"Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun - really future fantasy, but I've still not read it. I just never quite got off on the whole 'bad d00d with sword' part of the genre, and post-apocalyptic fantasy mostly didn't do it for me either (I liked the John Christoper The Prince in Waiting Juveniles, but that was really the limit)."
Actually, The Book of the New Sun is neither "bad d00d with sword" nor "post-apocalyptic." Severian is a Torturer by trade, and his blade is the tool of his trade. He is (at the start of the books) an agent of the Autarch, well educated and highly trained. He is as far from the Conan stereotype as one can get. Similarly, the books are set far in the future, at a time where "science" and "magic" have become somewhat interchangable, and where everyone understands that the sun is not setting but, as the Firesign Theatre put it so long ago, "the horizon is moving up." But it's not "scrabbling around in the ruins looking for scraps to eat" style fiction by any means. I recommend them very highly, as I do all of Wolfe's work.
Wandered over here from Solan T's journal. Interesting stuff.
Books and Covers
Actually, The Book of the New Sun is neither "bad d00d with sword" nor "post-apocalyptic." Severian is a Torturer by trade, and his blade is the tool of his trade. He is (at the start of the books) an agent of the Autarch, well educated and highly trained. He is as far from the Conan stereotype as one can get. Similarly, the books are set far in the future, at a time where "science" and "magic" have become somewhat interchangable, and where everyone understands that the sun is not setting but, as the Firesign Theatre put it so long ago, "the horizon is moving up." But it's not "scrabbling around in the ruins looking for scraps to eat" style fiction by any means. I recommend them very highly, as I do all of Wolfe's work.
Wandered over here from Solan T's journal. Interesting stuff.
Dr Paisley