I was born in a water moon…
Fascinating worldbuilding, of the type Banks excels at, supports an excellent adventure tale. Several surprises are actual real surprises. Nothing is forgotten in the coda; everything is wrapped up just enough to be very satisfying. I greatly enjoyed this one.
Read it, enjoyed it, had something to say but didn’t write it, forgot it, might think of it later. Sigh.
When you’ve known someone for a while, you get to know whether or not they’re prone to ramble. When you’ve known someone a very long time, you even learn to enjoy it. Sure, sometimes it might be terribly juvenile, or a half-formed idea that surely would’ve benefited from a longer stay in the oven; often, though, when the rambling rolls along, full of energy and invention, the passive role of listener, occasional nodder of the head and asker of “And then what?” can be bliss.
Enthralling YA novel about a future world, half-ruined by technology. Personal drama and political upheavals. An excellent read.
And here, at the end of the Book of the New Sun, I find myself without much to say. A pleasantly brain-melting experience. (Well, there was perhaps just a smidge too much cannibalism for me.) I really want to read The Urth of the New Sun this time around; I got it from the library last time but never got it started. I’m going to visit Ohio Book Store and Half Price Books tomorrow, and if neither of them have it, then I’ll order it from Amazon.
I’m probably going to read at least two books before reading Urth, though, and maybe more. Give myself a little chance to rest.
It feels a bit odd to be writing separate entries for these books, as it is really just one long story. Having somewhat drifted out of the story that was being told, Severian’s tale becomes more of a travelogue — a fantastic one, to be sure, but still a little unsure. Severian even expresses doubt as to whether one of the episodes actually happens.
I was on the bus when I finished Sword, so plunged directly into The Citadel of the Autarch, which has taken an odd side-trip into a story-telling contest.
Severian’s tale continues. In the first book, he says something along the lines of “it was now that I realized that I was mad”. That one tiny doubt makes just about anything that happens when Severian is alone or asleep suspect. The play, as presented in the last third of the book, has none of the events alluded to when it is performed earlier, but ends up at the same place. There are at least two amazing reveals.
I’d start the next one right now if I wasn’t yawning so hard I’m almost falling out of my chair.
Wolfe loves playing with the trope of the unreliable narrator, sometimes to great effect — Peace probably being the best example of this. Severian, the narrator of the Books of the New Sun, claims an eidetic memory, and recounts events — including vision-like dreams and dream-like visions — in great detail. Sometimes it seems as if the completeness of his recall makes it difficult for him to tell the difference between significant and insignificant events; the story just rushes at the reader in a torrent.
Reading this and Claw of the Conciliator in the same volume really makes the discontinuity between the two books starkly apparent. Severian is in completely different circumstances at the beginning of Claw and — if I remember right — not everything that happened in the gap is explained.
Still really enjoying the re-read, enough to put Under the Dome off for another week or two.
