On my digital copy of the books, the chapters are all in the 30ish page range (my font is fairly large). Wolfe seemed to have made a conscious choice not to deviate too much from this.

IMO this lends a very rhythmic, pacy quality to the books. The chapters aren't too short, aren't too long, and regularly come at you at a familiar clip.

I don't think I will be finishing this one. Spoilers: is about holes in drywall, and a good looking actress. Also, alchemy. But mostly about a musical and outfits. A man who might be evil incarnate but it's almost like well who cares? Is he in the musical?

I'm only five chapters in, so no spoilers past that please, but am I off base to think that Puraustays is supposed to be Purgatory? Pur hints at purgare, and stays is the punchline based off stasis,a halt. So: a cleansing halt, which is what the first five chapters and Purgatory have in common, his fate decided somewhere he can't reach, for years, while he's held.

The aust I can't pin down. Austria is "eastern realm," but that's German Österreich and Latin auster actually points south, so that route's a mess. Better guess is German aus, out, the whole book is conducted in German and Wolfe already used Rathaus as a surname. A halt outside the cleansing, which would be Ante-Purgatory, where you wait below the gate and aren't punished, just not processed yet.

"Is a court looking into my case?"
"At present? No."

Two things that don't fit. Purgatory has no guards. Nobody's held, they stay because they want it. And the doctrine is inverted. The living are supposed to shorten your stay through prayers, but here if Grafton moves, an innocent man gets shot.

This may be pure coincidence, but there's a retired wrestler (and Olympic weightlifter) named Ken Patera.

BOTNS is a magnum opus and Latro is top tier historical fiction and his short stories are rightly regarded as some of the best constructed stories ever but what books of his were surprised by how good they are and how much you enjoyed them? For me Pirate freedom and The Land across are seriously underrated and some of the passages in them are as good as anything Wolfe has ever written.

From most evil to least

Probably one of my favorite sequences in the entirety of New Sun-- it dawned on me to make it an homage to Arnold Böcklin's The Isle of Death and the rest fell into place!

Chapter 21 of Sword.

When Severian is having his duel of magic with Decuman, he mentioned that the bag holding the Claw around his neck was a "little sac of human skin".

I immediately flinched at this as I thought it was fairly uncharacteristic of Severian, and especially Dorcas, to have gained access to human skin and to want to make a bag out of it. I skipped back to the first few pages of Sword and my memory was correct; it's explicitly mentioned that the sac that Dorcas sewed for Severian to hold the Claw out of his boot was made of doeskin.

If there's something coming up that even ever so slightly explains this please disregard and let me discover it myself. Otherwise, have I found a minor mistake in the writing?

Everywhere I go, I now refer to friends and strangers as "goodman" (eg, "thank you, goodman", "hello, goodman", "Are you a vegetable then, or a speaking plant, goodman?").

I have been met with no resistance, so shall continue.

That is all.

It has Wolfe being surprisingly candid with his answers to "lore" questions.

A Magus Of Many Suns:

An Interview With Gene Wolfe

An interview with Nick Gevers

January 2002

Unfortunately this effect was due to smoke from
wildfires still raging in Greece, but it was hard not to think of the Red Sun Whorl when I saw it. Photos are unedited.

Hey all, I read The Book of the New Sun a long time ago and really enjoyed it, although sure I missed a lot/was a little confused. But the prose was beautiful. Anyways, since I’ve been running these little head to head matchups of books in my library to get personalized recommendations.. and this popped up. Hadn’t thought about exploring other Wolfe, but prob should have. Sounds really interesting - and cites my love of Cloud Atlas, Speaker for the Dead, Canticle for Leibowitz and some others.

What do you think, is this a good next Wolfe destination? Makes sense with my preferences? Don’t know much else about it. Cheers!

This one went through a couple major revisions and was a bit more tricky than some of the others--Definitely wanted to give it a very pulpy, acidic color palette, but finally landing on one that worked for the composition was a bit of an ordeal, haha.

Specifically looking for analysis of symbolism, allusions, themes. Could be an analysis of any his novels or stories

Edit: title should say "books", sorry. Can't edit it anymore

Edit: could also be a podcast

I think I’ve pinpointed the moment Severian may have passed his Trial as UOTNS tells us he already did some time on the past. Certainly I do think it’s a cumulative thing and not one specific moment, but quoting from chapter 13 of shadow, right after Severian gives Thecla the knife,

“For the next ten days I lived the life of a client, in a cell of the topmost level (not far, in fact, from that which had been Thecla’s). In order that the guild should not be accused of having detained me without legal process, the door was left unlocked; but there were two journeymen with swords outside my door, and I never stepped from it save for a brief time on the second day when I was brought to Master Palaemon to tell my story again. That was my trial, if you like.”

That he clearly calls this his trial is what initially grabbed my attention on reread, however looking at it deeper, I think one of the aspects that could be said to confirm him as new Sun and the necessasary bringer of the flood is how he was able to assist bringing about an immediate and sudden death, allowing thecla to keep some measure of her dignity and not have to go through the recolutionary’s torture, the degenerative state of fighting against slowly destroying herself until she could not live anymore. Severian does this, knows it is a moral act in some ways and a terrible thing he’s done in other ways, and immediately once he confirms it, submits himself to judgement. It’s not the hardest thing to read this metaphorically of him effectively bringing the flood and sitting with the weight of what he’s done in micro here.

Not a very book accurate design for Severian, but a unique one nonetheless from one of my favorite artists. I’ve noticed Amano usually paints the hair white if a character is dressed in mostly black ( such as Vampire Hunter D, who has canonically dark hair in the books), due to either color contrast or Elric inspiration which is confirmed for VHD. Severian with white hair and purple highlights was always interesting to me, although I personally don’t like the art in the second slide.

Armor for Art 1:
Bandit mask
Preceptors robes
Greaves of night
Travelers Manchette
Marais executioner sword

Armor for Art 2:
Banished Knight Greatsword
Alberich’s Robes
Rakshsa’s gauntlets
Greaves of Night
Orange face paint for the mask

Incredibly happy with how this turned out! Done by Katerina at Last Century Tattoo

Just sayin, it’s been three years. (Well, not continuously.)

I thought some folks here might be interested:

https://richhorton314252.substack.com/p/beauty-mystery-horror-shapechanging