My eyes!

Dayton Williams24 Mar 2005, 16:55

... So. About a week ago I finished Book of the New Sun. Absolutely adored the books. Wolfe does more in 20-30 pages or so with Typhon, than other authors (cough cough Robert Jordan cough) have accomplished in long-running series. After I was done, I couldn't help but feel that, even though I understood most of what happened, I didn't really get any of it. So I poked around the 'net for more information on the series, and I find this ML. And ... well ... I can't make much more sense out of the discussions going on here than I could out of the books ¬_¬ (and besides, there're spoilers for books I haven't read yet). Not that I imagine Wolfe's readership overlaps with anime fandom much, but Wolfe is like throwing Kino's Journeys and The Big O into the blender. My eyes! My eyes! Aaaaaaah~ :D ... Is there a FAQ or something on BotNS I can read?

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes24 Mar 2005, 17:33

↳ in reply to Dayton Williams

Welcome! A good place to start (he said, mischeviously, but not completely) is with the short story collection "Gene Wolfe's Castle of Days," which has a bunch of Wolfe's essays on tBotNS in it.

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On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:55:47 +0000, Dayton Williams <lord_dimwit at hotmail.com> wrote: ... So. About a week ago I finished Book of the New Sun. Absolutely adored the books. Wolfe does more in 20-30 pages or so with Typhon, than other authors (cough cough Robert Jordan cough) have accomplished in long-running series. After I was done, I couldn't help but feel that, even though I understood most of what happened, I didn't really get any of it. So I poked around the 'net for more information on the series, and I find this ML. And ... well ... I can't make much more sense out of the discussions going on here than I could out of the books ?_? (and besides, there're spoilers for books I haven't read yet). Not that I imagine Wolfe's readership overlaps with anime fandom much, but Wolfe is like throwing Kino's Journeys and The Big O into the blender. My eyes! My eyes! Aaaaaaah~ :D ... Is there a FAQ or something on BotNS I can read? _______________________________________________

David DiGiacomo24 Mar 2005, 17:43

↳ follows, by subject match Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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... Is there a FAQ or something on BotNS I can read?

1. Read "The Urth of the New Sun", if you haven't already. 2. Read the following: Michael Andre-Driussi, "Lexicon Urthus" Robert Borski, "Solar Labyrinth" The first one is out of print. I was able to get both through inter-library loan with no problem.

Jeff Wilson25 Mar 2005, 19:09

↳ in reply to Dayton Williams

6 quoted lines

Dayton Williams wrote: ... So. About a week ago I finished Book of the New Sun. Absolutely adored the books. Wolfe does more in 20-30 pages or so with Typhon, than other authors (cough cough Robert Jordan cough) have accomplished in long-running series. After I was done, I couldn't help but feel that, even though I understood most of what happened, I didn't really get any of it. So I poked around the 'net for more information on the series, and I find this ML. And ... well ... I can't make much more sense out of the discussions going on here than I could out of the books ?_? (and besides, there're spoilers for books I haven't read yet). Not that I imagine Wolfe's readership overlaps with anime fandom much, but Wolfe is like throwing Kino's Journeys and The Big O into the blender. My eyes! My eyes! Aaaaaaah~

There's at least a few furry fandom people reading wolfe. I've seen some fan art that seems to conflate the various bestials in New Sun with Mr. Million from FIFTH HEAD. And both have the giant robots, of course.

Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com < http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

Adam Stephanides28 Mar 2005, 07:57

↳ in reply to Dayton Williams

on 3/24/05 6:55 PM, Dayton Williams at lord_dimwit at hotmail.com wrote: [snip]

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... Is there a FAQ or something on BotNS I can read?

Did you investigate the archives? While their size can be overwhelming, there's a lot of useful stuff there, much of it by people who no longer post here (such as the authors of the two books David DiGiacomo recommended). Unfortunately, there's no FAQ dealing with BotNS as far as I know. As for the suggestions so far, Castle of Days won't be of much help. I haven't read Solar Labyrinth, but based upon Borski's former postings to this list, I'd take his theories with a grain of salt (that's only my opinion, though). Lexicon Urthus (and the three pamphlets of "Additions, Errata, &cetera" if you can get hold of them) compile a lot of information about BotNS into an easy-to-read format, but won't tell you "what it's all about." Nor will anything else. Despite all the intelligent people who have been studying BotNS for two decades, "what it's really about" remains a mystery, and the same is true of Wolfe's other books. --Adam

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