Gene Wolfe was one of many science fiction subject’s most revered literary craftsmen. On their podcast ReReading Wolfe, hosts James Wynn and Craig Brewer present in-depth evaluation of Wolfe’s masterpiece The Book of the New Sun.

“You have to talk about a Gene Wolfe story after you’ve read it,” Wynn says in Episode 535 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “There’s a reason why it’s called ReReading Wolfe. There’s a statement by John Clute, who said, ‘You can’t read a Gene Wolfe story, you can only reread a Gene Wolfe story.’ So you have to read it, and then you reread it, and then you still want to talk to someone about it.”

The Book of the New Sun is a dense, allusive work that originally presents itself as sword and sorcery, regularly reveals itself as planetary romance, then turns into more and more involved with theology and metaphysics. The guide’s disjointed plot and dreamlike logic could make it a problem for newcomers. “Wolfe breaks every rule that any kind of writing workshop is going to tell you,” Brewer says. “If you just jump in thinking, ‘Oh, people say this is a good book’ and you’re not prepared for it, it’s like reading James Joyce or something, where someone says, ‘Oh, Ulysses is important. I guess I should go read that,’ and they’re like, ‘What the hell?’”

Wolfe followers have spent 4 many years debating the that means of Book of the New Sun, however lots of the story’s primary plot factors stay in dispute. “This has really come home to me when we were doing this podcast, that there’s no consensus about these books,” Wynn says. “There is one little scene in the beginning of Claw of the Conciliator where Severian executes a woman, and when we got through it, we said what we thought, we got people writing in. It ended up that there’s probably at least four groups of theories about what happens in that event. And I changed my mind after the conversation about what’s happening.”

Brewer hopes that Wolfe’s papers, which have been donated to Northern Illinois University, will present further perception into the writer’s work. “One thing I’m really looking forward to seeing is what his drafts were like,” he says. “When you look at a draft of a story, does it start off much more straightforward and then he complicates it over time? Or is it really that strange right at the beginning, and then maybe he tries to figure out some way to do something afterwards? I just don’t know. But that’s one thing that I’m hoping getting a chance to really dive into his papers at some point would show us.”

Listen to the entire interview with James Wynn and Craig Brewer in Episode 535 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And try some highlights from the dialogue under.

James Wynn on discovering Gene Wolfe:

I learn [Book of the New Sun] and I actually did simply push by. My spouse stated, “You’ve sure been reading those books a long time.” I stated, “Yeah.” She stated, “Well, is it good?” “I’m not sure.” “Then why are you reading it?” I stated, “Well, I have to find out how it ends.” I did push by, after which I found that there wasn’t actually an ending, and in order that was disturbing. I informed my good friend that I believe this Wolfe man is a so-so author, however he’s an incredible creator of worlds. And it actually wasn’t till I learn The Fifth Head of Cerberus that I “got” The Book of the New Sun. And then I stated, “Oh, now I understand. He’s the greatest science fiction writer that ever lived.” And that’s actually what I informed folks after that.

James Wynn on decoding Gene Wolfe:

The factor about Wolfe is that he’s extremely allusive. So it’s very laborious to inform the place the textual content ends and the place the allusion begins. Obviously there are references to the lifetime of Christ in The Book of the New Sun. You’re supposed to select up on that. The Inca god Inti or Apu-punchau is a key side. And while you check out a number of the mythology of Apu-punchau, you start to comprehend, “Oh wow, there is some connectivity between this fellow Severian and that god of the sun in Inca mythology.” You can’t simply learn this story deductively, and that’s one thing that’s type of somewhat drum I beat on a regular basis. You need to learn it inductively. You are invited to spin a narrative to attach the dots, as a result of frankly there aren’t sufficient dots so that you can simply eradicate the entire “impossible” and solely find yourself with the “necessary.”

Craig Brewer on Alzabo Soup and The Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast:

We speak to folks on a regular basis who’re like, “I’ve listened to all the other podcasts, and I’m glad you guys started too, because it’s another one now I can go to,” and we nonetheless discover new, various things to say. We all type of have completely different approaches. The Alzabo Soup guys have been type of doing a non-spoilery handholding by your first time studying Book of the New Sun. Now they’re on to Book of the Long Sun. And the Gene Wolf Literary Podcast guys are going by his entire profession chronologically. They began along with his first tales and are nonetheless in the course of his novel Peace proper now. And then we got here alongside and we’re like, “No, we’re going to pretend like you’ve listened to all that stuff and read it all a bunch of times, and we’re going to be deep in the weeds.” We didn’t know if we’d have 10 folks have an interest, and so the truth that we’ve gotten so many people who find themselves nonetheless now could be type of mind-blowing.

Craig Brewer on weird fiction:

I’ve usually thought-about that Wolfe is definitely a bizarre author. And while you learn bizarre fiction, you go in and the surreality and the strangeness of it’s purported to be taken at face worth. It’s purported to be one thing that—yeah, you puzzle by, you consider what the implications of which can be—however with bizarre writing, you don’t get pissed off if the reply doesn’t instantly make clear itself. I believe that’s one concern generally that individuals have, is that they’re like, “Well, Wolfe, if he’s writing science fiction, OK, I need the explanation. I need to know in the end how everything lines up perfectly so that I can go back and map everything in there.” And I’m not optimistic it’s there, like that. The solutions that you just’re in search of could also be there thematically, or they might be there on a extra metaphoric stage.

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