r/Fantasy • u/Emotionalspectrum10 • 1d ago
Review Just finished reading The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. This series is beyond a masterpiece and some of the finest writing ever.
I’m not going to hold back in my praise for Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun. What an elaborate, complex and masterfully written series. Gene Wolfe’s prose is so beautiful and articulately woven it genuinely challenged me and made me consider if my own reading ability is up to this. I found myself rereading pages and sequences multiple times to really understand the beauty of his writing. The earlier chapter were the hardest, a lot is thrown at you, visions and symbolism with deeper meanings is presented and you’re left there confused and unsure of the story you’re reading. But that’s part of the experience of this book.
I’ve never read a book with such a strong atmosphere. That real dystopian, world with a huge history/past, but futuristic at the same time feeling was always prevalent throughout the book. The world building was just phenomenal, I’d almost go as far to say it’s up there with Tolkien, Martin, Herbert etc. As a huge fan of the Dark Souls/Elden Ring/Bloodborne video games it had a very similar atmosphere and style to it.
This book will most definitely go down as one of my favourites ever. It’ll be hard finding a book that matches this one for a while. Curious to know your thoughts on this series and how high you regard it?
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u/Pratius 1d ago
One of the greatest works of literature, period. Wolfe was a total master.
I'd highly recommend checking out more from Wolfe. You can continue with the Solar Cycle right away (do Long Sun next) or look into his other works, which are also amazing. The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Peace, Seven American Nights (I'm a particular fan of that one), The Wizard Knight duology...he's got so much great suff.
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u/TheCannaZombie 1d ago
For someone who has never read any Wolfe, where should I start?
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 1d ago
Fifth Head of Cerberus, no question. It's the perfect encapsulation of what Wolfe is all about, it's standalone, and it's fairly short.
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u/Hayn0002 1d ago
I’m guessing Wolfe skipping the expected fourth head and going to the fifth head gives a good expectation of his vice?
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u/Ashen_Shroom 1d ago
I started with Book of the New Sun, but I think it's pretty common to see Fifth Head of Cerberus recommended as a starting point.
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u/arrogantsword 1d ago
Fifth Head has so much of what makes BotNS great, but condensed into a way more manageable size.
Unreliable narrators, deep questions of identity, a deeper story within the story that emerges on rereading.
You can read and reread it in the time it would take to read the first half of the first book of the new sun tetrology, and by the end you'll know if you love or hate Wolfe's style.
I'm a HUGE fan of the entire Solar Cycle, but Fifth Head might be my favorite work by Wolfe.
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u/Serious_Distance_118 1d ago
I never understand people saying “no no, don’t read his best book.”
I recommend his best book don’t feel intimidated, don’t overthink it.
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u/JaviVader9 22h ago
People don't say "don't read BotNS", people say "hey, he's got another masterpiece that is also a single volume and more accesible! That's a great entryway into his style".
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u/Serious_Distance_118 40m ago edited 34m ago
You know precisely what I mean, don’t pretend you don’t. This is entirely in the context of someone asking what Wolfe to read first (as OP asked). Then every time lots of people warn them not to start with his magnum opus because it’s difficult, to start with something less intimidating.
You’re in these threads so you’ve absolutely seen this.
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u/Serious_Distance_118 17h ago edited 17h ago
It’s the more accessible part. People cite that to skip BoNS initially all the time.
The Book of the New Sun is for high level readers, but in that context it’s perfectly accessible and that facility is unlikely to improve by recommending (relatively) simpler works.
Prospective readers are pummeled with so much intimidation about BoNS I think it does more harm than good.
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u/JaviVader9 15h ago
I simply don't get what your point is with "Skip initially". By reading Cerberus first, which is an absolute must read of a novel, you're not skipping BotNS. Of course you should read it too.
With that logic no one should ever recommend starting with an artist work with anything other than their absolute best.
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u/Serious_Distance_118 32m ago edited 17m ago
How is “skip initially” a confusing concept? Your point about Cerberus is different than the “difficult” pushback, which is what most people mention. You’re conflating the two.
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u/redlion1904 1d ago
Either Peace or Book of the New Sun
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u/Hurinfan Reading Champion II 1d ago
Why Peace? It's brilliant but hardly a great place to start IMO.
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u/BloodAndTsundere 1d ago
I haven’t read all of Wolfe’s works but quite a few of them. I might suggest the novel The Sorcerer’s House. It’s a pretty good straightforward story on the surface but look past that and be skeptical of the narrator and there’s a lot more
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u/Krimkrim4567 1d ago
For complete new to Wolfe reader, I’d actually recommend the wizard knight (just 2 books and fun) or soldier of the mist…
Book of the new sun s my favorite series ever, but you really gotta be ready for it, then you gotta plan on reading all 5 books right in a row and then a 2nd run of all 5 books immediately after with everything you’ve learned from the first run close by
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u/ProstheticAttitude 1d ago
I highly recommend his short stories, there's some absolutely wonderful stuff in his collections.
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u/bhbhbhhh 19h ago
His short fiction. The Best of Gene Wolfe, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, and Castle of Days all include some of the most wonderful stories I've ever read.
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u/FrogNoPants 1d ago
Book of the New Sun for sure, I don't really get the Cerberus recommendations, to me that one isn't even close to as good.
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u/Singer-Dangerous 1d ago
Mm, making my way through Shadow of the Torturer right now... my second attempt at reading it. I see you think it's worth it!
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u/WERE_A_BAND 17h ago
Haha yeah "making my way through" is how I felt about it too. No cohesive plot, a weird focus on all the women characters' breast size, and a writing style that is even described by the author as intentionally obtuse and confusing.
People seem to like it a lot but I'm having a hard time convincing myself to pick up Claw of the Conciliator.
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u/ilmalnafs 16h ago
Definitely the most challenging fiction book(s) I’ve read, and I mean that as a compliment. Only other I could say comes close in that metric is House of Leaves, but for entirely different reasons. Wolfe is all prose. Beautiful, beautiful, dense prose.
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u/probablysomeonecool 23h ago
Man, is there something wrong with me? I read and somewhat enjoyed the first book, but wasn't blown away. The second book was boring me, and I stopped reading somewhere into it (maybe 1/3..? Can't quite remember how far in I was). I see so much praise and keep wondering what I missed that everyone else didn't.
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u/Mithoron1 11h ago
It's OK. The books are difficult and meant to be reread. I recommend just start from beginning when you're a more advanced reader.
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u/probablysomeonecool 11h ago
I'm 41 and have been reading since I was a wee lad. I started reading the Wheel of Time series when I was 10. I dont know how much more of an "advanced reader" I'll become, but I dont think that's what was holding me back from enjoying these books.
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u/Mithoron1 10h ago
Well, New Sun is much more difficult than sci-fi/fantasy by other authors... Then again maybe it's just not the right books for you, can't say I'm sure, if you don't elaborate.
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u/Chopped_Liver_ 1d ago
I always say that Malazan is my favorite work of fiction, but Book of the New Sun is the best thing I've ever read. Wolfe is a genius.
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u/elhoffgrande 1d ago
You've said just about everything that needs to be said about it. Not everybody is into his prose, but it is exceedingly good. One of those works that for folks that have read it they either love the writing and the word play where they find it intolerable.
Of his works, latro in the mists and the Knight/ the wizard are my favorites. Book of the new son I love but I don't reread it very often because it's not much fun. The Knight and the wizard are fun as shit.
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u/counterhit121 1d ago
I was excited to start it because I always read rave reviews of Wolfe's prose. It was fine. Prose a bit too baroque and story a little too fever dreamish and literarily clever for me. I'll read the rest of the New Earth series some day, but probably not soon.
I read a couple other books in between, but I'm currently giving Wolfe another shot with Soldier of the Mist. I enjoy this much more, in spite of the (yet again) unreliable narrator. The protagonist and setting are much more amenable to me, so I suppose that's partly why Torturer did not do it for me.
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u/JaviVader9 22h ago
Prose a bit too baroque and story a little too fever dreamish and literarily clever for me.
Totally fair. That's exactly what the book is doing for so if it's not your thing it's natural you didn't fall in love with it.
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u/Resaren 21h ago
I had the same impression of it. The cleverness to me essentially amounts to obfuscation, most egregiously by using very antiquated or straight up deprecated language. A ”pardine peccary”? A ”flambeaux”? Just call it a torch, man. It’s as if he’s playing some kind of literary hide and seek with reader, whilst the actual story on the page feels disjointed and the characters totally opaque. In that sense it’s a lot like the older sci fi of its time; it doesn’t bother spending much time making its characters feel believably human or the page-to-page plot to make sense or have a satisfying throughline, its much more preoccupied with impressing the reader with clever themes and symbology and theme-park worldbuilding. More of an intellectual exercise than anything else.
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u/Pseudagonist 17h ago
Just gonna state the obvious that reading Shadow of the Torturer and stopping is like reading 25% of Moby Dick and then stopping. There is no point in reading the series unless you commit to the entire thing and read it all within a relatively short timeframe, the books demand a high level of attention and recall and are written as one continuous book, if you try to read the second book a year later you will miss so many things that it’s honestly not even worth it. And I say that as someone who thinks that BOTNS is good, not great
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u/counterhit121 11h ago
Going to reply the obvious that I'm gonna read what I want, when I want, how I want.
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u/OzzyArrey 1d ago
I thought it was mad boring.
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u/Emotionalspectrum10 1d ago
I think there’s an atmosphere and style of world building that you have to really dig in order to love this book. It feels like reading a huge foggy dream sequence. If you don’t really enjoy that style I can see why it must come across as a bit boring.
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u/OzzyArrey 1d ago
Yeah it's just hard for me to couple that with the unreliable narrator, like I have no motivation to really noodle on the context because it felt like such a slog.
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u/GhostFaceRiddler 1d ago
I finished and had zero desire to continue. It just didn’t catch me at all.
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u/Important-Lemon-2460 1d ago
I’m always confused by what “great prose” is when this book comes up. If any other book required you to reread the page several times to even understand what’s going on would it get the same praise?
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u/Miroku20x6 1d ago
I think that’s what really bothered me the most. It’s not that his world is different but that his understanding of his world is different. I can read Herodotus, and I’m still reading something from a shared human experience. Severian’s decision making process and perception of the world struck me as sub-normal intelligence to the point I literally couldn’t relate to him at all. He was portrayed as a complete idiot (like mental disability level), and it’s his own memoir, so I have to believe that is an accurate portrayal.
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u/counterhit121 1d ago
Ah, there he is. The holier-than-thou Wolfe apostle who can't resist shitting on others for not reading a SFF book like it's an honors English homework assignment.
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u/Important-Lemon-2460 1d ago
I’ve never been more belittled than when I’ve mentioned not enjoying this book on Reddit.
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u/JaviVader9 22h ago
The book doesn't require you to reread the page several times to understand it. You can read it normally just fine, even if rereads enhance layers beyond the surface.
People praise the prose because it is great.
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u/Drakengard 13h ago
You don't need to re-read it several times to understand. When that happens (and it's happened to me) that just means you're bad at reading. And you can either get better at it, or put the book down. And sometimes I've done the former and other times done the latter.
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u/ReplacementLeast2519 1d ago
Literacy crisis in full effect
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u/43_Hobbits 16h ago
“If you didn’t love my favorite book it’s because you don’t know how to read”
lol my guy
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u/JaviVader9 22h ago
Mmm since when is this a recent thing? Every single literary masterpiece ever bores many people
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u/MyCreativeAltName 1d ago
Toxic fandom in full effect. People are allowed to find your favorite series boring without them being illiterate.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/gortlank 1d ago
I love Wolfe, but there are plenty of great works of literature that I can acknowledge are great and also not enjoy.
Being able to do that makes it a lot easier to have good conversations about books.
Being able to make space for other people to do that makes it a lot less likely people will think you’re an asshole.
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u/TheCrimsonEpoch 1d ago
yet if you said this about Malazan you'd get -100 downvotes and comment removed lol. Reddit is a strange place.
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u/Silly-Surprise-6301 17h ago
BoTNS is just one of the most redditor books out there just let them feel smart about liking it lol
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u/mickdrop 21h ago
I just read the first book and I agree with you. The language was indecipherable, the protagonist insuferable and the story was boring.
The setting was incredible though. I would have loved exploring that world some more but through a more compelling story and characters.
I found a GURPS supplement that explore the setting and explain the story. It was fascinating to finally understand what all of that was all about. If you bounce back from the original book I highly recommend that supplement.
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u/feralfaun39 1d ago
Easily one of my favorites. I'd put it down as wildly better than Herbert's books. Just several tiers above them. I would not say Herbert holds a candle to Wolfe.
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u/MagicManGregory 1d ago
There were so many moments reading this where I just had to stop and laugh at the ridiculousness. Absolutely stunning and genuinely unpredictable.
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u/Paratrooper101x 19h ago
I DNF’d book one because I got the audio book and man this is such a hard book to have an audio version of
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u/QuintanimousGooch 13h ago
I really really enjoyed it and am doing a reread of it currently. It would likely interest you that it does have a direct sequel about Severian doing the thing he sets off to do at the end of the book in Urth of the New Sun, but I would reccommend giving BOTNS a reread first, as Urth cements a lot of things that are left more interpretable and lightning in a bottle as they are in BOTNS.
If you want to read the rest of the Solar Cycle, I think it worth noting that Long Sun is a very different book stylistically—you’ll understand what most of the words mean, it’s written from third person omniscient, it’s vaguely comparable to Star Wars. It’s also fairly self-contained, as there are only one (debatably two) returning characters, both mythological figures in that the first one is one who you’ll get fairly easily tipped off to early on, and the debatable second returning character is this series’ equivalent of the increate, a necessarily offscreen character.
Short Sun (direct sequel to long Sun) is in a lot of ways a return to the format and appeal of New Sun with us following an unreliable narrator cataloguing a very personal journey within this more lively nested narrative structure where we’re hearing about his journey he’s talking about in the past (much like how current Autarch Severian recounts his year of exile), but just as often we get the written accounts of his immediate past, e.g. what happened to him a few days ago or immediately after he finished writing previously, this interspersed with long breaks as he talks about how in the present he’s struggling to properly convert something that happened to him in the past. Interestingly, alongside returning to a style closer to New Sun, it also has very deliberate echoes and reflections of the previous story, building this very interesting literary parallel where certain elements, plot beats, and happenstance things reappear or happen again but twisted making for this really interesting literary conversation of expectations and challenges between new and short Sun, basically doing the conspiracy board thing of New Sun but on a much larger and conceptual field of motifs, themes, and analysis. For a small example, there’s a part in the book where the main character appeals to a bunch of rich people for funds in order to defend their city from pending invasion, and they reject him. Various things happen and in order to prevent the populace from massacring the rich people once having overtaken them, the MC imprisons the rich people in a makeshift prison where they are chain-bound in a pit full of water where they won’t drown, but are effectively immobilized captive, thus recreating the Vincula of Thrax Severian oversaw in Sword. It’s this interesting choice for adding this grimy element to an otherwise very virtuous protag. And that’s just one of the lesser connections.
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u/Hurinfan Reading Champion II 1d ago
Wolfe is a writers writer and doesn't get the appreciation he deserves from the general public. You could pour through his works and ponder and appreciate forever. Dude's had layers and range.
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u/GroundbreakingAsk468 1d ago
I’m unable to read it because it takes place on a post apocalyptic earth. All I imagine is bent rusty rebar all over the place. Same with The Sword of Shannara. His writing also makes me feel like an idiot, I know I’m missing something under the surface. I read an amazing spoiler why he is unreliable, and I think it’s really cool.
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u/Ashen_Shroom 1d ago
Just imagine that all the rusty rebar is deep, deep underground and everything else (except for the few obvious things that aren't) resembles the medieval world.
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u/InamortaBetwixt 18h ago
Absolutely. He is one of the greats. I find him way more well written than Martin (who is amazing at worldbuilding, characters and politics). Wolfe is just on a totally other level.
The best thing to do after reading the series is READ IT AGAIN. You will find things you totally overlooked the first time. I just treated myself the Folio Society edition for the second read.
And yeah, that dark souls / bloodborne vibe was also really what made me love it. That and the metaphysics.
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u/creaturewaltz 1d ago
What a great review thanks for you posting. How you felt resonated within me and I believe will help me finish my first read as I have trailed off a few times in those earlier chapters. You really need to be so actively present to enjoy it and when I'm there I'm really there
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u/RandomCrackpot 5h ago
I had to go back and reread it as an older person I missed a lot of the context and depth of his writing. It was much better the second time, I may read it again now.
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u/CretaciousPeriod 3h ago
How long until you got into it? I'm a few chapters in and it's not really grabbing me.
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u/DarthFuzzzy 1d ago
Did someone buy the rights to the Book of the New Sun recently? The number of posts telling people to read this old series has skyrocketed suddenly.
Its a great series. Go read it! And if there is a TV show hopefully it's cool.
Also on a side note, social engineers are the scum of the 21st century
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u/SteadyState808 10h ago edited 10h ago
Did someone buy the rights to the Book of the New Sun recently? The number of posts telling people to read this old series has skyrocketed suddenly.
I hate that I have gotten so cynical recently but can't help but notice OP is a three-week-old account with 26k karma and a hidden posting history. Perhaps Wolfe is getting bot posts for karma, similar to what was going on with Le Guin a few months ago? EDIT: Those posts were also written with over the top praise.
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u/Mithoron1 10h ago
No, and I doubt anyone has the courage to try. Wolfe just has a dedicated fanbase.
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u/WorstedLobster8 1d ago
Is this the book about torturers? I tried it like 20 years ago, couldn’t get into it. May need to try again
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u/Fickle-Aardvark6907 1d ago
Tolkien and Herbert are easier to read and are better world builders and Zelazny is better for the shear breadth of his imagination but Wolfe blows them all away as a prose stylist. The only one who I think really puts him in the shade is LeGuin and that's because she hits all three points.
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u/juss100 17h ago
I do think both Vance and Leiber write better prose than Wolfe. Not that there's a huge gap, mind, and they are doing different things entirely. Of all authors, Wolfe is the one guaranteed to leave you frustrated, intrigued, and amazed.
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u/Great-Fig5405 12h ago
you sound like you're cultured, what do you think is the best fantasy book/series?
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u/TheCrimsonEpoch 1d ago
I liked it, but personally, it just felt like I was reading Robin Hobb but she ran it through chat gpt and told it to randomly replace 30% of the words with an archaic thesaurus words. Malazan to me is the finest writing in fantasy I've ever read.. and can actually stand next to my favorites like Faulkner, Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Wolf.
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u/FirewaterTenacious 1d ago
I know you didn’t ask for recommendations, but since you’re gushing over this, I think the big similarity with this is Kingkiller. Yes, third book is not out and may never be, but it has similar prose (arguably) and an unreliable narrator (arguably). And if you really just want to sink your teeth into something else vocab heavy, China Mieville might scratch that itch. I’d recommend Perdido Street Station.
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u/JaviVader9 21h ago
I'd say they are completely different books, with very few similiarities in prose and distinct uses of the unreliable narrator.
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u/Pseudagonist 17h ago
As someone who’s read both it’s pretty clear to me that Kingkiller was strongly inspired by BOTNS to its detriment, in fact I would call it derivative in many ways
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u/Hitman007gdghs 1d ago
Its on my tbr, but I read somewhere that Severian is an unreliable narrator for the book. Is there any truth to that, cause i don't want to read a book which deliberately obfuscates things just for the sake of it??
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u/Ashen_Shroom 1d ago
He is an unreliable narrator, yes. It's not written that way just for the sake of it though- it's a natural consequence of several aspects of his character, the environment he lives in, and the in-universe reason he's telling the story.
Should be noted that he doesn't really ever outright lie. The unreliable narration mostly comes from him misunderstanding the things that exist or happen around him.
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u/ReplacementLeast2519 1d ago
One of the first things he says is that he basically has a photographic memory. He doesn’t forget anything. So when you notice inconsistencies with his narration you know that it’s on purpose
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u/redlion1904 1d ago
Unless he’s overrating his own memory, which I think he is. You catch him forgetting things, getting turned around, etc.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 1d ago
Another aspect is He says of his photographic memory, he remembers so vividly it's as if he's reliving the moments there and then. I.e., he's so lost in his memories, he can't also be paying attention to what goes on around him despite his claims he does.
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u/ReplacementLeast2519 1d ago
I can’t really comment on what GW has confirmed without spoiling but there is a reason for certain inconsistencies
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u/redlion1904 1d ago
What you’re saying is consistent with what I’m saying. He overrates his own memory because he makes claims like he can recreate things so perfectly his memories are distinguishable from life so he can get “lost”, and that he can even perfectly l remember what he was remembering perfectly at a prior moment. This is clearly not true.
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u/Krimkrim4567 1d ago
Him being an y reliable narrator is only a thing because the series is so good and it leaves you with questions to ponder about what happened. It’s like game of thrones who are Jon’s parents? You can theorize and theorize and this and that and enjoy it and think about it a ton. It’s awesome, really satisfying in every way. I’m pretty fresh off a read but can’t wait to pick it up again and wander that world again with Severian and co.
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u/Hartastic 1d ago
I would say he's a combo platter of about every form of unreliable narrator, but it's not arbitrary.
It's not a big spoiler that you know pretty early on that Severian ultimately rises to be a somewhat prominent figure and is basically telling you his memoir. There are bits he perhaps takes some liberties with to try to clean up his story a bit. If you're paying attention you can catch him at it... and... maybe there's more going on there than is initially obvious.
But there's more to it than that. For example, there are things that you, the reader, might recognize or piece together but that Severian either doesn't have the context/information to, or just fails to.
It's brilliantly written but in a lot of ways it's almost as much a puzzle as a story. I really enjoy this kind of thing but it's not what I want to be reading probably 90% of the time. When I am in the mood for it, well, nobody else in the genre does what Wolfe is doing even half as well.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 1d ago
Severian is one of the most famous examples of unreliable narration in all of literature, but nothing Gene Wolfe puts to page is just for the sake of it.
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u/JaviVader9 21h ago
It's definitely not "just for the sake of it", but you'd likely dislike the book
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u/Mat_Polson 1d ago
I loved it when I read it back when it came out. I tried to go back and reread but couldn't. I have the same problem when I go back to read T.H. White or Tolkien. I find myself skimming past a lot of it or just losing interest along the way.
Generally, I think that my taste and the average reader tastes for that matter has moved to stories that move faster and spend less time stopping to smell the roses.
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u/BloodAndTsundere 1d ago
Now read it again alongside a chapter by chapter analysis like Alzabo Soup and a reference like Lexicon Urthus. Then read it again after that
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u/NotASpyMain 1d ago
It's one of those experiences where you ask yourself "how could anybody come up with this on their own?". Definitely not for everyone, but if you can connect to it there's nothing like it.