Subject: (urth) My eyes!

From: Dayton Williams <lord_dimwit at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:55:52 +0000

... 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?

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:33:37 +0000

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.

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:55:47 +0000, Dayton Williams
<lord_dimwit at hotmail.com> wrote:
> could out of the books ?_? (and besides, there're spoilers for books I
> haven't read yet).
> 
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> 

-- 
You probably do not want to know what that odor is. 
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

---

From: David DiGiacomo <david at slack.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:43:29 +0000

>... 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.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:09:03 +0000

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 >

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:57:16 +0000

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

[snip]
> ... 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