Gene Wolfe and the Severian series

Andrew Merritt · 13 Feb 1991, 12:42 · from sf-lovers.1991.mbox

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From: apm at hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Andrew Merritt)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe and the Severian series
Date: 13 Feb 91 12:42:29 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v16-63-9 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V16 #63
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-16a

DMARKFIE at INDYMED.BITNET writes:
>>On the subject of Gene Wolfe, are there any people out there who have
>>read _The Shadow of the Torturer_ and the other books in the series?
>
>I've got most of the whole story of Severian and IMHO I found it a very
>hard read.

When I first started reading the series, I was expecting a Fantasy type
story and also found it hard going, and stopped reading.  I came back
later, realising that it is Science Fiction, and everything was much
easier.  Curious.  I am not sure what all this means!  It may be to do with
how easy it is to fit what is going on into a mental model of the world in
the book; things fit better if you realise it is set in a future Earth, not
a fantastical planet.

Andrew

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