/lit/ - Literature

>Dorcas belonged, as I now realized, to that vast group of women (which may, indeed, include all women) who betray us—and to that special type who betray us not for some present rival but for their own pasts.

I think I got filtered bros :(

That fourth book made no sense to me and the first few were absurdly confusing too

Books/series like book of the new sun?

I ask this in complete seriousness and with the best of intentions: when does this get good?

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer and I wasn't really that impressed. The first part with Severian in the tower was kino and I was pretty invested, but as soon as he went out into the city it became truly bizarre. Am I just being filtered? Why did all the women instantly fall in love with him and want to fuck him? Was he just being horny when the titties kept popping out of every female character's dress, or is there some deeper meaning that will only be revealed later? It was very jarring. I also wasn't overly impressed with the writing style, beyond the unique words it was pretty workmanlike.

Does it get better in Claw of the Conciliator?

The ideas would be to broad to convey to a normal audience. It would be hard as well to make Severan into a likable protagonist due to the nature of his profession and the various faux pas he makes during the story.

>>20944789
Book of the New Sun. Severian is aggressively obnoxious to listen to, but I like the setting. Do the other in-universe books have this problem?

>some guy in a mask walks around talking to weirdos
Great sci-fi, Wolfie.

Just finished Urth of the new Sun. Explain me everything I need to know.
Also, lets have a thread to talk about these books.

I've read the first book of the Solar Cycle
It was boring

I get that the author is some 300IQ, cultured, Lit major - and that this book is filled with copius amount of "layers" and "deep themes"
So much so that there are actual walkthroughs for his works

But unfortunately I am not smart, nor I am willing to simultaneously read some fucking guide to be able to enjoy it

So my question for you guys is this - once you "get it", are the books actually good?

Tolkien for adults

Just finished reading and quickly re-reading pic related after hearing so much praise online that I had enormous expectations, and really thought it was only kinda okay. Online, people act like you can't understand or appreciate it at all until at least the second re-read, and after that it becomes a masterpiece, but I didn't understand even a single thing differently on second reading compared to first? I went online and scoured reddit, the tor.com 'rereading gene wolfe' series, and even spent hours trawling through urth.net and didn't find a single significant plot point that I missed, or any 'hidden meaning' at all that somehow transforms or deepens the story, like everyone claims exists. People act like there is something deeper here, but when prompted, they never elaborate at all, and just say "read it again".

I think maybe that some of the things you aren't meant to pick up until second reading are things like:
Dorcas being the old paddler's wife reborn - This was treated like some sort of revelation in book 4 but it was so obvious from book 1 I didn't even realise it was meant to be a mystery
Severian was doing the healing, not the claw - but this is heavily implied as an option throughout the whole series, and never actually confirmed, only heavily implied one last time by Severian toward the end of book 4
Baldanders was a young undine... obviously? The undine were the only other giants in the narrative, this was so obvious that I also didn't realise it was meant to be a mystery. Also, that baldanders and dr talos owned the castle on the lake was foreshadowed so heavily.

The only things I missed were the painting of the moon landing, and that dr talos was working for baldanders, which was a charming twist, but doesn't really change anything in any significant way?.

Can anyone tell me what I am meant to realise or understand after reading the series again, that I didn't pick up on the first time? Either I missed something absolutely fundamental, or this is the biggest case of emperors-new-pants I have ever seen. It really seems like there is nothing deeper here at all, just some cool stories and a unique setting, plus plenty of details deliberately left ambigious and unexplained which psueds have latched on to trying to find some substance that was never there.

The dying-earth-masquerading-as-medieval-fantasy setting is really interesting and there are several individual sections that are really great (botanical gardens, the avern, the librarian, baldanders, the 'last house', the alzabo, typhon, jonas and hethor, plus all the re-interpreted myths), but I spent the whole time reading this series expecting some masterful 'frame-shift' that never came.

What do you think of The Book of the New Sun?

>>17250800
I remember people complaining about this on some forum when he died, saying the book was sexist because he shags literally every female he comes across,
A masterpiece of course

>>17214755
here you go
>>17224307
this is the problem with hard scifi generally.
I still really enjoyed blindsight, simply because it was the first time I was exposed to those sort of ideas re: consciousness and I did (and still do) find that interesting

Reading this. What is /lit/'s consensus on it?

Itt: trash /lit/ tricked you into reading

>>16601125

>>15259538
Read Book of the New Sun

Is it worth reading for someone who isn't very familiar with the genre?

>>14991061

Name one (1) author that's more of a midwit magnet

Is this an actual good, literary work that transcends its genre in the same way that books like Gormenghast or Ubik do or is it just slightly-elevated schlock? I know of people with relatively good taste that like it but I don't know if it's a "I like this because it's actually good" response or a stupid "I like this according to my very low standards for sci-fi/fantasy" response.