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Summary: The Joyce of SciFi
Review: Gene Wolfe is a masterful writer. In this series he writes a science fiction story from a fantasy point of view, creating in the reader a new fascination even mundane technology. Wolfe's playing with time and the history of our far future--but even more, he's playing with the reader. I highly recommend Michael Andre-Driussi's guide that helps explain and postulates on the deeper meanings of much of the series. There are deep mysteries here...
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Summary: ...I do not blame you. It is no easy road
Review: So ends the second book of the new sun, haven't read it? Then read it to find out what I am talking about and have a thrill exploring the far-flung future that Severian inhabits all under the ever watchful eye of the Autarch.
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Summary: Superlatives are not applicable...
Review: I believe it isn't fitting to describe this book using superlatives, because it just seems to be beyond that. After you have read this, images of Urth will become a part of you forever. If you have read Zelazny's "Lord of Light", this is like twenty of them all brought together. Thank god that Jack Vance's powerful "Dying Earth" concept has found a perfect author to elaborate on it.
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Summary: One of the ultimate best...
Review: This book is one of the best illustrations of how SciFi can be not just good literature, but sheer poetry! It is truly breathtaking, but only if you have the guts to read it more than once. Some people rightly state that the plot jumps around and the sequence of events is difficult to trace, but, believe me, the rewards are well worth the toil. IMHO, this is the whole point, because when you finally do comprehend the grandeur of the world of these novels, you will discover vistas of possibility and imagination such as you have never experienced before. And this victory will be so much the sweeter for being so hard won and non-trivial! As I said in the beginning, this book is SciFi at its most poetic and the images it conjures are indelible. Just consider "Terminus Est" ("This is the line of division") as the name of Severian's sword. This metaphor alone makes this book worth reading to me.
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Summary: A very different, very good book.
Review: This review is for the entire "Book of the New Sun" of which "Shadow & Claw" collects the first two books. Books three and four are collected in "Sword and Citadel"."The Book of the New Sun" is a very difficult book for me to review because it is so unlike anything else I've ever read. It meanders, depends on coincidence, changes direction abruptly, and is sometimes confusing. In short everything I don't want in a book. And, yet I was completely absorbed by this book and fell completely in love with it. The story is told by Severian, a young member of the torturers guild, and chronicles his journey over many parts of Urth, the Earth of a future so distant that civilizations have risen and fallen countless times since the present, and the sun is growing old and cooler threatening to blanket the planet in a final ice age. Much of the story deals with possible coming of the New Sun, a man who will give the earth a new sun to replace the dying one. The setting is like that of many fantasy books, but with its aliens and reminants of advanced technology it is more properly science fiction. But the general feel is a mythological one. Many of the alien creatures, and forms of advanced technology, and even the narrative style remind me more of myths than of anything usually seen in either SF or fantasy. Again, I really loved this book, but I can understand why some people might not like it at all. My recommendation is to give it a try, because it may become one of your favorite books.
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Summary: Solid, but not standard fiction
Review: It's been a while since I read this, but wow, did I love it! Sadly, I loaned my copy away, and haven't been able to reread it for a while. It's more a series of allegories than a coherent story, but each one, with its highly original characters and phenomenal texture is a joy to read. Wolfe manages to create strange yet plausible worlds, and has a control of horror that surpasses Poe and Lovecraft. Well worth the read, but probably not for younger (say, under 16 year-old) readers.
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Summary: Best book I've read since the Brothers Karamazov
Review: The great thing about Wolfe's works is that thet can not only be read on different levels, they can be enjoyed on different levels. Like Dune it tells a mythic story in a distant and almost alien future. Unlike Dune, these books are written in a fluid, baroque, and harmonic prose. Also the characters aren't just vague archetypes but real humans. Wolfe's skill in characterization is equal to Tolstoy or Dickens or Peake or Dostoevsky (ok, maybe not equal to Dostoevsky, but close). Severian is one of the greatest (and probably the most contraditory) characters in Literature. There are allusions to myths and the Bible. Several subversions of narration are used. Plenty of deeply philosophical ponderings and metaphorical incidents. Plus a couple of really cool action scenes.
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Summary: I dont get it
Review: This book seems to jump around a lot to me. Perhaps I am not well read enough to catch all the literary allusions, but I was just overwhelmed. The language is incredibly intricate, I had to read many passages several times over to figure out what was going on. Beware.
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Summary: Great Literature, on a par with Tolkien & Lewis
Review: Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is fantastic--in all senses of the word. Like Tolkien, Wolfe has spun a gripping epic in a mesmerizing world. Like Borges or Kafka, he combines elements of the absurd with ancient myth to unforgettable effect. Like Orson Scott Card, Wolfe uses his fiction to explore religious issues about the nature and purpose of being (strangely, this book has done more to convert me to Christianity than any other). A philosophy professor once told me the best translation of Plato's work that he ever read had all of the central terms--happiness, virtue, etc.--still in Greek, so that the reader had no pre-conceptions of what the word meant and had to puzzle through the meaning of the words solely through their context. Wolfe manages a similar feat through the use of ancient and outdated language--we think we know what a destrier or a wyvern is, but we're never sure. This book is great literature and like works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or C.S. Lewis is truly a must-read. Raife
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Summary: An acquired taste I suppose
Review: Just a word of caution; Gene Wolfe has been called "The Thomas Pynchon" of science fiction and, like Pynchon, he isn't for everyone. I just finished the first two installments of this tetralogy and I don't think I'll finish it. The writing is, no doubt, brilliant and inspired, however, the plot never emerges and characters come and go with little regard for purpose. If you love fine langauge, then this is for you. If you like a compelling story, solid plots, and absorbing narrative, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.
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