>>25060390
they need to reprint the all in one complete saga with the classic artwork, can’t believe they haven’t yet, would sell gang busters

>>25060407
Yeah, exactly. Folio society made a special edition for the 40th anniversary and the omnibus' is coming next year, so I am praying.

>>25060390
I literally just gave Billionaire Bozo Bezos money for the not shite covers in paperback plus the old cover for The Urth of the New Sun and Lexicon Urthus and spent like $61 for all four books. I did not know that the 40th was next year though so I may be double dipping for the compendium.

All that to say, I am excited to give it a read for the first time.

>>25060424
>the omnibus' is coming next year
is this actually releasing? didn’t know that, only thing i’m seeing on google is the 2 volume folio edition.

>>25060592
I meant that its anniversary is coming

File: wolfefags.jpg (146.7 KB)

146.7 KB JPG

Read literature
>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing special.
>Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.
>I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.
>The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.

>>25060900
>Then there is the fact that 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.
>I agree with this reviewer that 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.

>>25060900
It's the same faggot who posts his copypasta in every thread and thinks that BoTNS is the only thing Wolfe wrote

The Latro series is fantastic. Wizard-Knight is pretty good. Pirate Freedom was great. Long Sun was okay, but it sets up Short Sun which was fantastic. I still haven't had a chance to read Peace, There are Doors, An Evil Visitor, or The Three Heads of Cerberus, but I hear they are all quite good as well. He also has many short stories that are worth reading

I don't know why I even respond to this guy because he's very intellectually dishonest, but I never feel too guilty about bumping a Wolfe thread so fuck it

File: wolfefags1.jpg (141.7 KB)

141.7 KB JPG

>>25061071
They're good, well written genre fiction. Never denied that. But they're genre fiction and you wolfefags need to stop pretending they're literary fiction and you're some deep guy for reading about severian killing monsters or the wizard knight or whatever you retards spend posting on threads til they hit bump limit.

>>25061157
>A bunch of people enjoy a book or author
>"BUT IT'S NOT LITERARY FICTION"

no one gives a fuck. you are the only person autistically obsessed with what is or is not a certain sort of fiction

>>25061157
>genre fiction
>literary fiction
Arbitrary meaningless categories

>>25060424
>the omnibus' is coming next year,
What? Where can I read about this??

>>25061157
>genre fiction
>literary fiction
And the difference is?

>>25061287
Think of it as the difference between a high-speed roller coaster and a thoughtful walk through an art gallery.

>>25061304
people will make comparisons like this and then get mad when someone prefers the roller coaster

>>25061343
I have not dog in this fight, it's just an accurate comparison.

>>25060390
The hardcover tor versions aren’t great. They’re glue bound and the paper quality is not very good, but they’re a lot better than the paperbacks which have the same paper quality but the covers have this disgusting texture.

>>25060900
They're all genre fiction.

>>25060390
I got a sealed copy of the hardcover omnibus for like $60 USD. It comes with a cool poster as well. Haven't read it yet though

>>25060390
I'm still pissed at Urth of the New Sun, not only for being overall a very mediocre book, but for ruining the first Severian twist. It was such a brilliant way of ending the series that was perfectly coherent with the theme of infinite iterations slowly improving on top of each other. Can't understand why Wolfe decided to discard it in Urth.

>>25060390
That's not AI. A real human got paid a lot of money to make this shitty cover with its 2D sword and gate and photoshop brush tombstones attached to nothing.

>>25061071
Because most 4chan fags that post about BotNS havent read anything else by Wolfe and probably haven't even read New Sun outside of these threads or reddit, I swear half of its performative
Anyway you should read Peace, its fantastic. I liked Doors too but its probably the weakest Wolfe Ive read so far.

>>25061891
Yeah if it was AI it would be much better. Fuck "designers" and "artists" imagine living in a huge 100sqm loft in New York based on this kind of shit I hope the fucker throws himself through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

>>25061847
where’d you cop that

>>25061304
Sure if the art gallery is exclusively modernist slop

>>25060390
>>25061891
Do artists for things like this get a set fee or a cut of the sales?

>>25060908
>Then there is the fact that 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.
It is a book about time travel, of course this was going to happen. Stupid complaint.

>>25062200
If you want to say time travel books are stupid, sure, but it's very stupid to criticise the consequence of the premise rather than the premise itself.

Sooo what's up with the obsessed BoTnS haters?

>>25062213
He found a copypasta and you people reward him with (You)s every time he spams it.

>>25060407
They need new covers for on blues waters - that book's cover is such dogshit. All the short sun books actually. They're great though.

>>25062213
BOTNS babbies have been spamming this board for years trying to pretend people their genre book is literary fiction. Anons eventually got sick of it

>>25062258
return to the whorl is the doofiest. the artist misunderstood the godling and drew it with a toe for a head.

File: 1711092255914678.jpg (368.7 KB)

368.7 KB JPG

>>25061868
I agree Urth is mediocre compared to New Sun, but I wonder if the first Severian deal was really retconned or not. After all, Severian is following in first Severian's footsteps and in interviews Wolfe seems to have stuck with the idea of forces shaping and responding to Severian's journey across succeeding cycles, so each cycle will be slightly different. Perhaps our Severian will continue to do the same with the next Severian and will be that Severian's 'first Severian.' Just my speculation, though.

Book of the Long Sun is underrated

File: 1711320732690307.jpg (423.7 KB)

423.7 KB JPG

>>25063308
TRVE

>>25063286
i agree with you. the idea wasn't retconned and Severian, at the end of citadel, still only had a limited view of what he was. the multiple severian idea is true, but for a few different reasons and none of them straight forward. technically, apu punchau and the conciliator meeting typhon are severians existing much earlier in the history of the world. due to the divine year universal cycle, he's also not the first severian to elevate humanity to beings capable of creating the heirogrammates, which is what they are looking for each iteration of the universe.

>>25063334
silk is wolfe's most compelling character and i believe urth of the new sun should be read after the ending of short sun.

>one of the great science fantasy epics
>science fantasy
huh?

>>25063509
>He doesn't know

File: 8-8_SciFiCoversModern.jpg (178.5 KB)

178.5 KB JPG

>>25060390
It's not AI, it's just shit digital art that has to look good on ebook thumbnails. That's the main reason why modern covers look the way they do. If you put in too much detail aka draw an actual scene, entire thing looks too busy.

>>25060390
Browse the internet, visit bookstores, check your local craigslist. I got mine a few years ago for almost nothing, and I have an assortment of random paperbacks of the not so popular sequel.

File: the long sun whorl.jpg (304.2 KB)

304.2 KB JPG

>>25064170
this cover for the long sun is amazing, though.

>>25062195
Set fee, and in the case of reprints like this they're just salaried employees of the SF Masterworks (Orion) brand

>>25060390
I feel your pain. I keep seeing volume 2 in every HMV shop but not Volume 1. And Urth wasn't even reprinted in this collection...

>>25064585
the first Long Sun book is pure comfy kino. It kind of looses the plot later on, sadly.

File: typhon.png (195.8 KB)

195.8 KB PNG

>>25060390
Found a fun little inspiration for some of the events of Short Sun.

Source is The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Franis Celoria.

File: hierax.png (153.8 KB)

153.8 KB PNG

>>25067197