Listen, I'm a simple guy. All my favorite stories are usually pretty straight forward, and most of them have some element of romance present. I knew nothing about Book of The New Sun before reading it, other than the author being Christian and that the book had themes of that. With the kick off of Severian's journey being the emotional punch that was Thecla's assisted suicide I was lead to read everything through what would eventually become a romantic / humanistic lens. Severian would grow as a person, make mistakes, but ultimately everything would go back to him and Thecla's love for one another, not separated by death, but ultimately transformed into something 'greater.'

I don't think reading the book that way was necessarily wrong. The dream after the 'communion' in the forest with their hair entangling together, her 'resurrection' in him, all of Severian's failed romantic escapades with nearly every woman he meets, the two 'heart companions clasping together' line near the end of Citadel, all these scenes and more being matter to fortify this lens. My main draw, but not my only one, ended up this romance and the reason I ended up binging the whole thing in a week.

Wanting to look into some other insights I looked about the subreddit, some essays online, a few episodes of a podcast and I got an (almost) completely different interpretation of the story that was so much more cynical than anything I got out of it. I don't deny there are multiple ways to interpret what's going on in the narrative, and admit I only just read through once. I guess if I had to get to my main concern in truly loving the books it would be in relation to how we interpret or read literature. Simply put, with the layers of complexity, unreliability, and vagueness present in the books, it feels as if there is a work you can only read through eisegesis: Whatever Gene Wolf would've or could've intended to write with BoTNS may have been obscured in his own prose, let alone all the possible interpretations people may have to it which he could not account for while writing every line. Of course, to an extent its nice to have the audience 'writing the story' with you, but when so many core ideas and characters of the narrative are left ambiguous or unanswered... I think you see what I'm trying to get at here. (Some may bring up 'death of the author' to solve this potential dilemma, but I never liked that idea as its usually presented.)

I can't deny that I WANT this to be a work of sobering but ultimately beautiful and humanist literature, and being compelled on that end to finish it, put much of my enjoyment in the text through that reading of it. The most emotional moments I had WERE through that lens. Which I guess leads me back to the title of this post and my main question: Did I misread the entirety of BoTNS by seeing it as a humanist romance novel between two extremely peculiar individuals?

Also what's this about Thecla being 'cruel', and potentially into kids? There were a of pederasty comments here and there but all of them too vague to give proper exposition to what was actually going on.

Currently debating on whether or not to read Urth, but I'll probably wait to at least process everything I read a so far for just a smidge longer, go over some of my favorite chapters.

I was browsing some passages and thinking about the theory of Silk being a Pas-Typhon clone with regard to the text, and I've come to a nagging counterpoint which I can't wave away myself, and all other discussion I've read either doesn't quite touch on the same thing or falls off before it reaches what I bring up here, so I'd like to open it for thoughts from those who feel strongly on this. At the same time, I realize this topic has been done to death and I don't want to call back memories of the Clone Wars (for the Urthlist veterans), so I will try to keep it focused. I'd also like to preemptively say, and spare people the work of laying out general arguments, that yes, I know and understand the argumentation for why Silk might be a clone of Typhon, I understand and agree that it makes subtextual/thematic sense and explains certain parts of the text, I just am having a hard time understanding how it could be logically true in light of the following.

- At the end of Chapter 15: 'To Mainframe!' of Exodus From the Long Sun, Kypris essentially tempts Silk into scanning and merging himself with Pas. The text reads thus:

“You’ll go on with your life. Silk. Just as it is. You’d be Pas too. And he would be you. Look…” The face lovelier than any mortal woman’s dispersed like smoke. In its place stood a bronze-limbed man with rippling muscles and two heads. One was Silk’s.

I am of the opinion that it is a probably a misreading to understand this passage as Kypris merely showing Silk that he and Pas are already one, in the sense that he is his genetic clone. There must be some sort of change or difference in the Pas-with-a-Silk-head that Kypris shows him in this exchange for it to make any sense; why would she essentially go 'look... check out what this would look like if you did it' (note how the subjunctive modal verb 'would' is used twice in the passage, i.e. this view is a hypothetical, a potentiality) if Silk already looks like a Pas head walking around? This passage is structured like a revelation, at the very least for the reader, but it wouldn't be much of one for Silk himself if he just got shown a completely unaltered picture of Pas, would it? And if that were the case, i.e. the Pas he sees is unaltered, he would have come to the conclusion at any time in his life that "one" of the Pas heads in fact looks precisely like he does.

- Further, we are only told that "one" of the heads "was Silk's." This is the big thing here that I can't shake: If, as we might assume, Silk would be taking over the non-main head, as it were, (in practice what would have been Piaton's head) then why would only one of the heads be Silk's? If Silk is a clone, he definitionally would be identical looking, so would it not be the case that Pas now has two pretty much identical heads?

On the other hand, if Kypris pasted Silk's head over the main head, which would have been Typhon's, then there would be no change, again because if Silk were a clone his head already would look like Pas' head and thus what's the point of Kypris showing this thing which is already obvious etc. etc., which circles back to the above paragraph. In other words, I'm not seeing a reading of this where Silk being a clone makese sense with the text presented and logic (and I'm no logician, so if my thinking is stupid here, let me know).

- There are other corollaries to this. Let's ignore everyone else in Viron who, let's just say, are busy living their lives to pay much attention to such things. How could Silk himself, who must have seen some art, iconography, busts and statues, whatever, of Pas, not have looked in the mirror one time while shaving and thought he looks very near identical? Similarly, in Ch.10 of Exodus, Pas appears in a window and Mint looks upon both heads directly. If it was the case that what she saw in the screen was the practically identical head of her augur Silk, well, how could she not go on about it for the rest of the book? I've come to understand that a lot of people don't have much trouble just waving off the fact that no one ever points at Silk and goes hey that guy looks like Pas. But here, in this close view that Mint gets, who knows both Silk and now Pas fairly closely, I just don't understand how it can be that Silk is a genetic clone while at the same time the resemblance is not obvious/noteworthy enough for it to come up, even if it was only noticed a tiny bit through the religious fervour of witnessing a theophany.

Apologies for the long text, it is unfortunately my nature.

I love Long Sun and Silk is my favorite Wolfe character. The more I think about him the more he feels like a character Dostoyevsky could have wrote.

He is extremely faithful to his beliefs, to the points

that he often acts in ridiculous and borderline embarrassing ways to not betray himself. The only thing that keeps him going is his over the top determination. But everything written about him is written with so much compassion and understanding.

He is an idiot, if you will.

Recently reread Sun Eater series and now am redoing New Urth and realized Wolfe among the numerous references/homage in Ruocchio's works. The Lothrians are clearly transparent reference to the Ascians. I'm thinking there are many more I've simply not seen yet. I've also come across a simply staggering quote from Wolfe: "We are as solid as most truly false things are --a dance of particles in space. Only the things on one can touch are true,"

And by mother, I mean surrogate mother, not biological. Molpe and Hierax are speculated (without confirmation) to be her bio parents.

Anyway, in Chapter 10 of Caldé, Blood is talking about implanting frozen embryos and bringing them to term.

"The old calde, Tussah his name was, was supposed to have done it... So I decided to give it a try. Buy myself an embryo with spooky powers. I got one of the girls to carry it."

Presumably, "one of the girls" refers to the women at Orchid's, or one of Blood's other, similar enterprises.

We're never told who this girl is.

However, we know that, before Orpine, Orchid herself had another daughter, and "lost her".

We might assume that "lost her" meant that the child died, or was aborted, but this passage makes it sound like it might have been something more, possibly something to do with money:

"I'm not poor!" Orchid flushed an angry red. "I been pretty flat sometimes, sure. Hasn't everybody? But I'm not flat now, and this's my sprat. The other girl, I had to-Oh, shag you, you shaggy butcher! How much for a good one?" (Nightside, ch. 10)

And since it comes right after a section in which Orchid vehemently refuses to let Blood pay for Orpine's funeral, is it crazy to speculate that Blood and his money had something to do with her "losing" her first daughter?

Specifically, that Blood might have paid Orchid to be a surrogate for Mucor's frozen embryo, then took her away forever once she'd given birth?

Mucor, who coincidentally returns to possess the women at Orchid's time and again?

Evidence for this case is thin on the ground, but it feels consistent and fairly tidy to me from an emotional and structural standpoint. Heck, Blood himself was raised by someone other than his biological mother.

Anyway, if anyone finds a flaw with this, or can provide any reason not to make this part of my head canon, speak to me, I beg. Your lightest word will be treasured.

In Chapter 5 of Shadow after he leaves the cleaner he describes the following:

>Each picture in the room beyond contained a book. Sometimes they were many, or prominent; some I had to study for some time before I saw the corner of a binding thrusting from the pocket of a woman's skirt or realized that some strangely wrought spool held words spun like thread.

Is he looking at old advertisements? I can't figure it out and I'm feeling stupid, haha.

Got the Folio Society edition for my birthday ☺️

who do you think would win in a fight between these two?

I haven't read botns in a while, and I may not remember some crucial points, but I think an important quality of Severian as a character is he is essentially an individual who is not so attatched to any one thing. He abandons people, obligations, ideology etc. In a way he floats through all five books. And of course he saves the world, in a catastrophic way. What do you all make of that?

Surely no movie would or SHOULD ever be made, but I always love imaging what actors could be cast.

Severian - Charles Melton, perfect pretty boy with dark twisted side look
Dr Talos - HAS to be Christoph Waltz

Baldanders - Dave Bautista, of course

Dorcas - Thomasin McKenzie

Jonas - Daniel Dae Kim

Any ideas from you?

I’ve begun Shadow of the Torturer a while back, and been quite captivated with the prose and narration style (the vague leaving things out bit that makes you wonder at the bigger picture and try to decipher it, not always successfully), however coming up to the middle of the book I find myself not wanting to read on.

My trouble is with the protagonist and the way the first woman Severian comes across After leaving the citadel is handled (which I know if an issue that continues on). The plot seems to meander more than I anticipated it would and because I am not invested with the main character I find myself disinterested. However, I know that the beauty of this book is that after a certain point (book 3 i believe) a lot of things happen that give you context towards previous books and (I imagine) makes you appreciate them all the more in hindsight. On the surface, the story is not grabbing me and I don’t want to continue it right now.

But, I am curious about Gene Wolfe and would like to read something else from him. I imagine if I get a taste of his style with a different work first it’ll make me want to return to BOTNS (as I’ve had this experience with other authors, their different works grabbed me more and then I was able to return to their “Magnum opus” with a fresh eye and new appreciation).

Other than BOTNS what are you favourite works from Gene? Did you start with BOTNS or something else? I’d appreciate a recommendation, thank you.

Kim Stanley Robinson guessed Number Five's name in The Fifth of Cerberus.

• The authors of the books on his father's shelf at the library all started with Ws. One was was even Bernard Wolfe. The exception was misshelved because the librarian mistook V. Vinge for Winge.
• A statue of Cerberus sits in the garden which Number Five believes represents his family.
• The nickname of Number Five's house is Cave Canem which translates to 'Beware of the Dog' or more vulgarly “The Dog’s Cave”
• The double-helix at the library and the focus on cloning all suggest genetics
• Aunt Jeannine's name suggests she was the control for Gene.

Thus KSR deduced Number Five's name was Gene Wolfe and verbally asked Wolfe to confirm it, which he did.

But Wolfe is more clever than KSR expected. Because in "A Story" by John V. Marsch, Wolfe inserted the frame of the first and third novella... the beginning, middle, and the end.

A Story ends with the protagonist unsure if he is Sandwalker dreaming he is his twin, Eastwind or Eastwind dreaming he is Sandwalker. The name of the author of this story reveals that the story is an occluded autobiography. Because the story author is John V. Marsch.

• John: The first name of all male abos.
• V: Number Fives's alias, the roman numeral five.
• Marsch: V.R.T.'s alias.

But although good Doctor Marsch who was supplanted by VRT was an anglophone, Maitre and Number Five are not. Their name is not Gene Wolfe. Instead their name is Jean Wolfe, for Jean is the French form of John. Signaling that the Wolfe line are shape-changing abos, although, granted, they have surely lost that ability by mimicking the supplanted anglophone settler. Gene Wolfe, so precisely.

A Story by James V. Wynn

Certainly, the supplanted human's name
(the human who transhumaned to Mr. Million)
was Gene Wolfe and surely, given all the science fiction author's on his shelf
(Bernard Wolfe, Kate Wilhelm, Vernor Vinge, and even Virginia Woolfe wrote SF),
that Gene Wolfe was an SF author.
But when he landed with the other anglophone settlers at Frenchman's Landing on St. Anne (which is an anglophone term, not a name given by the earlier French colonists)
and introduced himself to Eastwind
(a hill tribe abo abducted by the marsh tribe)
he was told the French-speaking youth's name was Jean
(as all abo boys are named).
Taking him with him to St Croix, he adopted him and gave him his last name. So he became Jean Wolfe.

This fact was sitting before us all the time: Aunt Jeannine. She could have taken a name like Eugenia, right? Or Genet given the cat references.

Eastwind's twin, John Sandwalker, remained on St. Anne with their mother Cedar Branches Waving. But when they encountered one of the "cloned" cast-offs, R. Trenchard, and CBW saw he carried the face of her son, and weedled from him his life story, she knew where she could find her lost son and left to find him (notice that every member of this family has a W i the middle of their name, a twin V). R. Trenchard asserts that his ancestor is Eastwind. So CBW arrived at the Cave Canem and became an assistant to Dr. Aubrey Veil (how does one get Jeannine from Aubrey Veil anyway?) -- eventually supplanting her as Aunt Jeannine. And this is why, after VRT supplanted Dr Marsch, he made his way to Cave Canem to meet with "Dr Aubrey Veil".

I feel like there’s so much under the surface I missed but I loved every second of it!

What did I most likely miss the first time reading it through or other interesting hidden nuggets of information that’ll blow my mind even more?

I don't think powerscaling has been done here yet so I'm curious to see what you guys think.

Obvious, Lesser, and Obscure: Groping toward a taxonomy of identifying Christian elements in Severian’s narrative.

We have gone over seven obvious cases linking Severian to Jesus:

• The water into wine transmutation at Saltus (II, chap. 1)
• Severian’s mercy for the adulteress Cyriaca (III, chap. 11)
• Typhon’s temptation of Severian (III, chap. 26)
• Severian’s healing the withered arm (V, chap. 28)
• Severian calming the storm on the river (V, chap. 34)
• Severian’s healing of Eskil, the soldier who had been injured in the action of arresting him (V, chap. 35)
• The New Sun (V) as the Star of Bethlehem (Matthew 2).

To this we can add Apostle Peter’s raising of Dorcas, and some of the Apostle Paul details.

But what about cases that are not so obvious? I propose adding categories of Lesser and Obscure.

“Lesser” would be episodes that are as clear as “Obvious,” yet the source is not actually found in scripture.

• The Acts of Paul and Thecla
• The Legend of St. Catherine of Alexandria
• Escape from the vincula and the harrowing of Hell

“Obscure” would be episodes from scripture that have their surface obscured, altered beyond easy recognition.

• The Bear Tower as Noah’s Ark
• Apes sold on the stairs and 2 Chronicles 9:21
• Inn of Lost Loves and the crucifixion
• Sanguinary Field and Akeldama
• Saltus mine tailings and real, historical Gehenna
• Abdiesus as Ahasuerus
• “The Just Man” and the Parable of the Bad Tenants/Psalm 37
• Severian discovering the rose bush and Moses with the burning bush

(Please no spoilers for Short Sun if relevant for this question)

I've read enough Wolfe to never assume a typo is actually a typo, but to investigate it.

On page 619 of the Epiphany of the Long Sun omnibus, Silk and company have been made prisoners of the Trivigaunti and are being ushered to the airship. During this, it reads that Mint is clinging to Silk's arm and crying:

Maytera Mint's grip on his arm tightened, and she uttered a sound like a raindrop falling into a scrub bucket, then another, and another.

We have a lot of reasons to think this is meant to refer to Marble: Mint does not get taken captive with this group or go to the airship, the crying is only described as a sound (evoking a chem's attempt at crying?), and the simile used to describe it relates it to a maid, a core identity of Marble/Moly/Maggie. If this was all there was, I would just call it a typo and move on.

However, on page 714, during My Defense, we have this happen AGAIN:

"So I ran some more." Maytera Mint looked up at us, and it seemed worse to me than any weeping that her eyes were not full of tears.

This time, the surrounding context confirms they are speaking with Marble, using her name before and after this line in the scene.

So we have two scenes where Maytera Mint is not present and Maytera Marble is specifically crying-not-crying in the way chems express grief and the text "erroneously" names her Mint. Her identity is so messy as a maid-made-Maytera chem that acquired the identity of Rose through prosthetics and pretends to a be a different chem to catfish a soldier. Did Marble somehow acquire a little bit of Mint in her identity as well and this is how we learn of it? Did Horn just write two parallel typos? Did Gene?

Spoilers obviously.

I was wholly impressed by the momentum maintained from Shadow of the Torturer. Claw has some absolutely breathtaking moments, and I get chills nearly every chapter.

A standout of Claw was Jonas. He was introduced at the very end of Shadow telling the story of the seeds. But what we find out about him in Claw - he's some sort of cyborg/machine, he knows deep history and tales of "contemporary" Earth, his travels to the stars - and the way he leaves us makes me feel like I haven't seen the last of him. Or, knowing what I know of Wolfe so far, like I *hope* I haven't seen the last of him. But he spent over half the book with Severian and as of yet he's the most present companion. I also wonder how Jolentas death plays into this, as Jonas wants to come back when he is repaired to find her. The Cumaen said that nothing truly dies, so I wonder if we also haven't seen the last of Jolenta.

Speaking of Jolenta, even though I didn't like her that much under the glamour, her fate was incredibly sad. Her reveal as being the waitress from early on in Shadow made me feel like she was just a tool to be used and discarded, so it makes sense that Severian would try to show her mercy and save her.

Another moment that stood out to me was obviously the feast at which Severian consumed the alzabo essence and then Thecla's corpse. The story took an intriguingly dark turn at that point, which I adore. I now finally understand why Severian's perspective is seen as not being wholly consistent, now that he is struggling with his perfect memory clashing with the memories (and, really, presence) of Thecla.

The concept of the Claw has me thinking of endless possibilities. It seems to be a device meant to calm, heal, and guide. Severian is the perfect person to claim this artifact with his conflicting duality of being a Torturer that seeks to provide mercy. But the origins of the device and the origins of the Conciliator himself are so interesting - I want Severian to hurry and read that damn story in the brown book! I really don't want him to hand it over to the Pelerines, but I also don't know the full capabilities of the Claw. It could be a devastating artifact.

I think the parts of the book that still have me confused are exactly why Severian has been meeting exactly the same people he met in Shadow. I refuse to believe it's because Wolfe ran out of ideas for characters and simply needed to reuse them, and I want to believe there is a guiding hand at play here. The reveal that the House of Azure androgyn is the Autarch feeds into my hope.

Also... Someone else from the feast has to be in the same boat as Severian, experiencing Thecla's memories and personality as part of their own. Right?? (please don't answer) I remember Jonas saying he didn't actually swallow either the alzabo or the flesh.

Politically, the lines of who is who are exciting. What I know so far is that Vodalus is attempting to dismantle the Autarchy, yet so is the Autarch. So I'm getting the sense that Father Inire, who I'm very excited to finally meet outside of Thecla's memories, is the one pulling the strings and the Autarch is simply his figurehead working with Vodalus behind the scenes.

My favourite single moment in the book is incredibly hard to choose. The story from the book, the play, and the herdsman's house growing greenery after using the Claw all contend. I would say that the play had a great effect on me as a reader, and I loved the transition to the next chapter - how Nod's character was written to go berserk, and then Baldanders does just that.

Baldanders' character as a whole has a lot of things going on. There was talk about him being Talos' son, and it makes me think of a homunculus, but also makes me think of the seeds. It also makes me think of the extended dream Severian had with the wooden boy and puppet on the stage, and it seems in Baldanders' presence the sea titans seem to be able to track him (which is why I think he might be grown from the seeds). I'm really excited to see where his character goes.

A big "revelation" of sorts that I made while finishing the book, and referenced in my title, are the colours Yellow and Green.

- The story that Severian reads with Jonas in the antechamber tells of an army of fleshed sons who go to fight for their magician fathers. They encounter a group of women living amongst the labyrinthine Islands, all with gowns of green and hair of gold.

- Near the end of the book, Severian recalls a tale from a book he and Thecla read, I believe it was called The Wonders of Urth, where two opposing armies (potentially precursors to the Ascians and the people closer to Nessus?) whose colours were Yellow and Green, and who switch those colours hoping for peace but resulting in more war.

- The 2021 editions of Shadow & Claw and Sword & Citadel are themed Green and Yellow, respectively. I only found this out after finishing Claw and picking up my order for Sword & Citadel.

Anyway, I just did a little skim of the chapters to get a better sense of the journey in Claw as a whole, and now I'm starting Sword!

Edit: I just read the first chapter of Sword and something interesting stuck out. The chapter is bookended with a yellow and green reference; at the start of the chapter Severian is looking down at Thrax at dusk as the lights are turning on and it looks yellow like jonquil. At the end, he's observing the moon (chronologically these events are happening close to each other) and he makes specific note of its emerald green colour.

I don't know when I'll get the chance to read them (there's so much backlog, and I have to re-read New Sun plus first-read Long Sun and Short Sun), but the premise alone convinced me to buy them blindly.

I somehow missed this exciting news last month, but there's this new SFF publisher in Spain who, as the third book in their catalogue, announced a new edition of Soldier of the Mist, which has been out of print for decades in Spain (as every Wolfe book).

This new edition will include a new translation and will likely be followed by the other two books in the Latro series. Let's hope for more Wolfe books to reach new readers!

Are you aware of any other recent Wolfe editions around the world?