Status Updates From The Urth of the New Sun (Th...

"she says you are a good man."
"I am a bad man trying to be a good one "

the way Wolfe keeps bringing back characters, events and locations from previous volumes of the series but in completely new contexts is something I imagine makes or breaks this novel for most readers, I absolutely love it but then again the 2nd "Back to the Future" movie is also my favourite in that trilogy

another interesting thing about this book is that it shifts the metaphysical basis of the series from a weird mashup between Neoplatonism and Catholic mysticism to the Kabbalah - we also get to see way more of the extradimensional deities orchestrating everything in the previous volumes, who turn out to be humans from a parallel universe hoping that this one's humans also ascend to divinity

SO FAR it is looking to be even weirder than the preceding 4 books, taking place aboard the spaceship transporting Severian to be tested by the Hierogrammates for the position of New Sun only then to be subjected to one weird assassination attempt after the other and a shipboard mutiny. The whole "science-fiction story as experienced by fantasy characters" part becomes really central here

Very close to the end and a part of me is anxious to finish this but a bigger part of me doesn't want it to end.

I wish I could stay up all night and finish

“…extravagance is but a weak recommendation of truth.”

We were walking inland now, climbing a grassy little hill.

From the crest we could see the crest of the next, and upon it three bowers side by side, decked as my own had been with twined lupine, purple loosestrife, and white meadow rue.

"There," my priest told me. "There the other gods sleep.”

This book is absolutely nuts

Aaaaand I’m already having a great time.

I thought I hadn't got this far into the series as a teenager, but I have definitely read this before.

I feel like I need to stop taking little bites out of this book and spend a few hours just devouring.

Every single sentence is a unique surprise.

71

Very good

Thecla 💔

On one hand I'm really curious about what the fuck is happening here, on the other, I kind of want to try Fifth Head of Cerberus or some of his short fiction? My impulse to always be putting down and picking up books is constant

This volume is more disjointed and abstract than the other 4 but interesting. It takes place in space, so it's gone from fantasy to science fiction which is cool. Gene Wolfe's writing is still fantastic and Severian is still ... well, Severian.

Not enjoying this

I can’t believe how fucking long he was on that space ship for

Idę skończyć te serie

desperately trying to finish this before I go away on Friday but it's so dense arrrrrgg!!!!

Zak i love you

Great writing. Cool things happening. I might have understood 30 percent of it.

I'm getting a new wrinkle between my brows. It's going to take so much alien porn to soothe my brains after this.

gonna stop writing praise for gene wolfe cuz i'm bored of always being like woww i love this this is amazing woww like we get it. he can't miss. I just started to write "but imagine if he wrote the Bible 2 from Jesus POV" but tbh it will probably turn out too similar to this series soooo i guess i am checkmated yet again by pringle man

I think I’m out. The guys on the Shelved By Genre podcast loved the first four books and hated this one, whereas I was meh on the first four books so I was kind of hoping that, because my opinion ran counter to theirs, this one would work for me. But the issue isn’t how much it “works” for me, I’m just incredibly fuckin tired of this Severian guy. Define the word “Fuligin” one more time, I swear

the last couple chapters felt humongous. big character pay-off kinda stuffs. classic Wolfe style confusion somehow leading straight into an emotional climax.

so many new opportunities for severian to get lost as fuck

i was holding off reading this for some reason but i couldn’t help myself and honestly it’s great to have the himbo back as changed and strange as he is