Samuel Brassfield > Recent Status Updates

Silk groped for words. "The gods have to speak to us in our own language, a language that we are always corrupting, because it's the only one we understand. They, perhaps, have a thousand words for a thousand different kinds of love, or ten thousand words for ten thousand; but when they talk to us, they must say 'love,' as we do. I think that at times it must blur their meaning."

Lotta good quotes in this Gene.

One novel out of two in this tome done and I have to refrain from binge reading all I can of the second today so I can savor the magic on display in these pages. Gene Wolfe was truly a singular talent and worthy of being touted as "Our Melville" by fellow master of the craft Ursula K. Le Guin.

SILK FOR CALDÉ

Damn you Gene for making my eyes sweat over characters I literally just met and likely won't meet again after this next chapter.

I'm so upset I didn't find these works sooner in life.

"We're on the night side of the shade for only half the day, Silk had told him. But we are on the night side of whatever it is that bars us from the gods almost constantly, throughout our whole lives. And we really shouldn't be. We were meant to be. I got that one small ray of sunshine, you see, and it shouldn't be strange at all. It should be the most ordinary thing in the Whorl"

TELL EM GENE

Theorizing all the ways this prequel series to the seminal Book of New Sun would begin had me assuming we'd be starting with visions of grandeur while the civilization of Whorl is at its "height". How silly of me, we start with a poor preacher playing futuristic basketball with some kids in the slums. I cackled like a witch when it hit me, Gene Wolfe you absolute madman I adore you.

Wow they really don't give you a lot of characters for these small chapter updates.

The Island of Doctor Death - I've heard praise here and there for this novella and its subsequent sequels, even still I did not expect this to grab me like it did. A haunting tale of coping with your environment through the magic of fiction which both hides and highlights the dark truths underneath once you know what to look for.

I am so upset I never heard of these works when I was younger.

The true torture is witnessing nearly every female character instantly undressing for our "hero" upon meeting, but damn this book's world is interesting.