Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 12:38:15 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Gene Wolfe has died at 87

Started by Alberon, April 17, 2019, 08:52:01 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Alberon

The author of the Book of the New Sun series has died at the age of 87.

QuoteWolfe's publisher Tor, when announcing the news on Monday, described him as a "beloved icon". "He leaves behind an impressive body of work, but nonetheless, he will be dearly missed," said the publisher, pointing to The Book of the New Sun's ranking in third place in a Locus magazine poll of fantasy novels – behind only The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Narrated by Severian, an apprentice in a guild of torturers on a dying world called Urth – a far-future version of Earth – it runs to four volumes, and was an achievement that led the late Le Guin to call Wolfe "our Melville". For Neil Gaiman, Wolfe was "the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer"; for Martin, he was "a magnificent writer ... one of the best our genre has ever produced", whose books "will be read as long as SF endures".

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/16/gene-wolfe-science-fiction-author-dies-aged-87

greenman

RIP

Certainly one of my most reread fantasty/sci fi novels, like it so much I'v never actually read the sequel partly due to fear of disappointment and partly because I like the mystery.

I have been half expecting someone to be mad enough to try and adapt it in a post Game of Thrones world.

earl_sleek

Incredible writer. Book of the New Sun really is a towering achievement, in any genre.

I enjoyed Urth of the New Sun, but it's not as satisfying. Long Sun is nearly as good as New Sun, but I could never get into Short Sun.

I need to go back and check out some of his other books. I tried reading Peace when I was young, but didn't get it at all.

RIP. 

I really enjoyed the New Sun series but I don't think I fully understood it. Urth seemed to pose more questions than it answered.

Anyway, good job to that man. It was all fascinating stuff.

mothman

My dad got me Soldier Of The Mist when it came out; years later I read Soldier Of Arete and funny understand that either. I gather there's a third; I might have to re-read at some point.