I've had the first book on my shelf for a little while... but this video is making me more and more excited to read it! I have no problem when a book "borrows" from another book. Dune is one of my favorite books of all time, and so if Sun Eater is anything like Dune, all the better!
Great video! Big Dune fan here who doesn’t fully agree with Frank Herbert’s philosophy (I get the impression that CR is in the same boat). I have yet to read both Sun Eater and BOTNS. I’m very excited to read them. I’ve heard CR in an interview before and he’s mentioned Hyperion and general Roman History as influences as well. I’ve never personally had a problem with an author wearing some influences on their sleeve, as long as they develop the story into their own thing. Glad to hear it’s not a straight Dune copy as some have seemed to suggest!
Great video. The problem with the original Empire of Silence (I haven't read the revised edition that he put out for the Diamond edition) is that the conversation is done heavy-handedly. Contrast that to the rest of the books in the Sun Eater series, which while are still in conversation with the above works is done very well.
You know that’s definitely an interesting point. I think on the nose one way or another may depend on the specific reader and also what their background is. (For example Dune being a play of the John Carter style of SF pulp may have seemed more on the nose to current readers but less so now that Burroughs is read far less.)
@@iSamwise Maybe the problem was the rewording of specific sentences of the above works for the original version of EoS. CR admitted that he removed many of these cases for the revised edition. I just remember that many times I was taken of the narrative when I first read EoS. This never happened to me for the other Sun Eater books.
@@tasosalexiadis7748 That would make sense. I know there’s a couple of direct lines from BOTNS that he rewords in EOS, which some readers might find distracting.
Excellent defense, thank you! There may be justifiable criticisms of Sun Eater (I haven't read it), but its influences are not marks against it. I was about to comment that Wolfe had his own influences, but then you got to it : ) Wolfe too wore his influences on his sleeve, although those sources are no longer widely read by contemporary readers of SF.
I just talked with a friend across the country last night. He's reading the Sun Eater series and I'm constantly re reading The Book of the New Sun. It's no secret that the former is deeply inspired by the latter (and others). But there really aren't enough books like this. Dune and BOTNS are some of the best works from which to draw inspiration. And that's all I think of it. Edit: I can't call Mr. Ruocchio a dishonest writer because he makes no effort to hide his inspiration. In The Shadow of the Torturer, Severian tells us that the patron saint of soldiers is named Hadrian.
@@iSamwise Yeah that's good but he had already written Empire of silence before read book of the New Sun so this is definitely a coincidence in this case
Sam, I really appreciate this video🙌: Among the many things I and Professor Chase spoke about during our meeting in Oslo, was how traditionally storytelling was something communal and, as you say, always in conversation with previous stories and story tellers. I so felt it with the pile of other inspirations for “Sun Eater” 😄(I could add more: Shakespeare’s Playwright Pal Christopher Marlowe, Harlan Ellison, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, Romantics such Byron and Percy Shelley, the list goes on!😅). I am actually very glad you mentioned George Lucas and “Star Wars”, not only as an amalgamation of many sources (I could also add Akira Kurosawa’s Filmography, WW2 War Movies and Westerns Movies such as “The Seekers” and Clint Eastwood’s “Man without a Name” and Cl Moore’s “Northwest Smith” SF stories), but also how it served as a point of entry for many to delve into those sources and renew their relevance! Only time will tell if Ruocchio will join similar greats such as Tolkien (who was greatly inspired by Norse mythology, the Finnish Epic Poem of “Kalevala”, “Beowulf”, “The Saga Of Hervor & Heidrek” and “The Song of Roland”, Lord Dunsany, George MacDonald, William Morris, and while he disavowed any influence from Wagner’s “Ring Cycle”, it seems clear to that his Legendarium has to be read as a rebuttal of Wagner’s “capture” of Norse/Germanic Myth into German Nationalism and the anti-religious thoughts of Feuerbach and Schopenhauer (thats before it inspired both Nietzsche and an Failed Austrian Art Student)) and Herbert (to which I could also add “Lawrence of Arabia” as an inspiration for “Dune” and as a rebuttal of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series and the “Capable Men” who dominated 40-50s Sci Fi) to influence future generations of writers! Cheers! 😊
Great video! I understand your point of view much better now. I think we agree on much of the same, but articulate it different ways. Here is my hot take. Ruocchio, at the time of writing Empire of Silence, did not have the technical writing/story telling skills to accomplish what he set out to do, and because of that, will always live in the shadow of the torturer. (See what I did there). I should make a video about this to completely articulate my thoughts, because while I agree he did not while writing Empire, my experience with the second novel was completely different. It is not that he wore his influences on his sleeve, it’s that he did it poorly (in empire of silence). I love books that have conversations with other books, books that wear their influences on their sleeve. But my opinion is that it is difficult to stick the landing when you do this. I especially love the conversation trying to be had here in Suneater. I am eager and hungry for it. I just don’t think he did it well. One last thing I want to bring up is that I blame the publisher. I think they saw his potential and was rightly interested, but I think they should’ve worked more with him to develop his skills before publishing. So in conclusion. 1. Ruocchio did not plagarize 2. Borrowing and inspiration is not bad, in fact, it is NECESSARY. 3. Empire of silence is a worse than average book because Ruocchio did not have the technical skills needed to accomplish his goal. 4. Publishers are to blame more than Ruocchio himself.
I think that’s a well thought out different take. Thanks for sharing. Though I enjoyed EoS more than you, I definitely find it the weakest of the series! And the shadow of the torturer joke is elite. Haha
@@iSamwise I am making a video about re-reading EoS and my experience with Howling Dark. I will try to articulate it better there. Loving your channel!
Also the editor at the time had him add certain things like the homeless section so it would be closer to Name of the wind so you can only imagine how much of Dune was mandated too especially since the tag lines for book 1 was that it's like name of the wind and dune. Will be interesting to see how the original Empire Of Silence: The murdered Sun compares since it's releasing soon.
I was hoping you'd pull out Berserk when you were naming all the influences in Sun Eater. You should read it if you haven't, unless you just hated KoD.
On Star Wars: Ruocchio’s convention table pitch for Suneater is “What if Anakin becoming Darth Vader was necessary and perhaps even right.” He also loves the ROTS novelization you held up, fwiw.
I think Sun Eater's big problem is excess. It's not that references and influences are bad, it's how often they come up in very un-subtle ways. Halfway through Howling Dark I just got tired of hearing about Dante and Goya. The books are also excessively long. I think Ruocchio struggles to moderate himself. The entirety of BOTNS is only 400k words combined, and he said recently that his seventh Sun Eater book is projected to be that long on its own. That's pretty insane when you think about it.
You know I think subtlety will depend on the individual reader and it’s definitely true that the books are very large. I think my overall point is that this is in life with a tradition as old as the genre itself, even if it’s not to a readers preference.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Granted, I've only read book one but it's hardly subtle and where Wolfe could make a complex idea beautiful and succinct, Ruocchio (in book one) was obvious and clunky with it, using too many words
Thanks for this video. You did well tho i woulda wanted you to add Hyperion too. Might be the most influential of any work Sun Eater takes inspos from.
I suspect a combination of a low book count plus the fact people who overuse social media are bombarded with likely worthless opinions instead of taking the time to form their own. I didn’t have a great idea about what made a good book way back in the palaeolithic when I was a teenager, but I bought and read about four books a week through second hand book shops, encountering all the greats of science fiction and a lot of the dullards. So much of it shared similar elements, but the good books, I started to realise used those elements in different and interesting ways. This meant you could find something close to a book you’d enjoyed that had a different story. This, counter to the current rather immature narrative, was seen as a good thing. I didn't really get to this level of understanding until I'd been reading books I'd selected myself for a few years, possibly helped by my total lack of any social life, since I was also a computer nerd when they were just appearing in homes.
I had a similar experience. I read EoS and didn’t care much for it. It was a full 2 years before I picked up Howling Dark…and loved it. I devoured the remainder of the series. I attribute it to Ruocchio rediscovering his faith after publishing EoS.
