Did Horn-Silk deliberately stir up Jugano so he would seek to kill him -- to give him the death he sought, but not from his own hands -- not only to abate guilt, but so that he would die with family members and friends joining him there, and so not go into death, alone (see below for his admission that in a dream he tries to drag his wife into his grave)? Is his confession to Remora of his concern for guilt over desiring his own death, cover for the greater crime of bringing into the realm of possibility that in his death, his family would be forced to join him? Silk has done this kind of thing before. He puts attention to one sort of crime he is guilty of seemingly in order to cover for a greater crime, which is meant to thereby become invisible. The great crime on top of the airship was that he gaslit Horn into thinking that only if he allows himself to perform the suicide that Silk wants for himself, take Silk's suicide into himself, so to free Silk of his desperate need to obliterate himself, will he really prove that he loves him. Afterwards, however, Silk tries to make his crime one that follows afterwards, the clearly much lesser one of his allowing Horn to be thought of as performing an action that really belonged to Silk, namely, Silk's, after putting him into a position where he very well could fall to his death, ultimately having saved Horn from this fate. Since this made him (Horn) seem a hero to Nettle, this felt like a bribe, fyi. Here, take this "candy," and don't talk about the rest.

- - - - -
“I explained to her that I was not really in her kitchen at all, that I lay at the bottom of a pit in a ruin of the Vanished People on an island far away, and that I was dying of thirst.

“Oh,” Nettle said, “I’ll get you some water.”

She went to the millstream and brought back a dipper of clean, cool water for me; but I could not drink. “Come with me,” I told her. “I’ll show you where I am, and when you give me your water there I’ll be able to drink it.” I took her hand (yes, Nettle my darling, I took your hard, hardworking little hand in mine) and tried to lead her back to the pit in which I lay. She stared at me then as if I were some horror from the grave, and screamed. I can never forget that scream.

And I lay in the pit, as before. ” (On Blue's Waters)

- - - - -

“None came, and his legs were cold and dead. He felt the thirst of death, and it seemed to him at that moment that he had been cheated, that all his sons should be at his deathbed, and Nettle, who had been his wife, and Seawrack herself. And he raised .” (In Green's Jungles)

- - - - -

“I told him, “If you mean you wish to die when I do, Oreb, I sincerely hope you don’t. In Gaon they tell of dying men who kill some favorite animal, usually a horse or a dog, so it will accompany them in death; and under the Long Sun their rulers went so far as to have their favorite wives burned alive on their funeral pyres. When I die, I sincerely hope no friend or relative of mine will succumb to any such cruel foolishness.” (Return to the Whorl)

- - - - -

“I opposed it, Your Cognizance, in such a way as to stir up Juganu’s ill will as much as possible.” Each hand warred with the other, twisting and tearing. “I didn’t—I’ve searched my conscience on this, Your Cognizance. I didn’t imagine that Juganu would enlist hundreds of his kind for a public attack.”

Remora grunted.

“I believed it most probable that Juganu would come for me alone. I would feign sleep and permit him to drink his fill, which would be much. If I lived, so be it.”

Remora nodded to himself. “But if you, hum?”

“So be it. Possibly he would bring a companion. I foresaw that. Possibly he would bring two or even three; in either case I would certainly die.”

“So—um—et cetera, Patera?”

“Yes, exactly, Your Cognizance. It would be what I wanted. I wanted someone else to kill me, so that I would not bear the guilt myself. You know the result of my folly—the deaths of a round dozen people and hundreds of inhumi.” (Return to the Whorl)

Hey! I'm pretty new here and I've read BotNS not too long ago and immediately became a huge fan, Wolfe now being one of my favorite authors. He is one of those very few authors that I love so much that I plan on reading essentially everything they have ever written.

I read somewhere that the Orb edition of Long Sun changed a word or something, because they thought it was a typo, but that in fact ruins a very good twist. Because the US editions are hard for me to get from EU, is there a safe way to read the Orb editions and still catch the twist as it comes? Otherwise I'll definitely cash out and buy the other editions, because one doesn't find a new favorite author like Wolfe every day and it wuld probably be worth it.

Aside, here is a stupid guess that I have and please don't tell me whether it is wrong or not. In Citadel, there is a bizzare sequence of "memories" of some sort and one thing stood in my mind since I read it, because it just doesn't make any sense to me (tho maybe Alzabo guys will elucidate when I get to that point). It is this: >!Malrubius mentions Severian's Q. Just that. I knew about the typo thing beforehand and so this imemediately caught my attention. I do not know what it means though, other than I assume the true Severian is the Conciliator and this flashback is about the true one. What Q is, I dont know.!< Im sure this is a total miss, but I guess you that are in the know will have some fun.

If you could only read one Wolfe book for the rest of your life, which would you pick? For the purpose of discussion I'll be allowing omnibuses like Shadow & Claw or Litany of the Long Sun, but not one which would include all of Book of the New Sun or all of the Book of the Long Sun. Short story collections are allowed. Fifth Head is allowed with A Story and V.R.T. The Wizard Knight is allowed with both novels in one. I can't think of any other stipulations as of right now.

I might pick Peace for its complexity and stories within stories, or the Best of Wolfe for variety.

there’s so many times where Severian refers to blue things as “like milk”

It’s been many years since I read New Sun, so I might be confusing it with some other sf novel, but I distinctly remember a scene with (I think) three sentient snail creatures out on some rocks in the water and the protagonist ends up killing one of them for some reason. Was this just some fever dream I had or was it in BotNS? If so, does anyone know the name of the snail creatures or which of the books in the tetralogy it was?

Edit for clarification: the creatures living inside the shells were humanoid iirc. I remember they were shy at first, hiding and then peaking back out of their shells. They were teasing the protagonist about something, which he then killed one of them over (I remember it crying something like “You’ve killed me when we were only playing!”).

Can someone please talk to me about this completely boring and totally disconnected story? It's like I should have read 10 other books before this first installment of The empire of the new sun? It's literally pluck my eye brows out boring. It's like the author completely and purposely does absolutely nothing to help you understand this world he is trying to build. Which wouldn't be totally horrible....if....he gave you JUST ONE character that you actually cared about. I assume he is attempting that with Severian. And he is the only reason I've started the next book. But this story (if you want to call it that) is convoluted and so far 11/2 books in BORING. I've used that word like 4 times in one post....OMG! What am I not getting?

It cost me almost a year, probably would finished it earlier if i didn't had to deal with my medical exams and residency process.

I have to admit, i feel like i didn't understand half of the book of the new sun. There were times were my mind tried to find bigger meanings into the text, like when i realised the Autarch has the consciousness/memories of all his predecessors, and for some reason i remembered Master Malrubius apparition with Triskele (the one he tried to give Severian a class of political science), or when Ouen (son of dorcas?) apparently has a physical resemblance with Severian.

Looking foward to re-reading it, as i believe i will meet the other Severians doing so!

Not sure if there are any other post like this but I was looking through this page yesterday and remembered my fav quote from Gene Wolfe. I used to write it on every whiteboard or anywhere I could, lol. What are yours?

"If not for the silence of the void, the roaring of the sun(s) would deafen the universe."

I've always taken the Cumaean's elongated appearance as indicating that she is walking the corridors of time in a way Severian doesn't understand. She's not in any one place, but she is in a number of places simultaneously, so Severian sees her as a kind of human centipede or line dance, with a series of Cumaean "echos" occupying space. She's either stretched out in time, or maybe probability.

I don't think that means she can't be symbolically linked to snakes or Echidna, or whatever, I just don't think she has an elongated body. She's tinkering at the quantum level and Severian just describes what he sees.

IGJ: the narrator remarks to Mora that he has finally realized who she and her father remind him of. i want to hear (read, really) your opinions on who this may be.

go fishing! go fishing! go fishing!

What is a “Kybernetes”? I cannot find this word anywhere online, the closest word is some philosophical thing about cybernetics. Are there androids in Latro books? I thought this one was pure fantasy?

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So I just read an older TB copy of Fifth Head, and the very end has several pages out of order. The second to last page is followed by several blank pages and the very last page is switched front to back. My assumption is that this was simply a misprint but I could find no record of it online, and well...It's Wolfe. I know there is at least one famous case of a "typo" being on purpose, and the last story being intentionally out of order already gives me doubts. Is this intentional and present in other editions?

Apologies if something in this vein has been asked elsewhere, I've looked around quite a bit and found nothing really related to this topic.

After recently reading chapter 16 of Sword of the Lictor, a small sentence stood out to me in a way I'm having some trouble reconciling; Severian says in relation to the Alzabo and the supposed consciousnesses trapped, as it were, inside it:

"I knew that even as the wreck of Thecla's neural chemistry had been fixed in the nuclei of certain of my own frontal cells by a secretion distilled from the organs of just such a creature...".

What really stood out to me is this uncharacteristically scientific vocabulary that Severian uses here, so much so that I had to do a double take and read the sentence three times to make sure I was seeing things correctly. As far as memory serves Severian doesn't really deploy similar vocabulary elsewhere thus far in the series at least, though I'm sure there are small instances here or there. Perhaps most notably Inire explaining his mirrors was the first time I got the impression of scientific language (though of course that explanation was not exactly clear and unobfuscated). This being the case, it made me then question, if Severian knows about neural chemistry and nuclei and frontal cells and whatnot, how come he did not recognise (or refused to describe as such), for instance, his Matachin Tower as a rocket/ship despite mentioning a propulsion chamber and a gun room with "siege pieces lounged in cradles of pure force" or whatever else?

I suppose we could interpret instances like this as smarter, more educated Autarch Severian in hindsight describing things more scientifically, but then why so here and not everywhere else? Or would it be fair to call this a bit of a slip-up by Wolfe?

It's a pretty tiny matter of course, but as I say seemed quite odd. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I just got a bonus audible credit and want to get one of the Wolfe books I have tried yet. I have read the solar cycle (minus Short Sun which is up next.) I have read a bunch of his short stories and Fifth Head. I liked but did not love Fifth Head. I loved Long Sun. New Sun... Is New Sun and I would not be here without it. But I think my favorite so far has been Death of Doctor Island. I expect I will read both eventually but given the above. What should be next?

Also if you have experience with the Audiobook of either the better audiobook is a fine tie breaker. Some stuff doesn't translate to audio well

No spoilers plz

I've seen there are some books between the new and the long sun and honestly I'm broke right now and i don't have too much money

So those books between are worth reading?

English isn't my first language so i hope i explain it well enough

Pd: I've come here with extreme fear of spoilers so i don't ruin this wonderful saga, I'm very excited

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Would like some insight before comitting

Severian argues that women were banned from being torturers by the first autarch, for being too sadistic. Given the nature of female cops, the likelihood is that they would have been more or less the same as male cops, or female soldiers. (When you read this passage from Sophie Lewis on Kamala's tough talk, don't you hear Chelle and her talk of raping her husband, from Home Fires?)

In real life, women cops aren’t doing the warm fuzzy work that our media imagines. While their own frequent abuse at their male colleagues’ hands is a matter of record, their abuse, in turn, of civilians is equally well-documented. Girl cops, too, strip search and racially profile. Contra the expectation that policewomen are emotionally attuned, sociologists have found that they employ emotionally flat, macho*,* dehumanizing speech patterns in their dealings with civilians. Perhaps they feel pressure to perform toughness, or embrace violence — a curse that seems to have befallen Harris. In 2016, David Axelrod, Obama’s former senior adviser, speculated that “the image of toughness that comes from being in law enforcement may help candidates repel the biases against electing women to higher office.” In 2024, Harris is clearly leaning on that image. Take her lighthearted confession to Oprah Winfrey that she is a proud gun owner: “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.” Or her team’s declarations of “ironclad” support for Israel and her hawkish enmity vis-à-vis Iran. (Source: The Drift, October 20, 2024)