Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun

Michaelntz · 31 Jan 1986, 02:03 · from net.sf-lovers.1986.mbox

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From: krantz at csd2.UUCP (Michaelntz)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 21:03:00 EST
Message-ID: <3840005 at csd2.UUCP>
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
References: <194 at analog.UUCP>

We are asked:

> If someone could explain in his own words what it is that Wolfe is trying to
> do with this work, it might help.

> hplabs!analog!kim

What Wolfe is trying to do is raise science fiction to a higher degree
of literary value than has EVER EXISTED, beyond question.  I have read
a hell of a lot of SF and a hell of a lot more `serious' fiction than
that (I'm an MA in literature/writing), and all I can tell you, though
the Book Of The New Sun is too long and complex for your question to 
be answerable outside of an extended thesis (shit, I won't pretend I
really understand the damn books - they defy that), is that if you are
not blown away by now, at the end of the The_Claw_Of_The_Conciliator,
if you are not shaking your head at Wolfe's awesome scope, his dazzling
imagination, his miraculously skilled prose - well, man, go back to
clowns like Heinlein and Asimov. 

Gene Wolfe is, quite simply, the best novelist ever to write in the
science fiction genre.  His prose, his ideas - all of it.  The 
best.  Hands down.

- Michael Krantz

"The text reveals the process of its own production."

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