astralstreeting reviewed The citadel of the autarch by Gene Wolfe (Book of the new Sun -- v. 4)
Lost the thread, didn't want to piece everything together
2 stars
The first three novels are very good as straight up literary fantasy and read well without trying to mine them for deeper meaning. The fourth one reveals a lot of things but I lost a lot of steam reading it and didn't feel the desire to try to piece it all together.
There's a lot of people who apparently just keep reading these books over and over again and try cross-referencing them against other works and looking up the etymology of the obscure words to try to solve the mystery. But honestly, that feels like a project of diminishing returns. I have one or two short things written by Gene Wolfe scholars that I might read if I really feel like it later but I am done with him for now.
The first three novels are very good as straight up literary fantasy and read well without trying to mine them for deeper meaning. The fourth one reveals a lot of things but I lost a lot of steam reading it and didn't feel the desire to try to piece it all together.
There's a lot of people who apparently just keep reading these books over and over again and try cross-referencing them against other works and looking up the etymology of the obscure words to try to solve the mystery. But honestly, that feels like a project of diminishing returns. I have one or two short things written by Gene Wolfe scholars that I might read if I really feel like it later but I am done with him for now.