Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
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Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#2The Book of the New Sun is amazing simply for the language. I actually thought he was simply making up words until I got out a dictionary and discovered that his vocabulary simply far surpassed mine, and mine isn't terrible.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#3Shadow of the Torturer is one of my all time favorite books. I confess I was less impressed with the rest of the Book of the New Sun as the world seemed to constrict as it went on, rather than expand. In spite of that, I think they're all worth reading.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#4The Book of the New Sun is amazing simply for the language. I actually thought he was simply making up words until I got out a dictionary and discovered that his vocabulary simply far surpassed mine, and mine isn't terrible.
I love the atmosphere and the originality, but you shouldn't go into the cycle expecting action - it's like expecting action from Blade Runner. The first book takes 100 or 200 pages to describe the events of a single day. Some character introductions are breathtaking though, I was particularly impressed by the hothouse. Some episodes and creatures are amazingly creepy.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#5The Book of the New Sun is amazing simply for the language. I actually thought he was simply making up words until I got out a dictionary and discovered that his vocabulary simply far surpassed mine, and mine isn't terrible.
Fuligin was the word that stuck with me.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#6The Book of the New Sun is amazing simply for the language. I actually thought he was simply making up words until I got out a dictionary and discovered that his vocabulary simply far surpassed mine, and mine isn't terrible.
I'm not a native English speaker so I find this extremely interesting. I usually read in English so I often notice how much vocabulary certain writer uses. Most of them use the same vocabulary I am familiar with and I read the whole book without looking up a word, but there are some writers where I get a new word every few pages and it is not a word that was forced in there. It made sense to use it.
I never read Gene Wolfe after I started reading in English, I've read him in my native language. I'll need to bump him up in my reading list to see how it reads in English.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#7For all those who are saying now "Who's Gene Wolfe??" I strongly, strongly, urge you to read his tetralogy "The Book of The New Sun," it's one of the finest sci-fi/fantasy series I've ever read and I have a pretty damn critical taste when it comes to literature. (not trying to sound snobby by the way, I just don't praise books like these lightly or without good reason)
So I love Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, Martian Chronicles (and other Ray Bradbury books), Ursula K Le Guin(Earthsea), Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five etc), Dune, Game of Thrones series, Neuromancer, Asimov (basically everything but especially Foundation series), Terry Pratchett, and so on...
And I consider Gene Wolfe's work to be on a par with all of the above, and I would say he takes sci-fi to another realm. The Book of The New Sun is the first sci-fi series I read where I thought, "this is literature," as in, comparable with books by Dostoyevsky and Hemingway, and I don't believe this is hyperbole, it's just that good.
The other amazing thing about The Book of The New Sun is that each time you read it you realize you missed about 100 things in the previous read-throughs, there is so much "hidden" in plain sight and the subsequent read-throughs are like reading a completely different book.
So just read it please.
Edited to include Le Guin as another example of "genre fiction" as literature.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#8For all those who are saying now "Who's Gene Wolfe??" I strongly, strongly, urge you to read his tetralogy "The Book of The New Sun," it's one of the finest sci-fi/fantasy series I've ever read and I have a pretty damn critical taste when it comes to literature. (not trying to sound snobby by the way, I just don't praise books like these lightly or without good reason) So I love Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, M…
The final book even concludes with the narrator/protagonist suggesting the reader re-read the books to grasp their true meaning. IMO, two reads minimum are necessary.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#9I find it hard to appreciate art that revels in torture, graphic violence and emotional abuse as an end unto itself.
If you want an example of science fiction as high art, personally I would suggest Vernor Vinge (specifically A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky) and Ursula Le Guin.
Re: Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
#10Nice to see something about Gene Wolfe here. I'm a big fan. I just finished re-reading The 5th Head of Cerberus and have been eyeing The Book of the New Sun series on my shelf. Probably time for a re-read of that soon.
If I may put on my pedantic hat for a second: the article writes of the world of the New Sun tetrology: "The sun is so old that it is dying." I thought it was pretty well establish that the sun was dying of unnatural causes--possibly an artificially created black hole.