Inspired by the fact that, over on my Substack, I used the phrase “this is the the most impenetrable book I’ve ever read not written by a German philosopher” to describe Gene Wolfe‘s The Book of the New Sun, I though I’d have my characters go up against indecipherable fiction.
Copyright J.B. Norman
“What. was. that?” Kat cries as Amara closes the dense tome — and tense is definitely the word for. The book is not only big enough to house a family of four, but Kat still isn’t sure she actually understand anything that happened in it.
“Well, yes,” Amara says, thoughtfully running her manicured fingers over the cover of the book. “Lupercal Eupator is known both for his sheer talent at wordsmithery as much as for his cryptic writing style and arcane word choice.”
“I…” Kat stutters, the words of Lupercal Eupator still buzzing around in her head like angry Oake Island Hornets.
She clamps her eyes shut and tries to get the buzzing words into something that kinda-sorta even remotely makes sense.
The story was set either in the ancient past, or so far in the future that society had collapsed and restarted at least once. The hero Aurelius was the Emperor’s magistrate and he was forced into exile for either not executing somebody he should have, or executing somebody he shouldn’t have and she was disguised as somebody else, but her disguise was that she wasn’t in disguise at all.
And it was Terrace or all along, or else it was never Terrace in the first place.
And there was a magic rock and some kind of crazy, ancient, evil conspiracy going back — or maybe forward — thousands of years.
And Kat thinks the girl who turned out to be his daughter was also actually his time-travelling grandmother.
And…
Kat’s brain hurts.
“Okay,” Kat tells Amara, feeling like she needs to start pinning things to a wall and tie them together with little string. “What do we know?”
“Well, Aurelius is destined to become the new Beneficiarch,” Amara offers.
“But wasn’t the ancient conspiracy trying to stop him from becoming Beneficiarch?” Kat asks.
“Yes, exactly, but by attempting to prevent his destiny, they only ensured it would come pass, Katherine,” Amara explains. “It’s one of the simplest storytelling techniques ever!”
“I get it?” Kat replies.
“And, we know, of course, that by refusing to accept the Hand of the Adjudicator, he was the only person to prove himself worthy of being bequeathed the Hand of the Adjudicator.”
“That was the magic rock, right?”
“Yes, Katherine. That was the magic rock.”
“And the girl who was Aurelius’ daughter,” Kat continues. “She was his time-travelling grandmother, right?”
“Yes, Katherine. Didn’t you notice that Aurelius gave her the purple handkerchief his grandmother gave him when he was a child?”
“…Yes.”
“And, course, his daughter’s name was Ahtanamas, which is, of course, Samatha backwards. And Samantha was his grandmother’s name,” Amara continues.
Kat nods thoughtfully and chews her lip as she tries to continue to process things.
“Wait,” she says, still trying to process the dense, impenetrable tome. “So… did Aurelius know the Frumentarii were setting him up the whole time?”
Amara blinks at her. “Katherine. What are you talking about?”
Kat frowns. “Yeah. I may have fallen asleep at some point and dreamed that part.”
Most of those plot points are at least vaguely inspired by what actually happens in The Book of the New Sun: Severian does go into exile, there is a magic rock, the story is set in the distant future, there is an ancient conspiracy, there is possibly time travel involved, and “Beneficiarch,” which is supposed to mean something like “Blessing-Leader” is a reference to the Autarch of The Book of the New Sun.
Lupercal Eupator is kinda-sorta supposed to semantically invoke “Gene Wolfe.” The Lupercalia was the wolf-themed Roman festival and Eupator literally means “well-fathered” or “person with a good father” and is meant to convey the idea that the person comes from a good family — has good genes, if you will.
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