/lit/ - Literature

I never even thought the extent to which he just slaps his name on other people's shit but yeah, my copy of Gene Wolfe's Peace has him front and center on the cover, yeah.

I'm skeptical of attributing this to his own narcissism when it's more likely just publishers knowing his shit tends to sell and thinking it'll boost sales.

>>23212417
Here's your Agilus and Agia, bro.
>>23214929
No. The publisher went under. Only 2 or 3 issues were ever made. Gene Wolfe's The Shadow Of The Torturer is what it's called.
>>23215079
Read Lexicon Urthus first if you want to know what's going on before diving into the books.

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, monsieur?

Every character you meet in the story turns up again, hundreds of miles away, to reveal that they are someone else and have been secretly controlling the action of the plot. It feels like the entire world is populated by about fifteen people who follow the narrator around wherever he goes. If the next two books continue along the same lines, then the big reveal will be that the world is entirely populated by no more than three superpowered shapeshifters.

Everyone in the book has secret identities, secret connections to grand conspiracies, and important plot elements that they conveniently hide until the last minute, only doling out clues here and there. There are no normal people in this world, only double agents and kings in disguise. Every analysis I've read of this book mentions that even the narrator is unreliable.

This can be an effective technique, but in combination with a world of infinite, unpredictable intrigue, Wolfe's story begins to evoke something between a soap opera and a convoluted mystery novel, relying on impossible and contradictory scenarios to mislead the audience. Apparently, this is the thing his fans most appreciate about him—I find it to be an insulting and artificial game.

There is simply not enough structure to the story to make the narrator's unreliability meaningful. In order for unreliable narration to be effective, there must be some clear and evident counter-story that undermines it. Without that, it is not possible to determine meaning, because there's nowhere to start: everything is equally shaky.

At that point, it's just a trick—adding complexity to the surface of the story without actually producing any new meaning. I know most sci-fi and fantasy authors seem to love complexity for its own sake, but it's a cardinal sin of storytelling: don't add something into your story unless it needs to be there. Covering the story with a lot of vagaries and noise may impress some, but won't stand up to careful reading.

Nov 2019 - Mar 2024
A Look At The SFF Novels I've Read Since I Founded The /sffg/ Goodreads Group*

Novels: 313
Fantasy: 128
Science Fiction: 164
Science Fantasy: 21
Self-Published: 37
Translated: 17

Authors: 126
Male: 98
Female: 27
Trans: 1 (ftm)
Books read from author
1: 72
10+: 4

Publishers: 78 (inaccurate due to varying by edition)

Years Covered: 1941-2024
21st century: 244
20th century: 69
2020s: 79
2010s: 123
2000s: 42
1990s: 14
1980s: 27
1970s: 11
1960s: 11
1950s: 4
1940s: 2

Top 10 Most Read Authors And Their Average Rating
Sanderson, Brandon (3.2)
Modesitt, L.E. (3.8)
Wight, Will (3.1)
Reynolds, Alastair (2.9)
Abercrombie, Joe (4.2)
Corey, James S.A. (3.9)
Egan, Greg (3.8)
Abraham, Daniel (4.6)
Piper, H. Beam (3.9)
Tanaka, Yoshiki (4.0)

Top 10 Authors By Average Rating With At Least 3 Novels Read From Them
Liu, Ken (5.0)
Abraham, Daniel (4.6)
Bujold, Lois McMaster (4.3)
Weber, David (4.3)
Abercrombie, Joe (4.2)
Dinniman, Matt (4.2)
Wolfe, Gene (4.0)
McLean, Peter (4.0)
Simmons, Dan (4.0)
Staveley, Brian (4.0)

Top 10 Most Read Publishers, Their Average Rating, And The Authors I Read Most From Them
TOR (3.6) [Sanderson, Modesitt]
Orbit (3.6) [Abercrombie, Corey]
Ace (3.5) [Piper, Herbert]
Bantam (3.7) [Simmons, Crowley]
Hidden Gnome (3.1) [Wight]
Harper (3.8) [Bujold, Vaughn]
DAW (3.6) [Friedman]
Haikasoru (4.0) [Tanaka]
Saga Press (4.3) [Ken Liu]
Dandy House (4.2) [Dinniman]

Who Most Decided Whether I'd Read It
Self: 49%
Specific /sffg/ members: 28%
Thread or /sffg/ members in general: 23%

*various exclusions apply and edge cases were omitted

Nov 2019 - Mar 2024
A Look At The SFF Novels I've Read Since I Founded The /sffg/ Goodreads Group*

Novels: 313
Fantasy: 128
Science Fiction: 164
Science Fantasy: 21
Self-Published: 37
Translated: 17

Authors: 126
Male: 98
Female: 27
Trans: 1 (ftm)
Books read from author
1: 72
10+: 4

Publishers: 78 (inaccurate due to varying by edition)

Years Covered: 1941-2024
21st century: 244
20th century: 69
2020s: 79
2010s: 123
2000s: 42
1990s: 14
1980s: 27
1970s: 11
1960s: 11
1950s: 4
1940s: 2

Top 10 Most Read Authors And Their Average Rating
Sanderson, Brandon (3.2)
Modesitt, L.E. (3.8)
Wight, Will (3.1)
Reynolds, Alastair (2.9)
Abercrombie, Joe (4.2)
Corey, James S.A. (3.9)
Egan, Greg (3.8)
Abraham, Daniel (4.6)
Piper, H. Beam (3.9)
Tanaka, Yoshiki (4.0)

Top 10 Authors By Average Rating With At Least 3 Novels Read From Them
Liu, Ken (5.0)
Abraham, Daniel (4.6)
Bujold, Lois McMaster (4.3)
Weber, David (4.3)
Abercrombie, Joe (4.2)
Dinniman, Matt (4.2)
Wolfe, Gene (4.0)
McLean, Peter (4.0)
Simmons, Dan (4.0)
Staveley, Brian (4.0)

Top 10 Most Read Publishers, Their Average Rating, And The Authors I Read Most From Them
TOR (3.6) [Sanderson, Modesitt]
Orbit (3.6) [Abercrombie, Corey]
Ace (3.5) [Piper, Herbert]
Bantam (3.7) [Simmons, Crowley]
Hidden Gnome (3.1) [Wight]
Harper (3.8) [Bujold, Vaughn]
DAW (3.6) [Friedman]
Haikasoru (4.0) [Tanaka]
Saga Press (4.3) [Ken Liu]
Dandy House (4.2) [Dinniman]

Who Most Decided Whether I'd Read It
Self: 49%
Specific /sffg/ members: 28%
Thread or /sffg/ members in general: 23%

*various exclusions apply and edge cases were omitted

>>23196788
I hate this faggot so much. Not only does he write the intro now to every republished fantasy/sci fi book, he has R A Laffery's estate and refuses to release his work.
Gayman, King, Martin. All of these faggots write not to be writers but to write movies. And that is why they suck cock and Gene Wolfe and Lafferty will always be kings.

>>23192959
She's great. Her fiction and also her writing craft book "Steering the Craft" are well worth reading.

>>23193030
Changing Planes (a short story anthology of hers) is great. I still think of a particular story in it often. The Wizard of Earthsea series in general are classics, but the final novel was particularly good.

>>23186539
I'm also going to again shill by new book for anyone interested - a Lewis & Clark style adventure across the post ecological collapse ruins of America. Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" meets "A Canticle for Leibowitz".

>>23189070
Yes, you will probably love the books. Also consider The Fifth Head of Cerberus. This might actually be a better starting point as it is a single, relatively short book which showcases his style very well. I underestimated it because it is not as universally acclaimed as BoTNS but it is absolutely incredible. Ignore the jaded anons here that like to shit on Gene Wolfe because he is popular, just read the books.

There has ever only been about 3 writers who have ever been unanimously loved and respected by all of /lit/ at any time. Those writers are Dante, Shakespeare, and Melville.

There’s a few others who come close, but there’s always one contrarianfag who has some stupid take on them. Some of those others include:
>Joyce
>Faulkner
>Dostoyevsky
>O’Connor
>Tolkien
>Cervantes
>Pynchon
>Gene Wolfe
>Tolstoy

I recently listened to an old Gene Wolfe interview, where he mentions how the character of Dorcas in the Book of the New Sun appeared in the story "of her own will", even though he had already planned out the narrative before conceiving of her. He said that she began fighting him until he managed to fit her into the story. Of course this sort of thing is mentioned all the time; authors are often led by the characters they create.

This makes me wonder: are fictional stories real? That is, is an author somehow acting as a conduit to another time or world? Is the story a product purely of his imagination, or could it be that he is receiving signals from some other part of our reality? I think, if Being emanates from the One to the Many, and from the Many back to the One, then this world and all worlds are something of the same substance, and such a phenomenon could be plausible. It would similar to the phenomenon of visions which see the future, etc.

Bros I need my fix of well-written fantasy/sci-fi. Of late I've been going back over the same books again and again. Whenever I go to the bookstore, everything I check out reads YA-adjacent or is written by a chink.
Stuff I've enjoyed of late:
>Second Apocalypse (obviously)
>Acts of Caine series by Matt Woodring Stover
>Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer
I've read most classics, i.e. Dune, Hyperion, everything by Gene Wolfe, so I'm looking for less-traveled works.

Gene Wolfe anons, help.

About to read this and for the life of me 3 chapters in, I'm so confused where we are at. I read the previous two books a year ago and I've forgotten where the whole story went, and there aren't any reliable summaries of them that I can quickly catch up with.

I'm not gonna reread those two books, can anyone jog my memory what the fuck happened before this?

>>23156814
Gene Wolfe
G.K. Chesterton

>>23157362
>gene wolfe
isn't that the dude who writes all of the law and order and the chicago p.d. and fire shows?

>>23151628
No. The depth of feeling possessed in these works is just insipid in comparison to actual literature. They have barely any literary merit and only get the attention they do because of undiscerning nouveaux right-wing kitsch. Just look at the tolkien thread made by the cringy retard /pol/fag. If you really wanted genre stuff to immerse yourself in at least go for something like Gene Wolfe or R Zelazny or the Stugatskys or RA Lafferty.

>>23143093
>The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
>Colin Wilson novels (finish Philosopher's Stone; Lifeforce, Ritual in the Dark, The Desert)
>HG Wells novels (finish Invisible Man; Dr. Moreau, then investigate some later ones like Tomo-Bengay or Blup)
>John Wyndham novels (Trouble With Lichen, maybe Kraken and Web (read most all of them))
>JG Ballard novels (finish Atrocity Exhibition; Unlimited Dream Company, Cocaine Nights, Empire of the Sun, The Drought and maybe the other disaster novels)
>remaining 4 books of Druon's Accursed Kings series
>Au Rebours, La Bas, and En Route, with Submission by Houellebecq in-between
>Interlibrary Loan and Peace by Gene Wolfe
>Cowper's translations of Iliad and Odyssey
>Theogony, Works and Days, Metamorphoses
>attempt to read women authors (not worth listing, but the famous/good ones)
>Darrell Schweitzer's fantasy novels
>remainder of Robert Aickman's short stories I can obtain through online editions
>Dreamsongs 1, GRRM
>Birthgrave by Tanith Lee
>The Weird and Eerie by Mark Fisher
>The Golden Thread by Miguel Serrano

>>23152131
All I could tell you is what Martin posted on his own blog about Wolfe's death:
>And just now I received word that Gene Wolfe has died as well. I haven’t seen Gene for a few years, sadly, but I knew him well when I lived in Chicago in the 70s. When my friends Alex & Phyllis Eisenstein and I founded the Windy City Writer’s Workshop, we assembled a good group of young aspiring writers… and two giants, Gene Wolfe and Algis Budrys. Gene and Ayjay became mentors of a sort to the whole group of us, attending every monthly workshop and giving us more good advice about the art, craft, and business of writing than I can possibly recall. I learned so much from Gene, and his praise… not always easily earned… meant so much to me. He was a magnificent writer as well, one of the best our genre has ever produced. It is a disgrace that he never won a Hugo (though he was nominated a number of times). He was, however, a SFWA Grand Master and a worldcon Guest of Honor, the two greatest honors our field can bestow. His work will be read as long as SF endures, I believe.

>The basement of the small Barrington house is overstuffed with books. Science-fiction novels line the walls, while hardcover reference books are piled on a desk, alongside stacks of paper. Gene Wolfe, an unassuming man in a plaid shirt, sits at the desk, using a typewriter.

>Two globes hang from the ceiling over Wolfe’s head. One is a standard globe of the planet earth; the other shows the constellations as they appear from the viewpoint of someone standing on the earth.

>But Wolfe’s mind wanders farther afield as he sits at the typewriter, imagining what the universe looks like from vantage points on distant planets and huge spaceships traveling through the emptiness of space.

>This small basement room, where book and movie posters are taped to the ceiling, is the place where Wolfe wrote a series of books that was praised by the New York Times Book Review as “one of the modern masterpieces of imaginative literature.”

>Wolfe shares his writing space with an exercise bicycle, an aquarium, a washing machine and a drying machine.

>“It’s a combination office and laundry room, and exercise area,” Wolfe jokes.

>When he takes a break from writing, sometimes he places a game of chess with a computer. A tally of victories taped next to the chess board shows Wolfe has won more games than the computer.


"while hardcover reference books are piled on a desk"

What reference books did he have? I always wondered how he got to know archaic words and latin origin ones without the internet.

>>23138493
Impressive time management, I think Gene Wolfe (PBUH, inventor the pringles extruder) wrote for 2 hours in the morning before work.

The further I get into the Prince of Nothing, the more agape I am at Bakker's actual skill. This is definitely an author that has been unfairly prejudiced by memes and surface-level criticisms of elements which they themselves are superficial. Yes, Bakker freely and artistically uses the term "whore" in the way only a philosopher familiar with the eternal feminine would, yes there is rape, yes it is dark, yes Kellhus is a likely a crystallization of the author's philosophy (in a way one may shallowly call a self-insert), but all of that is nothing in the face of what actually matters: the incredibly rich world, the natural-feeling cultures, the clear and precise writing style, the penchant for powerful phrasing which carries the weight of his ideas... This is the good stuff. It's almost unfortunate that Bakker's brutalistic world view involves so much rape because it gives meme-lovers something shallow to cling onto a parrot. I suppose the anime-tier clipart that is used to represent sorcerers is also a bit easy to meme on. But seriously, all of that should be discarded. It's like halfway between the Wheel of Time (the ultimate classical fantasy story that evolved Tolkien in a fusion of cyclical theology with more modern sword and sorcery) and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (full-on theology with the dense, heavy hand of a literary genius) - a beautiful and gripping unison.

So for anyone interested in this kind of thing, my self pub novella that I've mentioned before just came. It's a Lewis & Clark style adventure across the post-collapse ruins of America. Conceptually sort of a Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" meets "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

>>23132583
>>23132870
>>23132889
Anon, I've given this a read.

I'm blown away by the creativity on display here. This is a lot of original thought, original ideas, original imagery. While still paying homage to certain classical ideas--Cronus, for one, being in charge of the sinners on Saturn was a nice touch. I liked the idea that all sorts of souls, including the souls of nonhumans, made it out into space.

If there's anything I'd change it's mostly stuff about grammar and syntax. There are things that I might have phrased in a different way.

Also, another thing is that you need to be clearer that your protagonist, the sinner, is from Mars, not Earth. That wasn't so clear to me at the start, though I gradually teased it out as the story progressed.

All in all this was some interesting science fantasy, reminds me vaguely of something I think Gene Wolfe might have enjoyed. A bit creepy and ethereal, too, but that only added to its appeal.

All in all a pretty good first effort. Thanks for sharing it.

>>23132822
>Are there any SF-fantasy books out there that read as awesome as a 1970s-80s hard rock album cover looks?
The Book of the Long Sun series by Gene Wolfe: This epic science fiction saga takes place on the long sun, a vast artificial world with four tiers, each with its own unique culture and environment. The series is known for its complex plot, rich worldbuilding, and mind-bending concepts, perfectly capturing the ambitious spirit of progressive rock bands like Rush.

>>23130531
You would just say it doesn't if we did, you groupthink fuck, but ... Robert E Howard does action better, Robin Hobb does characters better, Dragonlance does religion and evil better, John Carter does romance better and Gene Wolfe did Catholic fantasy better. Nevertheless, I do admire Tolkien. Read another book.