# Book of the New Sun-Should I keep going? (*SPOILERS*) *The SF-Lovers list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 12 Dec 1996* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Michael Gallo *12 Dec 1996, 08:20* > Jeremy P Lakatos wrote: > Hardly. Though there are swords, and sorcery, there are no quests to be > won, no dragons to battle, no evil overlords to overthrow. It isn't Swords > and Sorcery, it's fantasy (but then, scifi is fantasy too). I'd agree - an original fantasy reminiscent of Jack Vance's _Dying Earth_. If you didn't like that, you probably won't like _New Sun_ either. Michael Wen writes: > some colony world that's lost contact with civilization and had > degenerated. Am I right? I don't expect this to be a major spoiler, but Urth -is- Earth in some far off time (hence the name). > What I would really like to know is why this series is so popular. I'll concur with most of what Jeremy wrote. While there's more action later on, I think it's main attraction is the richness of the prose, the strangeness of the setting, and the puzzles that are Urth and its inhabitants. I adore the Book of the New Sun but realize it's not for everybody. In fact, the first time I read it, I didn't know whether I liked it or not, but I just -had- to keep reading. ---