The Book of the New Sun

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I just finished reading The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, which GRRM reviewed very favorably--the edition I have has snippets of George's review on the back of the book and the 1st page:

Quote

"One of the great science fantasy epics of all time."

". . . For years and years to come, I think, we'll see inferior imitations of Wolfe's masterpiece decked out with the phrase 'In the tradition of Wolfe', for that is the tribute all great originals are inevitably paid"

I think there are a lot of plot parallels between The book of the New Sun and ASoIaF.  

 

The Book of the New Sun

Plot Summary  [SPOILERS]

Wolfe uses the same idea that Tolkien did, that he somehow came to possess a manuscript from another time and translated it into English.  The story is set in the far future of our Earth/Urth, and due to humanity becoming decadent and the crimes of the tyrant monarch Typhon, alien gods (who are actually genetically engineered humans from a previous universe) have placed a black hole/"black pit"/"black worm" inside the sun, which absorbs much of the sun's output causing Urth to cool significantly, if nothing is changed, Urth will soon become an ice planet.  The story is the autobiography of Severian who is orphaned bastard who is raised by a disreputable guild of torturers that wear black, and his rise to the Phoenix Throne.  Severian is the chosen one, he is the Christ figure and his ultimate fate is to destroy the world and remake it anew.  He saves the world by killing it.  Being an executioner he is uniquely qualified to carry out the death sentence of the Old Urth.  He brings the New Sun, he brings the Dawn.  The whole story is essentially a time travel paradox, where people/gods/angels from the future are rewriting events of the past in order to get Severian to bring the New Sun.

 

In the last book Severian goes to the Otherworld (Yesod) which is a planet-ship in deep space, to get there he travels across space and time inside a living spaceship Tzadkiel that is several times compared to a tree. (this parallels the Voyage of Bran the Blessed)  Tzadkiel is a colossal living solar-sail ship, with a hundred thousand masts that sprout radially from a central trunk like tree branches  (like George's volcryn from Nightfliers).  Severian dies in the Otherworld and is reborn as the New Sun.

Severian then brings the New Sun by bringing an anti-black hole/ "White Fountain"/ White Hole celestial object across the universe to collide with the black hole in the sun and cancel it out.  It is explained that Severian actually is the White Fountain, and he is in some sense a person also.  In the final pages (pg296) of the 5th book the White Fountain is seen in the night sky and is thought to be a comet--a "bearded star" or the Claw of the Conciliator--the Claw is a comet, (and the Red Comet is a scratch across the face of god and it is shaped like a claw).  In the final pages, Severian "causes" an eclipse to prove that he is the sun god--and the eclipse is caused by a large spaceship parking itself in eclipse position just for Severian, (we don't know if it is the cacogen/Hierodules' spaceship or if it is the space/angel/tree/ship Tzadkiel.)

The gravitational disturbance caused by the coming of the New Sun causes a global upheaval and deluge, the old depleted continents sink below the waves and new continents arise.  Human civilization is completely wiped out and it has to restart from scratch with virtually no memory of what came before.

 

So a totally black celestial object that does not belong in our solar system is messing with the climate on Earth and causes the sun to grow cold.  The black celestial object afflicts the sun because of the tyranny of an Emperor on Urth.  The black celestial object drinks the light of the sun.  The black celestial object is a judgment against mankind, and for our sins it blocks out the sun, leaving the Urth to freeze and for humans to die out.  And in the climax of the story we are redeemed and another celestial object that is compared to a comet comes into our solar system and destroys the black celestial object by directly colliding with it.  And then the sun is reborn, but civilization collapses and has to restart from scratch.

This is exactly what I have been arguing will happen is ASoIaF.  The second moon/black planet causes the messed up seasons, and causes the Long Night by being parked in eclipse formation for a generation, causing the entire planet to be in eclipse.  It was the  tyrannical actions of the Bloodstone Emperor caused the Long Night eclipse.  In The Book of the New Sun, the genetically engineered alien gods use an eclipse causing ship to set a black hole in the sun, which essentially eclipses the sun.  And in ASoIaF, the Lion of Night is an eclipse-causing planet-ship that the god-on-earth traveled to Earth in, and genetically engineered humans and created the Empire of the Dawn.  (just like with the god-ship the Ark in Tuf Voyaging, and FYI, in Gaelic archra means "eclipse, death" also spelled orcra, and that is why in LoTR the orcs could only come out under Sauron's dark eclipsing cloud)

The black planet is the Stranger/ the Lion of Night/ second moon/ Great Stone Face/ Black Pearl, and it is a judgment against mankind for the transgressions of mankind and the tyrannical Emperor (dragon means tyrant).  The Long Night is ended when the Red Comet weirwood rocket knocks it out of eclipse.  There is a great deluge, and civilization is wiped out and has to be restarted by a handful of wildlings who survive the Long Night. 

LmL has talked about the idea that the person who causes the Long Night will also be the person who ends it, and in the Book of the New Sun, Severian kills everyone in the Last Night, so that the world can be made anew with the New Sun.  I think Jon will lead to Others to wipe out humanity and then bring the Dawn.  He will be both the villain and the hero.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

The Floating Castle

The monarch of Nessus is called the Autarch, and in book 1 it is mentioned several times that no-one knows the location of the Citadel of the Autarch, also called the House Absolute.  On page 269 Severian and Dorcas are on the outskirts of Nessus and they witness a miraculous floating castle appear briefly over the city, then disappear:

Quote

"Hanging over the city like a flying mountain in a dream was an enormous building--a building with towers and buttresses and an arched roof.  Crimson light poured from its windows.  I tried to speak, to deny the miracle even as I saw it; but before I could frame a syllable, the building had vanished like a bubble in a fountain, leaving only a cascade of sparks."

I thought that this was the House Absolute, that the Autarch lived in a cloaked castle/space ship that hovers over the city, and that is why no-one knows where the House Absolute is, because it has a cloaking device and it is invisible--and that either the cloaking device was failing due to age or that something struck it, momentarily disrupting the cloak.  I would not be surprised if George thought the same thing while reading this story.

A floating "mountain"/castle/spaceship hanging over the city would dim the sun to those under it.  And this is exactly what I think is the Shadow over Asshai, and why it is so dim and dark there.

 

In book 1 Severian was involved in a horse and buggy race and crashed into the silk Cathedral of the Pelerines, also called the Cathedral of the Claw, because that is where the holy relic of the Claw of the Conciliator was kept, and his companion Agia stole the Claw and hid it in Severian's knapsack.  Later when the red priestess Pelerines discover that the Claw is gone they set fire to their silk Cathedral and it was launched into the sky like a paper lantern and it flamed-out in midair. 

In book 2 Severian speaks to a villager who says that the vision of floating castle that Severian saw was really just the silk Cathedral of the Pelerines floating up into the air.  Severian says "They rekindled the fire." and she says that "it went up to the Infinite Meadows of the New Sun."

At that point I thought that the Cathedral was launched into the air and hit the cloaked Citadel of the Autarch and that is what briefly disrupted the cloaking device, and that this was foreshadowing that this is how to rekindle the fires of the New Sun.  Because Severian saw an elaborate huge stone castle appear and disappear, whereas the Cathedral of the Pelerines was just a large red silk tent--the descriptions did not match so I thought it was a misdirect.   It wasn't until the end of book 4 that it became clear that there was no floating cloaked Citadel of the Autarch--I was super bummed. 

But in the end the Claw was launched into the sun to obliterate the black hole that was absorbing its light, so I was kind of right.

 

A colossal floating mountain castle blocking out the sun, a red temple set on fire and launched into the air and hits it, and these events are connected to the New Sun.  I think the second moon/Lion of Night is a colossal floating mountain castle that blocks out the sun, and it will be knocked by a weirwood comet launch to bring the Dawn.

The Pelerine red priestesses set their cathedral on fire and it rose into the air like a balloon.  Melisandre is obsessed with setting weirwoods on fire because this is how the Red Sword of Heroes is made, by igniting a weirwood comet.

I have argued that the religion of Rhllor and the Red Priests is really weirwood/Red Comet worship, and that is why the Red Priests have weirwood coloring and names related to the Red Comet, and why the Temple in Volantis is a temple that looks like it was carved from a single colossal boulder and that reaches for the sky, and their savior wields a flaming red sword. (volantis means "flying" so there is that extra association of a flying red temple)

 

Sidenote on the Pelerines.

in French peler means "to peel, to skin", and pelerine means "pilgrim" and "hood, cape"--Severian is a torturer that flays people, and he is a hooded man that is on a pilgrimage, so there were clues that the religion of the Pelerines was based on him, and that the Claw was his relic.  The irony is that the Pelerines are a charitable organization that heal the sick.  The Claw of the Conciliator heals the sick and brings the dead back to life.

And in gaelic peilearan means "bullet" and the usage notes mention "thunderbolt" and "balloon, in architecture"  peileir means "like a bullet" and right below that peil-ghuin means "torment"  So that is where the idea of architecture going up like a balloon came from.

 

Edit to add: On page 64 of book 4, Severian is talking to a Pelerine and she tells us he is the Conciliator long before we learn that.

Quote

"It is a claw--" I began.

"That was only a flaw at the heart of the jewel.  The Conciliator was a man, Severian the Lictor, and not a cat or a bird."

Because of the ambiguity of the sentence, I read it as the Pelerine just addressing Severian mid-sentence, but it can also be read as her naming the Conciliator--"The Conciliator was a man named Severian the Lictor".  Neat.

Edited October 5, 2021 by By Odin's Beard

[Egged]

Quote

So a totally black celestial object that does not belong in our solar system is messing with the climate on Earth and causes the sun to grow cold.  The black celestial object afflicts the sun because of the tyranny of an Emperor on Urth.  The black celestial object drinks the light of the sun.  The black celestial object is a judgment against mankind, and for our sins it blocks out the sun, leaving the Urth to freeze and for humans to die out.  And in the climax of the story we are redeemed and another celestial object that is compared to a comet comes into our solar system and destroys the black celestial object by directly colliding with it.  And then the sun is reborn, but civilization collapses and has to restart from scratch.

I think George just used "The book of the new sun" as backdrop for the ASoIaF story. I think the current story ends with the elimination of magic, even if magic will first be necessary to eliminate various magic-related threats.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

13 minutes ago, Egged said:

I think the current story ends with the elimination of magic, even if magic will first be necessary to eliminate various magic-related threats.

I think you are right.  I think all "magic" comes from the weirwoods, (but that it is really just telekinesis and telepathy).  And at the climax of the story the weirwoods will literally depart from the Earth and take magic with them, which is what happens in Lord of the Rings.  Avalone and Valinor literally break off the surface of the Earth and go off into space. and then magic dwindles and disappears altogether.  (Avalon/Valinor is the Gods Eye)

[Egged]

22 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I think you are right.  I think all "magic" comes from the weirwoods, (but that it is really just telekinesis and telepathy).  And at the climax of the story the weirwoods will literally depart from the Earth and take magic with them, which is what happens in Lord of the Rings.  Avalone and Valinor literally break off the surface of the Earth and go off into space. and then magic dwindles and disappears altogether.  (Avalon/Valinor is the Gods Eye)

I thought before that Bran would skinchange the last dragon after Dany (Mhysa! Mhysa!) dies and burn all the weirwood. But then I thought since the weirwood are like books according to Jojen, ending the story with a massive book-burning sounds like something George would not do.

There is a less heroic reason why the weirwood would be burned by Bran though. Bran would become the sole bearer of “truth”, especially if the Citadel, Winterfell’s library, the Night’s Watch, were also destroyed. Some say dead men tell no tales, some say there is much to learn from the dead.

Like that, there would be nothing to learn but through Bran. Which could make him the ultimate villain.

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Severian the Torturer
The author's name is Gene Wolfe ~Jon Wolf.

Severian was an orphaned bastard boy whose parentage in unknown but seems to have some aristocratic blood, and he is raised by a disreputable guild that wear all black, they are jailers and torturers.  Severian is called "the Shadow" and the Black Sun, and he is the embodiment of Death. 

They measure time in units called a "watch."  He ascends to the Phoenix Throne and a woman named Valeria is his queen.

Severian's guild is based in a tower in a fortress called the Citadel, and their tower is actually a derelict space rocket, right next to their tower is the BearTower.  In book 1 there is a bunch of foreshadowing that Severian will use a rocket ship to revitalize the sun.  He is drawn to a mausoleum (like Jon being drawn to the crypts) that has a sigil of a rocket ship, a rose, and a fountain. (which we later learn is actually his mausoleum from a different timeline)

"I had already adopted as my own device graved in bronze above the door of a certain mausoleum.  They were a fountain rising above the waters, a ship volant, and below these a rose."  (Volantis means "flying" in Latin.)

 

The Claw of the Conciliator

Severian is closely associated with roses.  It is part of his sigil, and he often remarks on the purple corpse roses that grow in the necropolis, and we later learn that the ancient holy relic of the Claw of the Conciliator is a black rose thorn that pierced his finger in the future, and was impregnated with his blood, which he takes back in time with him and starts the religion of the Conciliator.  The Claw has magic power to heal the sick and to raise the dead.  Severian raises the dead several times. 

Thecla of the Conciliator

Early in the story Severian falls in love with a prisoner who he is supposed to be guarding, a high-born lady named Thecla with purple eyes and black hair.  They have a brief and doomed romance in a jail cell, and she dies in jail.  Thecla says that she "eats like a dire wolf."  A later part of the plot is that she faked her death and escaped jail.  This is almost exactly what I think happened with Ned and Ashara--a doomed romance in a jail cell with a woman with purple eyes and black hair, and her death is faked, and she escapes and takes a new identity.

However, Thecla did die in jail.  But she comes back to life when Severian eats part of her corpse and gains her memories and consciousness--The Claw brought Thecla back to life, and so Thecla becomes part of Severian--The Claw becomes part of Severian.  Ashara became half of Jon, because she is his mother.  Ashara is the Sloe-Eyed Maid, and sloes grow on the Black Thorn tree, the claw is a black thorn.  And Thecla and Ashara both have purple eyes and black hair.

 

The Prince who was Promised

Severian went back in time and started a religion based on himself, and prophesying his return in the future.  The religion that worships him is led by Red Priestesses called Pelerines, and their holy relic is Severian's claw--or his black thorn.  In Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Camaris' black meteor sword is called Black Thorn, and camaoris means "dawn"  The claw/comet brings the dawn.

 

Severian's sword Terminus Est

One of the Masters of Severian's guild is the very elderly and mostly blind Master Palaemon (~Maester Aemon).  Severian is given a very valuable sword before he has earned it: Master Palaemon gives Severian a very rare two-handed great sword that was made from a meteor, and has parallels to Excalibur.  (later a lady in a lake hands him his sword, and much later his sword is shattered in the fight with Baldanders, and the remnants of the blade are put in a lake).  He wears the sword on his back, so that the handle and hilt form a cross that is visible above his shoulder,--he carries the cross on his back.  The sword is a long executioner's sword, aka Sword of Justice, (and Ice was used as an Executioners Sword)  Also, very clear parallels to the sword Dawn.

 

The Wall

The main city-state is Nessus, that is surrounded by a 3,000 foot tall wall, often referred to as "the Wall" that was built to keep out the forces of Erebus and Abaia, who are some sort of cosmic Cthulhu-like entities that live in the ocean under the sea, and telepathically control all the humans on Urth except for those in southern South America where Nessus is located.  They use the phrase "beyond the Wall" to refer to the wilderness.

 

Miscellany

In the opening chapter Severian aids Vodalus who is leading a rebellion against Severians' city-state, Severian joins the rebellion as a double agent (~Jon assisting Mance and/or Stannis).  Early in the story Severian brings back to life and befriends a very large fighting dog.  Severian falls in love with a prisoner he is supposed to be guarding (Jon and Ygritte)

The tower of the Torturer's guild is called the Matachin Tower.  There are extensive tunnels underneath the Matachin tower.  At the Citadel there is a library that contains nearly every book on the planet.  There is a curtain wall around the Citadel that is made of unsmeltable metal, at the end of the book Severian causes the wall to collapse by causing an earthquake with his mind.

There is a character named Reechy, because he reeks, and he tries to set Severian free when he is imprisoned.

Edited October 5, 2021 by By Odin's Beard

[Mavoras Snow]

There are more than a few parallels, check the following link which compares Severian to Jon Snow:

http://davidbarrkirtley.com/2010/09/17/jon-snow-vs-severian/

 

[DavidRobey]

On 10/1/2021 at 7:33 PM, By Odin's Beard said:

I just finished reading The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, which GRRM reviewed very favorably--the edition I have has snippets of George's review on the back of the book and the 1st page:

I think there are a lot of plot parallels between The book of the New Sun and ASoIaF.  

 

The Book of the New Sun

Plot Summary  [SPOILERS]

Wolfe uses the same idea that Tolkien did, that he somehow came to possess a manuscript from another time and translated it into English.  The story is set in the far future of our Earth/Urth, and due to humanity becoming decadent and the crimes of the tyrant monarch Typhon, alien gods (who are actually genetically engineered humans from a previous universe) have placed a black hole/"black pit"/"black worm" inside the sun, which absorbs much of the sun's output causing Urth to cool significantly, if nothing is changed, Urth will soon become an ice planet.  The story is the autobiography of Severian who is orphaned bastard who is raised by a disreputable guild of torturers that wear black, and his rise to the Phoenix Throne.  Severian is the chosen one, he is the Christ figure and his ultimate fate is to destroy the world and remake it anew.  He saves the world by killing it.  Being an executioner he is uniquely qualified to carry out the death sentence of the Old Urth.  He brings the New Sun, he brings the Dawn.  The whole story is essentially a time travel paradox, where people/gods/angels from the future are rewriting events of the past in order to get Severian to bring the New Sun.

 

In the last book Severian goes to the Otherworld (Yesod) which is a planet-ship in deep space, to get there he travels across space and time inside a living spaceship Tzadkiel that is several times compared to a tree. (this parallels the Voyage of Bran the Blessed)  Tzadkiel is a colossal living solar-sail ship, with a hundred thousand masts that sprout radially from a central trunk like tree branches  (like George's volcryn from Nightfliers).  Severian dies in the Otherworld and is reborn as the New Sun.

Severian then brings the New Sun by bringing an anti-black hole/ "White Fountain"/ White Hole celestial object across the universe to collide with the black hole in the sun and cancel it out.  It is explained that Severian actually is the White Fountain, and he is in some sense a person also.  In the final pages (pg296) of the 5th book the White Fountain is seen in the night sky and is thought to be a comet--a "bearded star" or the Claw of the Conciliator--the Claw is a comet, (and the Red Comet is a scratch across the face of god and it is shaped like a claw).  In the final pages, Severian "causes" an eclipse to prove that he is the sun god--and the eclipse is caused by a large spaceship parking itself in eclipse position just for Severian, (we don't know if it is the cacogen/Hierodules' spaceship or if it is the space/angel/tree/ship Tzadkiel.)

The gravitational disturbance caused by the coming of the New Sun causes a global upheaval and deluge, the old depleted continents sink below the waves and new continents arise.  Human civilization is completely wiped out and it has to restart from scratch with virtually no memory of what came before.

 

So a totally black celestial object that does not belong in our solar system is messing with the climate on Earth and causes the sun to grow cold.  The black celestial object afflicts the sun because of the tyranny of an Emperor on Urth.  The black celestial object drinks the light of the sun.  The black celestial object is a judgment against mankind, and for our sins it blocks out the sun, leaving the Urth to freeze and for humans to die out.  And in the climax of the story we are redeemed and another celestial object that is compared to a comet comes into our solar system and destroys the black celestial object by directly colliding with it.  And then the sun is reborn, but civilization collapses and has to restart from scratch.

This is exactly what I have been arguing will happen is ASoIaF.  The second moon/black planet causes the messed up seasons, and causes the Long Night by being parked in eclipse formation for a generation, causing the entire planet to be in eclipse.  It was the  tyrannical actions of the Bloodstone Emperor caused the Long Night eclipse.  In The Book of the New Sun, the genetically engineered alien gods use an eclipse causing ship to set a black hole in the sun, which essentially eclipses the sun.  And in ASoIaF, the Lion of Night is an eclipse-causing planet-ship that the god-on-earth traveled to Earth in, and genetically engineered humans and created the Empire of the Dawn.  (just like with the god-ship the Ark in Tuf Voyaging, and FYI, in Gaelic archra means "eclipse, death" also spelled orcra, and that is why in LoTR the orcs could only come out under Sauron's dark eclipsing cloud)

The black planet is the Stranger/ the Lion of Night/ second moon/ Great Stone Face/ Black Pearl, and it is a judgment against mankind for the transgressions of mankind and the tyrannical Emperor (dragon means tyrant).  The Long Night is ended when the Red Comet weirwood rocket knocks it out of eclipse.  There is a great deluge, and civilization is wiped out and has to be restarted by a handful of wildlings who survive the Long Night. 

LmL has talked about the idea that the person who causes the Long Night will also be the person who ends it, and in the Book of the New Sun, Severian kills everyone in the Last Night, so that the world can be made anew with the New Sun.  I think Jon will lead to Others to wipe out humanity and then bring the Dawn.  He will be both the villain and the hero.

Should I keep reading if I started?

Edited January 31 by DavidRobey

[DemetriusHill]

On 10/1/2021 at 7:33 PM, By Odin's Beard said:

I just finished reading The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, which GRRM reviewed very favorably--the edition I have has snippets of George's review on the back of the book and the 1st page:

I think there are a lot of plot parallels between The book of the New Sun and ASoIaF.  

 

The Book of the New Sun

Plot Summary  [SPOILERS]

Wolfe uses the same idea that Tolkien did, that he somehow came to possess a manuscript from another time and translated it into English.  The story is set in the far future of our Earth/Urth, and due to humanity becoming decadent and the crimes of the tyrant monarch Typhon, alien gods (who are actually genetically engineered humans from a previous universe) have placed a black hole/"black pit"/"black worm" inside the sun, which absorbs much of the sun's output causing Urth to cool significantly, if nothing is changed, Urth will soon become an ice planet.  The story is the autobiography of Severian who is orphaned bastard who is raised by a disreputable guild of torturers that wear black, and his rise to the Phoenix Throne.  Severian is the chosen one, he is the Christ figure and his ultimate fate is to destroy the world and remake it anew.  He saves the world by killing it.  Being an executioner he is uniquely qualified to carry out the death sentence of the Old Urth.  He brings the New Sun, he brings the Dawn.  The whole story is essentially a time travel paradox, where people/gods/angels from the future are rewriting events of the past in order to get Severian to bring the New Sun.

 

In the last book Severian goes to the Otherworld (Yesod) which is a planet-ship in deep space, to get there he travels across space and time inside a living spaceship Tzadkiel that is several times compared to a tree. (this parallels the Voyage of Bran the Blessed)  Tzadkiel is a colossal living solar-sail ship, with a hundred thousand masts that sprout radially from a central trunk like tree branches  (like George's volcryn from Nightfliers).  Severian dies in the Otherworld and is reborn as the New Sun.

Severian then brings the New Sun by bringing an anti-black hole/ "White Fountain"/ White Hole celestial object across the universe to collide with the black hole in the sun and cancel it out.  It is explained that Severian actually is the White Fountain, and he is in some sense a person also.  In the final pages (pg296) of the 5th book the White Fountain is seen in the night sky and is thought to be a comet--a "bearded star" or the Claw of the Conciliator--the Claw is a comet, (and the Red Comet is a scratch across the face of god and it is shaped like a claw).  In the final pages, Severian "causes" an eclipse to prove that he is the sun god--and the eclipse is caused by a large spaceship parking itself in eclipse position just for Severian, (we don't know if it is the cacogen/Hierodules' spaceship or if it is the space/angel/tree/ship Tzadkiel.)

The gravitational disturbance caused by the coming of the New Sun causes a global upheaval and deluge, the old depleted continents sink below the waves and new continents arise.  Human civilization is completely wiped out and it has to restart from scratch with virtually no memory of what came before.

 

So a totally black celestial object that does not belong in our solar system is messing with the climate on Earth and causes the sun to grow cold.  The black celestial object afflicts the sun because of the tyranny of an Emperor on Urth.  The black celestial object drinks the light of the sun.  The black celestial object is a judgment against mankind, and for our sins it blocks out the sun, leaving the Urth to freeze and for humans to die out.  And in the climax of the story we are redeemed and another celestial object that is compared to a comet comes into our solar system and destroys the black celestial object by directly colliding with it.  And then the sun is reborn, but civilization collapses and has to restart from scratch.

This is exactly what I have been arguing will happen is ASoIaF.  The second moon/black planet causes the messed up seasons, and causes the Long Night by being parked in eclipse formation for a generation, causing the entire planet to be in eclipse.  It was the  tyrannical actions of the Bloodstone Emperor caused the Long Night eclipse.  In The Book of the New Sun, the genetically engineered alien gods use an eclipse causing ship to set a black hole in the sun, which essentially eclipses the sun.  And in ASoIaF, the Lion of Night is an eclipse-causing planet-ship that the god-on-earth traveled to Earth in, and genetically engineered humans and created the Empire of the Dawn.  (just like with the god-ship the Ark in Tuf Voyaging, and FYI, in Gaelic archra means "eclipse, death" also spelled orcra, and that is why in LoTR the orcs could only come out under Sauron's dark eclipsing cloud)

The black planet is the Stranger/ the Lion of Night/ second moon/ Great Stone Face/ Black Pearl, and it is a judgment against mankind for the transgressions of mankind and the tyrannical Emperor (dragon means tyrant).  The Long Night is ended when the Red Comet weirwood rocket knocks it out of eclipse.  There is a great deluge, and civilization is wiped out and has to be restarted by a handful of wildlings who survive the Long Night. 
I am still reading The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. I can’t continue in any way, I put it off 2 weeks ago, and I don’t pick it up. All this is due to training, I already turned to the research proposal writing service, I used https://edubirdie.com/research-proposal-writing-service for this. But I still don't have enough time to be free. I just feel awful right now to be honest.

LmL has talked about the idea that the person who causes the Long Night will also be the person who ends it, and in the Book of the New Sun, Severian kills everyone in the Last Night, so that the world can be made anew with the New Sun.  I think Jon will lead to Others to wipe out humanity and then bring the Dawn.  He will be both the villain and the hero.

My reading has dragged on for 2 months already

Edited January 31 by DemetriusHill

[Evolett]

On 10/1/2021 at 6:33 PM, By Odin's Beard said:

I think there are a lot of plot parallels between The book of the New Sun and ASoIaF.

Being inspired by another writer’s work, incorporating ideas and acknowledging their work by means of nods and easter eggs is one thing. Basing the entire concept, major plots and characters of a story on someone else’s work is quite another however. For the most part, GRRM’s short stories do not really appeal to me but they at least appear to have sprung from his own imagination.

Honestly, I would be very disappointed if aSoiaF should turn out to be based on someone else’s concept with merely a change of “furniture” to differentiate it from the original. I would in fact feel very cheated. Burning of books and paraphernalia would not be out of the question and I think others would share this sentiment.

Hopefully, this is not the case.   

[Springwatch]

5 hours ago, Evolett said:

Hopefully, this is not the case.   

But also, the gardening method implies seeds, and grrm really does seed his books from everywhere. The seed plant will look something like its parent. But it can still have a different environment and a different fate.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:02 AM, Evolett said:

Being inspired by another writer’s work, incorporating ideas and acknowledging their work by means of nods and easter eggs is one thing. Basing the entire concept, major plots and characters of a story on someone else’s work is quite another however. For the most part, GRRM’s short stories do not really appeal to me but they at least appear to have sprung from his own imagination.

Honestly, I would be very disappointed if aSoiaF should turn out to be based on someone else’s concept with merely a change of “furniture” to differentiate it from the original. I would in fact feel very cheated. Burning of books and paraphernalia would not be out of the question and I think others would share this sentiment.

Hopefully, this is not the case.   

George has never been a visionary author.  Just about everything he has ever written has been a take on someone else's work, or heavily "inspired" by someone else's work.

 

The plot of George's In the House of the Worm is an extension of Merle Prout's House of the Worm, with large chunks of plot taken from H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon (hollow moon with aliens living in it, Annelyn goes deep and meets the Great Groun which parallels the Earthmen going deep into the moon and meeting the Grand Lunar), and The Time Machine (Morlocks vs Eloi a million years in the future, and the sun going out), as well as using Lovecraft's black planet Yuggoth as the setting, the black goat whose sigil is the Theta which signifies Death.  And the whole story is about death worship, and the black sun.  I think In the House of the Worm takes place on Yuggoth, a black ship of death, known for genetic engineering.

Also, closely related, the plot of Tuf Voyaging  comes from Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness (and Whisperer in Darkness), --the crinoids/crabs are genetic engineers from Yuggoth, and they populate planets with their creations.  The Ark is Yuggoth,  (arcra means "eclipse, death") the Ark's sigil is the Theta and it is a black ship. 

 

 

The central premise of Meathouse Man, of using reanimated corpses for labor and gladiatorial combat comes from Lovecraft's The Mound.

The central premise of The Men of Greywater Station, of a single alien being taking over all life of a planet, comes from John Campbell's Who Goes There? 

The central premise of A Song for Lya, of a cave fungus luring people in and eating them, comes from Clark Ashton Smith's The Vaults of Yoh Vombis. 

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr  is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

I haven't read Windhaven yet, but I just read Jack Vance's The Faceless Man  trilogy, and I think that is where he got the inspiration from, because they use balloons and gliders to travel in that story.

 

I just read Fevre Dream for the first time and it is obvious that George read Interview with the Vampire and was then inspired to write a vampire novel.  Largely set in New Orleans and on the Mississippi, Joshua York is the good vampire with a conscience that doesn't want to eat people, like Louis from Interview, and Damon Julian is the bad vampire like Lestat who views humans as cattle.  Damon Julian is on an indigo plantation in New Orleans, Louis owned an indigo plantation in New Orleans. 

 

Fun stuff about Fevre Dream.  Several of the names are from locations in Iowa, because George was living in Dubuque when he wrote it.   The city of Dubuque is named after a man named Julien Dubuque, Sour Billy Tipton named after Tipton (also a Renfield reference from Dracula), Hiawatha is a suburb of Cedar Rapids.  And of course the Fevre river was across from Dubuque in Illinois.  

 

Joshua York was the prince who was promised in the story, and it was prophesied that a vampire would arise who would unite and save the vampires and take them to their promised land, called the Dark City.  (I think the movie Dark City comes from this premise)

In Hebrew, yeshua means "savior" and that is where the name Joshua comes from. 

In Gaelic, eiric / eirc  / earc   sounds like ~York-- and means "restitution" and "heretic"  earc  also means "bloody" and "cattle" and earcra means "eclipse, death"  and York's belief that vampires should stop feeding on the blood of human cattle was heresy, and he was supposed to lead to vampires to a Dark City where it is always night. 

 

Abner Marsh is a river captain, abann / abainn / aibne means "river" in Gaelic.  And the name is an obvious reference to Obed Marsh from The Shadow Over Innsmouth.    In that story Obed Marsh was the owner of a shipping company and he brings the fish people to Innsmouth.  And Abner Marsh is the owner of a shipping company, and he transports vampires to the mouth of the Mississippi.

Edited March 2 by By Odin's Beard

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I forgot to say, that in Fevre Dream, the vampires are referred to as something like the First Men who lived on Earth before men, and regular humans evolved after them and encroached on their territory.  And he says that vampires and werewolves are the same thing. 

The First Men are vampire/werewolves and can skinchange wolves. 

In Swedish vampyr means "vampire/winged dog" and in Lovecraft's The Hound, the sigil of the vampire and the corpse eating cult of Leng is a winged hound.  And Bran Stark is the winged wolf. 

 

I am reading Dracula now, and Dracula can control wolves. 

And there is a passage about St George's Eve:  "It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?"

I think St George's Eve is the Long Night, when all the evil things in the world will have full sway, and the vampires and werewolves will terrorize humanity.

 

In Fevre Dream, there is a female vampire named Valerie who has purple eyes.  So Targs are vampires also.

 

And I learned that a dhampir is a vampire/human hybrid.  ~Damphair

 

ETA

I was just giving it some more thought, in ASoIaF we have werewolves, vampires, and the undead, and the Mountain is Frankenstein's monster, and we have fish people all over the world.  And they will all attack during the Long Night.

 

Edited March 2 by By Odin's Beard

[Phylum of Alexandria]

41 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

In Fevre Dream, there is a female vampire named Valerie who has purple eyes.  So Targs are vampires also.

 

Well also, despite his eyes, Joshua York is Rhaegar Targaryen through and through.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I was just browsing the Gaelic Dictionary and figured out where the title for George's short story Dark, Dark were the Tunnels came from. 

It is essentially a retelling of the Time Machine, from the perspective of a Morlock.  Greel is a Morlock that lives underground in the dark. 

greelos means "piglet" in Greek

In Gaelic dearc means "cave, pit, grave" and right below it dearc means "eye" 

And Greel is a pig boy with mutated eyes that allow him to see in the dark.

so "dearc, dearc" is repeated in the dictionary.  ~ dark, dark

 

duircin  means "pig" in Gaelic and

duirc  means "dagger" and Greel is a pig boy that stabs Von der Stadt with a dagger.

 

and earc / orc / uirc means "pig" in Gaelic. 

 

Cifonetto breaks his back when he falls on his flashlight, and sifin means "a small rod" in Gaelic.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Since I have been talking about Yuggoth, I may as well drop this here.

In Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark, he mentions that Yuggoth is not the only wandering black planet in our solar system, there is the more distant Shaggai,  (Shaggai = Shaggy Black Goat reference)

and I just found that sigaion / shiggaion means "wandering" in Welsh.  And Yuggoth comes from the Gaelic uige which means "wandering, fugitive" and the Welsh gwth, which means "goat"

 

 

And check this out.  In The Whisperer in Darkness, part of the plot is that the fungi from Yuggoth will telepathically get Earth's astronomers to discover Yuggoth / the Shadow with their telescopes.

Maester Luwin was an astronomer who made "shadow maps"

lliwen means "goat" in Welsh and luaineach means "wandering" in Gaelic and luan means "moon"

llewen means "focus" and the first we learn of Luwin he brings a polished lens to Cat. (and llewyn means "meteor" and Luwin tracks the Red Comet)

llewyn means "verging to a focus"

llew / llewa means "lion / to devour" and the Lion of Night is the Black Planet Yuggoth that devours the sun during the Long Night.

There is probably something going on with black Shaggy Dog biting Luwin also.

 

luain means "kidney" and "lunacy" also, and nefren means "kidney" and Nephren-Ka is an avatar of Nyarlathotep, (which means "black stone" in Greek) who is from Yuggoth, the Black Stone.

And in Welsh, nwyfreant means "empyreal sphere" --that is a sphere in the sky. 

[Aebram]

9 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I haven't read Windhaven yet, but I just read Jack Vance's The Faceless Man  trilogy, and I think that is where he got the inspiration from, because they use balloons and gliders to travel in that story.

I first read Windhaven -- part of it -- when it was published as a novella in Analog magazine. I think that was in 1973. Vance's Faceless Man was published in 1978, according to the Amazon listing.

I believe the Martin has said that ASOIAF is a fantasy, not science fiction; so readers should not look for a scientific explanation for the irregular seasons.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

1 hour ago, Aebram said:

I first read Windhaven -- part of it -- when it was published as a novella in Analog magazine. I think that was in 1973. Vance's Faceless Man was published in 1978, according to the Amazon listing.

I believe the Martin has said that ASOIAF is a fantasy, not science fiction; so readers should not look for a scientific explanation for the irregular seasons.

Vance's The Faceless Man was first published in 1971, and the first fragment of Windhaven was published as Storms in Analog 1975.

Would you call Lovecraft's Yuggoth fantasy or sci-fi?   I would hardly call a giant wandering black hollow moon spaceship so close to Earth that is causes polar shift, and can put the whole Earth into eclipse a scientific explanation.  That sounds like a sci-fantasy explanation.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

9 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Well also, despite his eyes, Joshua York is Rhaegar Targaryen through and through.

woah

yeshua means "savior" in Hebrew, and tairngeartach means "the Promised One, messiah" in Gaelic. 

earchra (~York) means "eclipse" in Gaelic and rhagori  means "eclipse" in Welsh

So I think you are right.  In Fevre Dream, the prince that was promised was to lead the vampires to a Dark City without sun, and in ASoIaF, the the Prince who was Promised will cause the Long Night. 

 

I just learned that gogan (~Jojen) means "a prophesy, to presage" in Welsh, and Jojen had prophetic dreams. 

 

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

@Phylum of Alexandria

I was going to post some of this in your Sandkings thread, but I never got around to it. 

 

craos  means "maw" in Gaelic, and it also means "anger, fury, debauched"  and in Gaelic, crois  means "to obstruct, to hinder, to thwart"

croes means "cross, crucifix" in Welsh, and crois means "crucifix" in Gaelic and the word crucifix comes from the Latin crucio  meaning "to torment, torture"

siom means "tricks, pranks" in Gaelic and siomanach  means "a recluse"

 

Simon Cress is a metaphor for god, and god is insane and cruel and tortures those under his control.  Everything the Sandkings try to make, their god thwarts them, and tortures them.  And I think Preston is right that the different colors of Sandkings represent different political philosophies, and the one that breaks free from god and kills god is the orange Sandking faction, which I think represents Secular Humanism. 

--------

 

Sandkings from Yuggoth (and Golems turning on their Masters)

The Sandkings are crustacean-like creatures that come from Shade and Wo --> they come from the Shadow.  Crustaceans from the Shadow --> the crabs from the Shadow Planet Yuggoth.  They live in caves and telepathic and are hive minded.  The fungi from Yuggoth live in caves and are telepathic.

(and the telepathic cave fungous from A Song for Lya is very similar, the Greishka is like the Maw and the Skeen are like the Sandkings, and they tend to it and feed it, also graeska means "malice" in Old Norse, so that fits in with the theme of god being malicious, and the promise of an afterlife is a lie to get you to sacrifice yourself, and belief in god is like having a brain-controlling fungus growing out of your head)

 

And I have said many times that I think the crinoids in Antarctica from Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and the fungous crabs from Yuggoth from the Whisperer in Darkness are the same creatures. 

 

The crinoid aliens created the Shuggoths, which are gelatinous, shape-shifting creatures (which comes from the Gaelic sgeith, which means "jelly / jellyfish / frogspawn / vomit / Star Fall")

The crinoids telepathically controlled the shuggoths to do their work for them.  But the shuggoths gradually developed a will of their own and turned on their masters and destroyed their civilization and wiped almost all of them out.  And now the shuggoths are the masters and the crinoids live in terror of them. 

The crinoids are the sandkings, and the maws are the shuggoths.   And Sandkings uses the theme of the Golems turning on their Masters, with the Sandkings killing their former god, Simon Cress.

 

In Gaelic craob  means "tree" and in Lovecraft's the Tree on the Hill, the Black Goat Shub Niggurath appears as a telepathic tree with with an open maw--that wants to create an endless night on Earth in the year of the Black Goat. 

 

I think in ASoIaF, the golems are the White Walkers and their masters were the greenseers and the weirwoods, but they have developed a will of their own and they will kill their masters.

 

 

I just realized that in the Lord of the Rings, Gollum is literally a golem of Sauron, and it is Sauron's golem that kills him in the end.

And in Fevre Dream, Sour Billy is Damon Julian's golem, and his golem turns on him and kills him.