, divine and evolutionary plans, complex characters, strong symbols, allusions ... it's a wonderful book

So then, no it still isn't good. That's what I figured.

Okay i cant fight your ignorant "it isnt good because it isnt good knowledge". Keep on being a pleb I dont care. It isnt for you anyway then.

But dont expect me not to snicker at being a quantitatively superior being aesthetically and intellectually. There may be more than two types of people in the world, but those who cant appreciate wolfe are lowest common denominator philistines to the core. And that's okay. Eugenics arent a thing anymore.

Totally bro, you read a book 4 times and then invent some sub narrative in it to satisfy the need for there to be more to a shitty story. way beyond my capabilities.

The chirping of those who speak from ignorance are less than the sounds of animals. Wolfe's engineered puzzles are rigorous and intellectual. Plebs make unsound theories; patricians solve problems. Proceed on your way to oblivion.

>The chirping of those who speak from ignorance are less than the sounds of animals

Wow....powerful stuff man. I'm going to go cry in my pigsty. I'll leave you be to your millions of dollars and hundreds of bitches your master intellect has gotten you.

It is only right and just.

What is the true plot?

Most people consider 1400 pages to be pretty long.

Spiritual redemption and rejuvenation of humanity.

without a trace of irony?

Irony is for cowards. Wolfe is an unironic and unapologetic Christfag to the core.

Mm.

OK, well, having read Shadow of the Torturer and a bit of Claw of the Conciliator, let me tell you: the redemption/rejuvenation stuff is a significant part of the surface plot. You'd have to be really fucking dumb to not notice it on a first read-through, especially if you post on Veeky Forums and have had a bit of it spoiled and are aware of Wolfe's Catholicism. Come on--is that all there is?

Where the fuck am I supposed to find this shit?

I can never find it in a bookstore or library, and amazon only carries like half of the novels and they're insanely overpriced.

I found the first two books in one volume at Barnes and Noble. I've also seen the third, fourth, and fifth books at bookstores. Never seen any of the later books, though.

What else do you want? There are also the intricacies of how relativity works into some of the weirder parts of the story, the implications of the nature of the language spoken in the Commonwealth which you can learn a fair bit about if you play close attention to a few scenes, the exploration of the influence of stories in shaping lives and cultures and that the entire story is just as much an argument for medievalism as Catholicism. For a science-fiction novel it's pretty dense.

Also Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun add additional depth to the story, and reading Wolfe's earlier work can also enrich your reading experience because several themes that occur throughout the Solar Cycle were already being explored by Wolfe in his shorter novels and short-fiction.

I've only ever seen one Gene Wolfe book irl (The Best of Gene Wolfe in my university's big library). I personally pirated the e-books. I've never felt bad about doing this with books because libraries exist. I think that a lot of the big piracy sites may be starting to die now though so if you want to start doing it might want to get cracking now before it's too late and we all have to buy our EPUBs from Amazon like cucks.

This sounds typical as shit, what the fuck? All this hype and all you can say is that it has something to do with relativity and linguistics? Fuck off.

Bah, I was in there just today and couldn't find it. Guess the one in my area is just shitty.
I prefer to read with something tangible in my hands. But I guess that's what I'll have to do.

I've seen it in there a few times but they didn't have any other Wolfe in stock other than the one I saw on the shelf. I even asked.

if you dont mind used, thriftbooks.com

To be fair, Malazan is about 15x as long and what can anybody say that's about? The best thing I can say about Wolfe's writing is that it's exceptionally dense. Out of all of the 1400 pages of Book of the New Sun I don't think that there's a single one you could cut which wouldn't lose you some vital piece of the greater whole. Wolfe's narrative and philosophy are blended very seamlessly into each other so the story works fantastically as both an adventure and Catholic propaganda.

Do you have a decent e-reader? I find not having paper to always be a bit disappointing but one with a good e-ink display can be just as nice if you get used to it. And before I got my Kobo I used some backlit Chinese piece of crap for years. It's all pretty good once you use it for a while, and the money you save if you read mostly free/pirated stuff is awesome.

Wolfe turned me protestant

I do not give a single fuck about Malazan. I stopped reading your post after the first sentence. Fuck you. You sound like a fucking John Greene fanboy.

That doesn't really mean anything unless you say what you were before that.

Sounds like my Hegel experience, tbqh

>So then, no it still isn't good.
You're correct in the fact that someone who utilizes Facebook-tier speech patterns would be too much of a pleb to appreciate it.

Nah, I've always been a luddite. I probably should invest in one though.
Thanks, might be worth a shot.

You reread it because you want to, not because you feel forced ya dingus.

>lurking moar

This isn't /b/ in 2007, faggot.

Die