Hacker News Reader

Comment by myth_drannon | Hacker News Reader

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series. As someone who read a lot of sci-fi, I'm surprised I've discovered it only now. It's considered the Dostoevsky of scifi, very different from golden age hard scifi. Already started books of the Long Sun. Disappointment of the year - The three body problem. Feels like buying on amazon a product with thousand of rave reviews only to realize its all fake Chinese reviews.

View on HN

I can second the New Sun series. The bizarre thing about this series is that it is a hole in my memory. I can remember reading it, I can remember liking it, and I can remember little snippets, but I can't remember most of the specifics. I've read the series twice, but even the second reading hasn't resolved this failure to recollect.

Ironically -- likely on purpose -- that's the point. The series centres on an unreliable narrator, which is a part of the charm.

You forget moments because the narrator wasn't clear.

The narrator wasn't clear because the he didn't understand what he was seeing.

You have to re-read the series, perhaps several times, to figure out what's truly going on.

All of Wolfes books are like that. I too have read the books of the Sun twice, and still have no real idea what happened.

BotNS has a final volume that has been out of print for decades: Urth of the New Sun. I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy in a bookstore 20 years ago while on vacation; you can now find plenty of online listings for it. It wraps some things up and further obfuscates some others; in short, it’s Gene Wolfe. It’s less memorable than the main BotNS, but for those who have read that a few times it’s worth picking up.

Long Sun is my current favorite of his, but you should be warned that it’s a very different kind of writing and pacing. The entire first book takes place over the course of only two or three days, and you’re given even less context about the world than in New Sun. The reward for puzzling it out is even bigger IMO, but I’m in the minority here. (And I’ve by no means caught everything.)

I think Gene Wolfe is the one of the greatest authors of all time across any genre. I highly highly recommend the Fifth Head of Cerberus which is 3 short interconnected novellas and Peace, which isn't traditional Sci-Fi but is absolutely worth a read.

He's not just writing, he's constructing beautifully crafted puzzle-boxes that take a lot of time and thought to unpack.

Fifth Head of Cerberus was a huge shock for me when I read it.

Couldn't believe I spent so much time reading SF without having heard of this.

Too bad that his most famous contribution to the world is not his books but Pringles chips.

The Death//Sentence podcast did a terrific four part dive into the series recently. https://overcast.fm/+w14JdCU34

Also Alzabo Soup, podcast discussing Gene Wolfe's books.

Agree on the Three Body Problem. The Sci-Fi elements were interesting enough to finish the book. But the prose and characters are mediocre at best.

I disagree on Three Body Problem. Especially the second book which I thought was even better than the first. The third was pretty meh and I didn't entirely like the resolution. But the first book is really great imo.

I somewhat agree... The story and sci fi elements are brilliant, some of those where ground breaking extremities for me - those I really enjoyed. The characters are mostly shallow shells to narrative the happenings without any development and often lacking reason and common sense which I really hated.

Yeah I agree. The only person who made total sense was Luo Ji and even he went like completely ballistic by the third book. The female character sucked so hard, I doubted if the author had ever written a female character before. It was Asimov levels of bad.

The societal descriptions were truly amazing though. Coming out of the despair and decline with some false hope that humanity’s physics was good enough to face off and then absolutely getting their ass handed to them in a conflict with what was essentially something less than a messenger probe. I’m absolutely convinced this is what we will do as a race in such a situation.

I enjoyed the Three Body Problem series despite its flaws. I found it refreshing how unlike typical science fiction it is. It's much more idea and plot-oriented than character-oriented. Second book was my favorite. First spends a bit too much time on Chinese history, and the third goes too far off the rails.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com