I tried it and didn't like it. The beginning was nice, until he was sent out of town. Then in turned into shlock fantasy action and I quickly got bored of it.
The beginning was realistic. The protagonist was just a pawn, even though a bit special. But then when the adventure begins he turns into THE HERO thing happen unrealistically all around him. He's the badass, the power fantasy for a teen.
This book to me was very similar to Salvatore's Dark Elf, for example. The origin story, the world building was awesome. But when the main adventure began it became lame af.
did you finish it? there are many reasons it may seem unrealistic or inorganic. severian is an unreliable narrator and the seemingly contrived occurances happen for a reason.
I dropped it right when I stopped enjoying it. The same with Dark Elf. I know it's my problem, I read it quite late. If I read it in my teens it would've been my favorite book
>schlock fantasy
absolutely fricking filtered. there are so many sci fi elements in the "fantasy" setting in the first four books; then the 5th book literally takes place in space for half of it.
The "fantasy in not really a fantasy but a post-apocalyptic future" was boring in Shannara already. I don't give a frick, just make the story and conflict engaging. This book begins well when it's slow, but the action ruins it.
This is one of the few times when the word filtered is absolutely true. Nothing about the adventure is generic fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. I would highly recommend slowing down your reading, BotNS is nothing like generic shlock which you can power through a page a minute and have actual understanding of the events read
because the narrative requires thinking about what is written and is very rewarding. for instance, if you just show the matachin tower was a discarded rocket ship or neil armstrong on the moon in the painting museum it ruins it. not to mention in this day and age they would absolutely miscast and frick up the story and dialogue to include checkboxes.
that's pretty late in the books to be filtered considering how much other weird shit is before that.
iirc the whole point of that was so the autarch couldn't have any children and would be forced to continue the alzabo succession
>he has to lose his penis
This is some bullshit, really hated the aliens for this shit. Severian already completed his mission so anyone else who tries will lose their dick. Such bullshit.
I can think of two reasons.
It's clever bits rely on you making assumptions from text that would be impossible in a visual medium.
It's also way too christian for anyone outside of Mel Gibson to touch it. Obscure catholic terms galore and the main character is literally a vehicle for explorating Jesus Christ. Severian's a torturer because Christ, a carpenter, was crucified on a wooden cross made by a carpenter and because the only object he's mentioned to have made is a whip by Wolfe's own admission.
Because the nature of the series is Severian’s unreliability as a narrator, and the multiple ways in which his accounts can be interpreted. The draw of Wolfe’s works here is for a passage to have multiple meanings. The instant you bring the work to the screen you have to give us definitive explanation for any given events. You have to give us depictions of things whose ethereal nature is the entire draw of the work. The series can literally only function as a literary work, it falls apart in any other context
>Because the nature of the series is Severian’s unreliability as a narrator
What do people mean by this? Just that he doesn't always understand the true nature of things like the Apollo mural or the Citadel?
He seems to be pretty reliable when it comes to actual plot events. Sometimes he omits things until later for the purpose of the narrative, but that's not what I would call "unreliable narration"
He constantly brags about having a perfect memory but contradicts himself various times.
The framing is that he wrote the book a decade after it all happened [/spoiler]and he's housing multiple consciousnesses, various of which come to the forefront and color his thinking[/spoiler], and is obviously trying to clean up the fact that he was a misanthropic coomer for most of his journey.
Lying by omission is a better description than unreliability, but it still makes it hard to translate to film, where you're literally seeing actions happen.
The series is written as a personal recollection of events from the narrator’s perspective, who consistently embellishes his accomplishments and also downplays his crimes. Example, Severian appears to rape Jolenta yet downplays it repeatedly after the fact. There are various instances even outside of plain lies (I never fricked Thecla — *way later* oh yeah I loved fricking Thecla) where he is just rather dishonest about what he saw or thought. It reads like someone’s journal, which is basically what it is.
It leads to some funny moments >You could say that what I did to Jolenta was rape, but I'm pretty sure she wanted it >Next scene is Jolenta weeping to Dorcas as Dorcas gives him the evil eye
How can he/she be unreliable if we only get his/her point of view throughout the books. Most of what they say we have to take at face value. Severian is a bumbling idiot throughout most of the book, he doesn't portray himself in a positive light.
He forgets to mention he has thousands of voices in head at any given time. He also leaves out all his killings as a torturer. Maybe he just doesn't remember or leaves some things out. Not sure who hes even writing this memoir to since it makes him look bad. He literally floods a prison because he doesn't want to work there anymore.
I always thought Takashi Miike could do it justice.
He has a knack for weird visuals, atmosphere, and brutal scenes, and apparently the Japanese versions of the books are fairly popular there.
It would be weird seeing them as Japs I'd take that over an American studio butchering it.
The protag fricks almost every woman he meets (sometimes via rape) and brags about it how hot they were because he's an emotionally stunted ~20yo
People complain about Wolfe's horniness but I think it's pretty endearing. There's weirder stuff in his other books.
It leads to some funny moments >You could say that what I did to Jolenta was rape, but I'm pretty sure she wanted it >Next scene is Jolenta weeping to Dorcas as Dorcas gives him the evil eye
It's a "love it or hate it" thing.
For me, the first read was frustrating because of how obscure the storytelling was, but there were enough cool moments and ideas that I restarted it as soon as I'd finished the last book.
It's not Finnegans Wake but Wolf likes to make you work for it. The last series in that world (Short Sun) gave me brain damage the first time I read it.
>The last series in that world (Short Sun) gave me brain damage the first time I read it.
Yeah I'm halfway through Return to the Whorl and I know what you mean. The constant frustrating digressions punctuated by bizarre mind-fricks that come out of nowhere.
Still better paced so far than the second half of Long Sun.
>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorwiener, Wolfe is nothing special. >Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way. >I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive. >The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.
Wolfebros...not like this
cuz it's boring as frick
Cast them.
She is destined to be Thecla
Holy Jolenta!
all black, women and lgbtq representatives save for the antagonists.
Emma Dumont as Thecla
Batista = Baldanders
>baldanders
he's baldING. why won't anyone acknowledge the ding?
how big is typhon
I tried it and didn't like it. The beginning was nice, until he was sent out of town. Then in turned into shlock fantasy action and I quickly got bored of it.
FILTERED
Nah jk, if you didn't like it thats cool.
The beginning was realistic. The protagonist was just a pawn, even though a bit special. But then when the adventure begins he turns into THE HERO thing happen unrealistically all around him. He's the badass, the power fantasy for a teen.
This book to me was very similar to Salvatore's Dark Elf, for example. The origin story, the world building was awesome. But when the main adventure began it became lame af.
did you finish it? there are many reasons it may seem unrealistic or inorganic. severian is an unreliable narrator and the seemingly contrived occurances happen for a reason.
I dropped it right when I stopped enjoying it. The same with Dark Elf. I know it's my problem, I read it quite late. If I read it in my teens it would've been my favorite book
Then your perception of it is completely flawed, it's not at all what you think it is
>schlock fantasy
absolutely fricking filtered. there are so many sci fi elements in the "fantasy" setting in the first four books; then the 5th book literally takes place in space for half of it.
The "fantasy in not really a fantasy but a post-apocalyptic future" was boring in Shannara already. I don't give a frick, just make the story and conflict engaging. This book begins well when it's slow, but the action ruins it.
the sword of the lictor is probably right up your alley. it's quite picaresque and full of action. climax of it is nutty.
Comparing Shannara to BotNS is like comparing Hunger Games to LotR. You have no taste at all.
This is one of the few times when the word filtered is absolutely true. Nothing about the adventure is generic fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. I would highly recommend slowing down your reading, BotNS is nothing like generic shlock which you can power through a page a minute and have actual understanding of the events read
because the narrative requires thinking about what is written and is very rewarding. for instance, if you just show the matachin tower was a discarded rocket ship or neil armstrong on the moon in the painting museum it ruins it. not to mention in this day and age they would absolutely miscast and frick up the story and dialogue to include checkboxes.
it's hardly even writable and readable. It reads like a fever dream (not a criticism just an observation)
Been tricked by Cinemaphile to read this, it's 6/10 and even Drizzt saga is unironically better
>pretentious Cinemaphile unfun grimdark scifi
>why do movie studios not make this movie that is 100% going to fail
Gee...They would be better served by just doing a Warhammer 40k movie universe if they want to earn money (which they do).
>unfun
the biggest filter of all
0 sense of adventure homies be like
I quit right after he has to lose his penis or something.
Got way too weird
that's pretty late in the books to be filtered considering how much other weird shit is before that.
iirc the whole point of that was so the autarch couldn't have any children and would be forced to continue the alzabo succession
I liked the rest of it.
But I liked the early stuff better. It was more grounded? I think.
Also the main guy is kind of a simp. Horrible at his job
>he has to lose his penis
This is some bullshit, really hated the aliens for this shit. Severian already completed his mission so anyone else who tries will lose their dick. Such bullshit.
It's better than Hyperion, atleast this filtered me early instead of fricking up with Endymion.
I can think of two reasons.
It's clever bits rely on you making assumptions from text that would be impossible in a visual medium.
It's also way too christian for anyone outside of Mel Gibson to touch it. Obscure catholic terms galore and the main character is literally a vehicle for explorating Jesus Christ. Severian's a torturer because Christ, a carpenter, was crucified on a wooden cross made by a carpenter and because the only object he's mentioned to have made is a whip by Wolfe's own admission.
I want a proper Conan adaptation, true to the novel.
And no, mystery meat Hawaiian dude wasn't a good Conan.
is it unadaptable?
These are all easily adaptable and once Hollywood purges its bullshit cosmere will be the new MCU, mark my words
>cosmere will be the new MCU, mark my words
kek, the shitshow will be greater than Game of Tyrone or Avengers.
Because the nature of the series is Severian’s unreliability as a narrator, and the multiple ways in which his accounts can be interpreted. The draw of Wolfe’s works here is for a passage to have multiple meanings. The instant you bring the work to the screen you have to give us definitive explanation for any given events. You have to give us depictions of things whose ethereal nature is the entire draw of the work. The series can literally only function as a literary work, it falls apart in any other context
>Because the nature of the series is Severian’s unreliability as a narrator
What do people mean by this? Just that he doesn't always understand the true nature of things like the Apollo mural or the Citadel?
He seems to be pretty reliable when it comes to actual plot events. Sometimes he omits things until later for the purpose of the narrative, but that's not what I would call "unreliable narration"
He constantly brags about having a perfect memory but contradicts himself various times.
The framing is that he wrote the book a decade after it all happened [/spoiler]and he's housing multiple consciousnesses, various of which come to the forefront and color his thinking[/spoiler], and is obviously trying to clean up the fact that he was a misanthropic coomer for most of his journey.
Lying by omission is a better description than unreliability, but it still makes it hard to translate to film, where you're literally seeing actions happen.
The series is written as a personal recollection of events from the narrator’s perspective, who consistently embellishes his accomplishments and also downplays his crimes. Example, Severian appears to rape Jolenta yet downplays it repeatedly after the fact. There are various instances even outside of plain lies (I never fricked Thecla — *way later* oh yeah I loved fricking Thecla) where he is just rather dishonest about what he saw or thought. It reads like someone’s journal, which is basically what it is.
Based.
Picked up thanks to these posts.
How can he/she be unreliable if we only get his/her point of view throughout the books. Most of what they say we have to take at face value. Severian is a bumbling idiot throughout most of the book, he doesn't portray himself in a positive light.
He forgets to mention he has thousands of voices in head at any given time. He also leaves out all his killings as a torturer. Maybe he just doesn't remember or leaves some things out. Not sure who hes even writing this memoir to since it makes him look bad. He literally floods a prison because he doesn't want to work there anymore.
I like BotNS as a straightforward fantasy novel. can't say I care about all the post-apoc, pantokrator-whatever stuff.
Jolenta
Hot voluptuous redhead.
Here you go.
I don't want this to be adapted. It would just be filled with a bunch of Black folk.
scronch
I always thought Takashi Miike could do it justice.
He has a knack for weird visuals, atmosphere, and brutal scenes, and apparently the Japanese versions of the books are fairly popular there.
It would be weird seeing them as Japs I'd take that over an American studio butchering it.
Is there an sex in this?
The protag fricks almost every woman he meets (sometimes via rape) and brags about it how hot they were because he's an emotionally stunted ~20yo
People complain about Wolfe's horniness but I think it's pretty endearing. There's weirder stuff in his other books.
>autistic man retelling his story as an unreliable narrator
>yeah bro I totally banged all those b***hes
He's a chad executioner, b***hes love that shit
It leads to some funny moments
>You could say that what I did to Jolenta was rape, but I'm pretty sure she wanted it
>Next scene is Jolenta weeping to Dorcas as Dorcas gives him the evil eye
Oh cool. How is it otherwise? I've been getting into reading and more specifically fantasy this year
Fantasy sci-fi that will make you feel like a complete moron for most of the run, but in the end all will make sense.
It's a "love it or hate it" thing.
For me, the first read was frustrating because of how obscure the storytelling was, but there were enough cool moments and ideas that I restarted it as soon as I'd finished the last book.
It's not Finnegans Wake but Wolf likes to make you work for it. The last series in that world (Short Sun) gave me brain damage the first time I read it.
>The last series in that world (Short Sun) gave me brain damage the first time I read it.
Yeah I'm halfway through Return to the Whorl and I know what you mean. The constant frustrating digressions punctuated by bizarre mind-fricks that come out of nowhere.
Still better paced so far than the second half of Long Sun.
Ya second half of Long was definitely my least favorite part of the whole thing.
>There's weirder stuff in his other books.
>those graphic descriptions of giant on human sex in The Wizard Knight
What was his end game?
He bangs like 3 women, 1 of which was using him. The rest were escorts.
Yes, autist protagonist somehow ends hooking up with a constant stream of beauties who can't have enough of him.
>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorwiener, Wolfe is nothing special.
>Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.
>I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.
>The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.
Wolfebros...not like this
Have any of you read the Lexicon Urthus
so when will all these shitty litrpgs and progression fantasy stories that are popular with morons start getting adaptations?
it's not unadaptable
there I said it!
EVERY SINGLE GENRE NOVEL is fantasy worldbuilding porn. Where's the the sci-fi f.f.s.?
And I'm not talking space opera. That's simply fantasy in space.
>unadaptable