's review of Shadow & Claw: The First Half of The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (2024)

The first 2 books of the New Sun series. This is a classic scifi/fantasy series. Far, far in the future, on a feudal Earth run by the Autarch, young Severian the torturer accidentally gets involved in a revolutionary plot. When he violates guild rules and is sent off as a journeyman to a far city, we learn more about Urth, Severian and the revolution. Gradually we learn more about the world, a combination of magic and technology, aliens and humans. Complex and fascinating. A classic for a reason. ( )

Karlstar | Sep 1, 2024 |

Gene Wolfe is one of those writers that though I've long been dimly aware of him, my curiosity about him was particularly stirred up by the denizens of /r/printSF, where he has a particularly vocal and adoring group of fans. His work is famously inscrutable; the introduction to this book (by Ada Palmer of the inscrutable Terra Ignota) says that there are science fiction books that are confusing to the inexperienced reader sf—and as those books are to easier books, so is The Book of the New Sun to those books. That is to say, there are some science fiction books you can only read once you have learned how to read science fiction, and Gene Wolfe you can only read once you have learned how to read Gene Wolfe. So I was pleased when I was gifted the new "Tor Essentials" editions of The Book of the New Sun, and I recently read the first one, which collects the first two books, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator.

Book of the New Sun is about a member of the guild of torturers, Severian; Shadow of the Torturer covers his adolescence in the guild, and then the beginning of his exile, when he is en route to take up a post as executioner at a distant city. At first I was wondering if the inscrutability of the book was somewhat exaggerated; sure, you have to read carefully, but that's because Wolfe has dense, rich prose, and a tendency to jump around a bit chronologically (at first; it soon settles down). The world itself is a little obscure, but I had my theories. I enjoyed these early parts a lot—a richly described world in both the macro and micro senses. The dense, traditional, circumscribed world Severian moves through is fascinating and interesting. Additionally, I always like coming-of-age stuff, and this is a good example of it.

Once Severian leaves, though, the book gets weird. It actually reminds me of medieval quest narratives, or rather my most recent example of one (it has been a long time since I was in grad school, after all), the film adaptation of The Green Knight: bizarre, weird things keep happening... that are presented so matter-of-factly and received so matter-of-factly that they thus become even weirder and bizarre. Severian is recruited into a troupe of players, and one feels that this is going to be some kind of picaresque, but then he's challenged to a duel, and now he's in a botanical garden where people live, and then he's on a carriage that accidentally smashes through a group of nuns, and then when you think the story has forgotten all about that theatrical troupe, they somehow catch up to him and they're all performing a play together!

So it's less difficult in the sense that you don't know what's happening, and more difficult in the sense that the logic underpinning the story and world doesn't seem to be the logic of story and world we know here in the twentieth/twenty-first century. Like I said, it feels like a medieval text, in that it sort of comes across as something assembled retroactively from a bunch of disparate texts about Severian: why would the theatrical troupe reappear so much later? Well, because some later scribes stuck an unrelated story about Severian's duel into the middle of the text! So captivating, but if at the end of the book you wanted me to tell you what was actually going on, I'm not sure I could have done it.

I think Shadow of the Torturer balanced on just the right side of the weirdness, and had the opening segment to keep it grounded; the story's continuation in Claw of the Conciliator was more confusing to me, more piecemeal, too disorienting. Though I liked a lot of individual incidents, there were many aspects of the story I didn't follow at all, and ultimately I struggled through this in a way I hadn't with Shadow.

Still, they say you don't read Book of the New Sun, only reread it, so I am in for the long haul I guess. There are four books, plus a coda, and they are all part of the twelve-book "Solar Cycle" so it could be quite a long haul if I am willing! In the short term, though, I think I will certainly finish out The Book of the New Sun.

Stevil2001 | Oct 30, 2023 |

Strangest fantasy sci-fi I've read since Dune, I think. Lots of people seem to love this, which makes me feel like I'm the dafty who didn't understand the punchline. The first book was pretty good, setting out the main character's backstory and giving us someone sympathetic to root for. The second one: almost incomprehensible at times, plus our protagonist starts acting like a bit of a dick. It was a struggle to finish.

Really: lots of great ideas, let down (for me) by the disjointed narrative style and barely-understandable second volume. Greater minds than mine can enjoy this - I didn't. ( )

ropable | Aug 20, 2023 |

The Book of the New Sun is the best thing ever written in Sci-Fi. ( )

easytarget | Jul 4, 2023 |

Torture, place-holder characters, odd under-explained male-female relationships, and unexplained key plot points eventually wore me down. I thought I had read 69% of this, but apparently it is two separate books published together, so I don't know.
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The author sprinkles the story of his created world with interesting archaic words or neologisms. Many of these are religious or medieval in origin, but, as is common in fantasy and science fiction, their meaning in the created world is not entirely clear. We infer their meaning from the word's actual former meaning here on Urth Earth. Mr. Wolfe has a knack for this. ( )

markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |

very well written and an interesting plot. ( )

Vitaly1 | May 28, 2023 |

A workable classic. It is clear why it commands authority as a work of "Dying Earth" science fiction. However, I am tired of the portrayal of non-male characters through the lens of white male authors. ( )

ActuallySophia | Apr 13, 2023 |

The world built in this first half of the story is fantastic. The 1st person narrative written as a memoir is compelling and well implemented. The main character is quite sexist, but having been raised in an all-male society of torturers, this is not surprising, and anything else would feel forced.

Overall, I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes intricate and beautifully built worlds with a good dose of intrigue and mystery. Not to mention some truly strange goings-on. ( )

boredwillow | Mar 4, 2023 |

Summary: A character driven sci-fi/fantasy that provides a challenging view of an alternative earth and the peoples that might live in it.

Things I liked:

The setting: Gene Wolfe definitely created a world and a set of characters that seemed alien to my first reading. I found myself stopping often to think about/visualize the ideas and structures his characters are describing. Even when (on closer analysis) he turns out to be talking about something quite familiar; he presents it as his characters see it. As his characters are alien (at least to me) the related concepts are similar. I thought this was very well done.

Words: He uses lots of cool words and although I found myself looking up heaps of them in the dictionary I more often than not found the particular ones he chosen to be singularly appropriate to the sense in which they were used.

Things I thought could be improved:

Narrative jumps around: A few more bridging paragraphs or epistemological excerpts would have helped me to work out whether or not I'd missed half a book between chapters or not.

Standout: The torturers guild was excellently realized (like something out of a Gothic novel) I loved this and all the related trappings. ( )

benkaboo | Aug 18, 2022 |

I found the first bit of this book extremely compelling—I couldn't put it down—and then 20% in it turned completely unappealing, and I had to put it down. Another reviewer put it well-enough:

His protagonist started off interestingly enough: an apparently weak and intelligent man, which made it all the more disappointing when he suddenly transformed into a laconic, wench-loving buttkicker who masters sword-fighting.

This book was a let-down. Fascinating, and then abruptly appalling. I feel betrayed. ( )

quavmo | Jun 26, 2022 |

Come for the obtuse vocabulary and vague storyline. Stay for… the rampant misogyny? Don’t know if I’ll bother with the second volume in this series. ( )

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miken32 | Mar 1, 2022 |

This is a 5500 word essay on a reread of the full TBotNS, focusing on the narrative trap Wolfe has set, and my theory that his literary sleight of hand serves a religious/mystical goal, much more than it is the supposed puzzle for the reader to unravel. There’s also a short section on free will, and it ends with my overall appraisal of the book’s enduring appeal.

(...)

Even though Wright might be right in spirit, Aramini’s law still holds: “One of the most fascinating aspects of the critical discourse surrounding Wolfe involves how infrequently any two people will agree with each other.” That is because Wolfe has indeed set a trap – but his trap isn’t there to catch readers unwilling to question their assumptions in a post-structuralist way… The trap is there to catch post-structuralists and puzzle-solvers altogether. To understand that, I’ll have to turn to the Spiritual.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It ( )

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bormgans | May 17, 2021 |

So, this is a compilation of the first two volumes of Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, so I'm going to split this accordingly:

As perfect an introduction to Wolfe's decaying, distant future Earth (er, Urth) as you could hope for. Severian's travels throughout the city of Nessus (and beyond) feel eerily familiar but remote, like walking through your house in a dream. The hard-stop ending is something a lot of people don't seem to like, but I feel like it's a great place to drop things. Definitely the stronger of the two books.

This is where I think Wolfe loses me a little, and where I think that the murkiness of Severian's future works against Wolfe in some ways (we're clearly expected to believe that the Claw of the Conciliator is a fantastically important thing to have, but without more explanation about Severian's world, it just ends up feeling like another generic fantasy McGuffin). This was easily my least favorite of the four books the first time that I read through these, and I think it improved a little on the second pass (the House Absolute part is much more disturbing than I remember, and the parts after that are much more clear than I remember), but it's still far from the simple yet striking construction that the first book has.

Overall though, these books are really good (on a second pass, I can see what people mean about uncovering new things on a reread), and I recommend them. ( )

skolastic | Feb 2, 2021 |

Gene Wolfe staat bekend als een van de grootheden in het Fantasy-genre, op hetzelfde schavotje als bijvoorbeeld Tolkien, Peake en anderen. ik heb me, gezien ik enkele jaren geleden op zoek was naar spannende Fantasy, weliswaar laten leiden door de vele Best Of-lijstjes, waarbij deze reeks van Wolfe toch meerdere keren de revue passeerde.

Dat de 4 boeken heruitgebracht zijn als 2 omnibussen, is handig meegenomen, ook omdat de aparte delen op zich niet meer of moeilijk te krijgen zijn.

Van Wolfe wordt gezegd dat hij een aparte schrijfstijl heeft, welbespraakt en dergelijke meer. Welnu, het is inderdaad van dat en hij schuwt archaïsche woordenschat evenmin. Vaak weet je überhaupt niet waarover hij het heeft en steeds een woordenboek Engels bij de hand hebben, vind ik ook niet bevorderlijk voor het leesplezier. Handig kan het wel zijn, maar niet als je steevast ernaar moet grijpen. Het betreft hier een Fantasy-verhaal dat voor het grote publiek geschreven is, niet voor een elitair clubje. Dan ga je toch je woordkeuze wat aanpassen, of tenminste een soort woordenlijst meegeven op het einde. Niets van dat.

Het eerste boek, 'Shadow of the Torturer', gaat over Severian, die opgeleid wordt tot beul / torturer. Maar dan komt de liefde om de hoek kijken, naast wat avontuurlijke ervaring, en overtreedt hij de regels van zijn Orde. Hij wordt "gestraft" en uitgezonden naar Thrax, kwestie dat ze in de Citadel hun imago in stand kunnen houden. Zijn zwaard, Terminus Est, is z'n hebben en houden: zonder is hij nogal weerloos, ondanks z'n pikzwarte kledij en cape. Natuurlijk beleeft hij heel wat actie en avontuur en liefde, jaja, onderweg en moet hij ook wat beulentaken uitvoeren.

Later komt hij terecht bij een reizend toneelgezelschap, verdient er wat geld mee, en kan zo ongemerkt verder reizen, ook al wil hij/Severian liever alleen z'n tocht verderzetten, want hij moet ook een brief afleveren in Thrax.

Zoals ik al zei: Wolfes schrijfstijl laat niet toe vlot dit boek te lezen, ook door de woordenschat (waarvoor je best een zeer goede woordenboek bij de hand hebt, of Wikipedia of zo). Daarom dat ik vaak moest wroeten om erdoor te geraken, om te begrijpen wat er gebeurde, waarom, enz... Maar veel hielp het niet.

In het tweede boek, 'Claw of the Conciliator', is Severian nog steeds het hoofdpersonage, maar is quasi heel de rest van de cast niet meer aanwezig. Severian trekt dus verder, het wordt allemaal spannender en - het moet gezegd - Wolfe heeft z'n schrijfstijl bijgewerkt, iets toegankelijker gemaakt, want het lezen vlot nu beter. Of zou het aan mij liggen of de omstandigheden? In ieder geval, er is meer leesplezier, je kunt je beter inleven, de zaken voorstellen. Maar toch houdt Wolfe vast aan oude woordenschat, die amper nog gebruikt wordt (ook al dateren de boeken van begin jaren '80) en wellicht door weinig Engelstaligen zelf begrepen wordt, wat dus weer een domper op dat leesplezier zet. Maar goed, soms kan je uit de context wel afleiden waarover het zou kunnen gaan.

Na veel omzwervingen, incl. met het voormelde toneelgezelschap, komt Severian ergens in een verlaten stad, waar magie heerst, waar men het verleden wil laten herleven door de tombe van een voormalig soort leider/krijger/... te openen en hem dan te vangen (voor welk doel?). In ieder geval, op het einde heb ik weer zoiets van: En wat is er nu precies gebeurd? Waarom is dit alles belangrijk? Wel een sterretje meer voor het vlottere lezen, maar qua verhaal zelf? Hopelijk brengen de andere delen in de reeks meer duidelijkheid, want na 2 boeken ben ik amper mee in de draai. ( )

TechThing | Jan 22, 2021 |

I liked book 1 a lot and book 2 a lot less. I've got 3 and 4 on my nightstand and hope they tend more toward the qualities I liked in book 1, which had so much neat world building. Although this is billed as science fiction by many who I suppose ought to know science fiction from fantasy, it read a lot more like fantasy to me, if fantasy with some sci-fi elements. ( )

dllh | Jan 6, 2021 |

Utterly boring book with no clear story line or any line at all. All I take away from this book is he is a super randy guy that can only think of tits & pussy and permanently oils his sword that he permanently looses and then luckily finds again.

There are some minor parts that are quite interesting and well written and the whole concept and idea is quite nice, but the execution is horrible. I doubt I will read the last two books of this series. ( )

gullevek | Dec 15, 2020 |

Υπάρχει μια σειρά βιβλίων που λέγεται Fantasy Masterworks και έχει 50 μέλη. Στο σπίτι μου υπάρχουν γύρω στα 10 από αυτά, συμπεριλαμβανομένων αριστουργημάτων όπως τα άπαντα του Κόναν και της Λάνκμαρ, το Chronicles of Amber του Zelazny και άλλα. Πρόσφατα αποφάσισα να πιάσω από την αρχή τη σειρά, διαβάζοντας όσα βιβλία δεν είχα ανοίξει ποτέ. Νούμερο ένα είναι το Shadow & Claw του Gene Wolfe, πρώτο μέρος του γνωστού The Book of the New Sun. Το συγγραφέα και το πόνημά του τους ήξερα μονάχα ως ονόματα, μην έχοντας ιδέα για το setting και τον τρόπο γραφής. Μονάχα για την ποιότητα έκανα εικασίες επειδή έχω πετύχει το Book of the New Sun σε αρκετές best-of λίστες.

Το βιβλίο ξεκινάει με μια σκηνή εντός νεκροταφείου, μέσα στο οποίο κάποια άτομα γλιστράνε με παράνομο σκοπό στο μυαλό. Αρκετά ομιχλώδες νυχτερινό τοπίο, με ασαφείς φιγούρες να αναβοσβήνουν στο οπτικό πεδίο του αναγνώστη, φασματική ατμόσφαιρα. Αισθητικοί συνειρμοί με μετέφεραν στο Betrayal At Krondor και στο Shadows Over Riva, και φούντωσαν τη διάθεση και τις προσδοκίες μου, όπως και η ύπαρξη συντεχνιών (από τα πλέον απολαυστικά χαρακτηριστικά των medieval fantasy κόσμων).

Παρένθεση: Είναι κάποιες φορές που μπαίνεις σε έναν βιβλιόκοσμο πρωτογενώς, χωρίς να ξέρεις τίποτα για αυτόν, και ξεκινάει να χτίζεται η σκεπτομορφή του μέσα σου. Και μπορεί τότε, όταν ακόμη είναι νωπή η εικόνα, χαζεύοντας πολύ αδρά για το βιβλίο στο ίντερνετ, να πέσεις πάνω σε μια αναφορά για τη φύση του κόσμου του βιβλίου, η οποία παραμορφώνει σε σχεδόν αγνώριστο βαθμό αυτή τη σκεπτομορφή. Αυτό έπαθα με το Shadow & Claw. Ενώ φανταζόμουν ελαφρώς gritty fantasy κόσμο με καμπόση μαγεία, διαβάζοντας τις πάνω πάνω αράδες της περιγραφής στο Wikipedia, ειδοποιήθηκα πως ο κόσμος του βιβλίου είναι τελικά ο δικός μας, η Γη σε ένα πολύ μακρινό μέλλον, όπου ο ήλιος σβήνει σιγά σιγά. Εκεί ήταν που εμφανίστηκαν οι πρώτες ρωγμές δυσφορίας εντός μου, μιας και η δυστοπία του απώτερου μέλλοντος δεν είναι ακριβώς της προτίμησής μου. Όχι πως το setting δε σου επιτρέπει να αφήσεις αρκετά εύκολα στην άκρη τη γνώση αυτή. Και επίσης καλώς θεωρήθηκε fantasy από τους επιμελητές της σειράς, μιας και βλέπω πολύ κόσμο να το κατατάσσει στο sci-fi, κάτι που δε γίνεται αισθητό παρά ελάχιστα.

Πίσω στο βιβλίο τώρα. Το Shadow & Claw είναι στρυφνό. Χρησιμοποιεί βαρύγδουπο λόγο πολλάκις, έχει μια αγάπη για εξωτικές λεκτικές φανφάρες (αρκετές με ελληνική και λατινική προέλευση) και αρέσκεται στην ονειρική πλοκή. Αυτά τα στοιχεία το κάνουν δυσανάγνωστο σε μεγάλο βαθμό. Θυμάμαι παλιά, όταν έκανα κάτι εφηβικές προσπάθειες μίμησης του στυλ του Έλρικ του Κάστρου του Μαργαριταριού, κατέληγα στο να πηγαίνω από εδώ κι από εκεί τον πρωταγωνιστή μου δίχως ουσιαστικό λόγο. Κάπως έτσι μας βολοδέρνει και ο Gene Wolfe στον κόσμο του, μέσω του κεντρικού πρωταγωνιστή. Ο οποίος πρωταγωνιστής, ονόματι Severian, νεαρό μέλος της συντεχνίας των βασανιστών, είναι ένα πολύχρωμο φυαλίδιο μέσα στο οποίο αντιδρούν οι ουσίες του αντιήρωα με αυτό του περιπλανώμενου σκεύους για αναγνώστες.

Αναντίρρητα εντός του βιβλίου υπάρχουν πολύ όμορφες στιγμές, με κορυφαίο ίσως το παραμύθι σχετικά με ένα γίγαντα σε ένα νησί και τις κοπέλες που έδρεπε ως φόρο από κάποιο βασίλειο – η Θησεϊκή νότα είναι πολυεπίπεδης διάρκειας. Υπέροχη είναι και η πορεία εντός της σπηλιάς και τα βήματα του πελώριου ogre, όπως και οι αναφορές στα κοσμογονικής (ή και κοσμοκτονικής) κοψιάς πλάσματα του βυθού.

Όμως οποιαδήποτε καλή στιγμή πνίγεται μέσα σε αυτή την παραζάλη που επικρατεί στο μεγαλύτερο μέρος του βιβλίου, και η οποία έχει τη στόφα του επιτηδευμένου, του ανιαρού, και εν τέλει του ενοχλητικά ανούσιου – με αποκορύφωμα ίσως το μεγάλο κεφάλαιο που έχει στηθεί ως θεατρικό προς το τέλος του βιβλίου. Ο κόσμος του ίντερνετ λέει πως το βιβλίο σου ανοίγεται στη δεύτερη και τις επόμενες αναγνώσεις της New Sun σειράς. Εγώ πάλι θα πω πως έχοντας νωπή τη μαρτυρική εμπειρία της συνολικής ανάγνωσης μονάχα του πρώτου μισού του πρώτου βιβλίου, σίγουρα δεν έχω καμιά επιθυμία να διαβάσω το δεύτερο μισό, τα επόμενα βιβλία, πόσο μάλλον να τα ξαναδιαβάσω όλα.

Αρκετοί επίσης λένε (ορθώς) πως ο Gene Wolfe είναι επηρεασμένος από τον Μπόρχες, χρησιμοποιώντας αυτό το χαρακτηριστικό ως θετικό. Το ζήτημα είναι πως ο Μπόρχες ήταν μανιώδης αρνητής της μεγάλης σε έκταση λογοτεχνικής φόρμας, ιδίως στη συγγραφή (δεν έγραψε κάτι μεγαλύτερο από διήγημα, ευτυχώς μάλλον), και υπάρχει λόγος για αυτό. Η διατήρηση μιας τσιτωμένης και ιδιαίτερα απαιτητικής γραφής σε τριψήφιο αριθμό σελίδων καταντάει κουραστική ή μονότονη, αμβλύνοντας τη σπιρτάδα της ίδιας της γραφής συνάμα με το ενδιαφέρον του αναγνώστη.

Κακή επιλογή λοιπόν για πρώτη θέση το Book of the New Sun, όσον αφορά τη σειρά Fantasy Masterworks, επόμενη στάση το Time & the Gods του Lord Dunsany για το οποίο έχω τεράστιες προσδοκίες. ( )

Athotep | Sep 26, 2020 |

What a mess of a book. I’m stumped at all the praise it received, including from people like Gaiman and Le Guin. They must be friends and thus have to praise it.

First of all, this is a series of episodes which do not really make a coherent whole. Editing out half of them would only make the reading shorter but wouldn’t necessarily affect the whole. While some of Wolfe’s episodic musings are excellent, others are prosaic, or sometimes downright dumb. The inclusion of a play Severian has remembered word for word and retells us word for word for unknown reasons was too much for me to endure. Seriously, what is that? Why are we reading the script of an amateur play for dozens of pages? Overall, it often feels we’re following Severian’s acid trip, which would be far more interesting if Severian was a more interesting character, but he is not. In fact, when he does have interesting thoughts, they seem out of place and out of character, as if another point of view has been introduced.

While the story has its moments and Wolfe gets points for some originality and literary ambitions with his treatment of language and text, he also fails miserably in too many ways. For me, the most unforgivable are ‘love’ episodes. They read like the most stereotypical prosaic romance stories if those were written for a male audience. I wanted to stab my eyes whenever Severian mused on his love/sex objects of interest. ( )

SandraArdnas | Sep 25, 2020 |

i've reread this series several times, and to those who find it a hard slog, well, you are correct. but i've found it to be an amazingly rewarding story, written with careful prose on an epic scale. with each re-reading i find something a little more interesting, and like all great Art, something that makes me think as well as reflect on my own experiences.

i just hope they never try to make this into a movie. ( )

jhwhit | Oct 7, 2019 |

The classic story of a young man journey from the only home he’s known and finding himself interacting with the strange wider world. Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe is the omnibus collection of the first two volumes of The Book of the New Sun tetralogy, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, following the life of the guild of torturer journeyman Severian.

The Shadow of the Torturer follows the last year of Severian’s life in The Citadel of Nessus and his few days after leaving into exile after breaking the greatest rule of the guild of torturers. Severian finds himself challenged to a duel and explores greater Nessus in preparation while coming into contacting with numerous interesting characters. The Claw of the Conciliator picks up a bit after the previous book with Severian performing his duties in a small mining town before going on a series of journeys going to the seat of government the House Absolute and leaving, all the while trying to figure out everything he’s involved in while trying not to dishonor his guild once again.

The first volume of the book, Shadow, was very intriguing and while somethings were clear—as might have been the plan—there was enough there to make me look forward to continuing on Severian’s journey. However the second volume, Claw, was all over the place with quality, interest, and frustration as one the main problems from the first volume, namely the first-person narration by Severian was all over the place. Add in an entire chapter that described a line-by-line recreation of a nonsensical play just to setup an attack by one of the characters on the audience in the next, much short chapter just added to my dislike of this particular volume.

I had high hopes for Shadow & Claw given that it was the first half of what is considered a classic tetralogy by Gene Wolfe. While I did like the first volume of the omnibus, the second one has made me wonder why this is considered a fantasy-science fiction classic by many.

The Shadow of the Torturer (3.5/5)
The Claw of the Conciliator (2/5) ( )

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mattries37315 | Feb 27, 2019 |

Fantastical sci-fi. The painting of the future world as one that is drenched in legends and vagueness as opposed to scientific precision is refreshing.

It's a shame about the blatant objectification of women from the main character's point of view. I wonder if this is a fault of Gene Wolfe or of the character, but I haven't read much by Wolfe that treats women as main characters. It would have been 4 stars otherwise. ( )

simonspacecadet | Jul 29, 2018 |

I would have rated this higher if BOTH books hadn't ended so abruptly. Perhaps I'll upgrade it after a re-read. ( )

natcontrary | May 21, 2018 |

Elegant and haunting prose. The narrative is kind of surreal and slow paced with no linear time. It made me pause and reflect and reread a lot of times. The narrator Severian is a torturer who has to leave his guild because he falls in love with one of his clients and eventually helps her commit suicide to escape weeks of torture. From then on we follow severian’s adventures and dreams as he meets a mysterious troupe, accidentally resurrects a girl and participates in a cannibalistic ritual. We learn more of the world as severian learns it.

Great world building. Set in the backdrop of a dying sun and a green moon. On Urth which is Earth long into the future, we see the remnants of a once technologically advanced society.

Characterisation is detailed and complex. Mainly severian. He’s been brought up as a torturer and most of the times he goes through the world and events with complete indifference. And yet he also cares for a lot of people. Also at one point in the book, he refers to himself as being mad. So i’m not really sure regarding some events if they really happened or if they are just his fantasies.

The world is imaginative and interesting and i would be happy to spend more time in it. ( )

kasyapa | Oct 9, 2017 |

Perhaps I should not tell it, but I lifted my sword to Heaven then, to the diminished sun with the worm in his heart; and I called, “His life for mine, New Sun, by your anger and my hope!”

—The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe

I do not shrink from difficult prose. In fact, I seek it out. There are certain titles I plan on getting to, far in the future, sometime when I’ve gotten a tummy ache on confectionary fiction and need to equalize the pH with more savory fare. “Finnegan’s Wake”, “2666”, “War and Peace”, “The 120 Days of Sodom”—the list shall never end . . . well, until I end. However, that list is part of an invisible canon, I’d suspect, of any serious bibliophile the Western world over. “In Search of Lost Time” indeed; who’s got time for seven volumes of growing up in France? Without swords, that is. And that reminds me. Swords.

I’d read the first volume to “The Book of the New Sun” nearly twenty years ago. It didn’t grab me like I’d hoped, obviously, else I’d have finished the damn thing. But now that I’m on the second part, I can’t help think that maybe I was unprepared for a work of fantasy to be so challenging. Tolkien may have invented who-gives-a-shit-how-many-Elvish-languages, drew maps of worlds of Middle-earth to rival those from the Renaissance, and penned prose as purple and yawn-inducing as Henry James. Yet, once I sifted the nuggets from the scree, his works were largely accessible. Not so with Gene Wolfe. “The Claw of the Conciliator” is fucking hard. I mean, I’m looking up at least one word a page—sometimes four. Fuligin, carnifex, baluchither, thylacodon, hipparch—enough red squiggly underlines in a Word document to fool one into believing he suffered from macular degeneration. And it’s not just the lexicon you’ll scrape together to get through it (there actually IS one: “Lexicon Urthus”—no shit), but the sheer amount of omitted backstory, just dumping a poor soul in this far-flung world to wade through the waters and verbiage and huge cast of characters, makes one almost feel as if his compass were useless being that close to the magnet factory. Wolfe assumes the reader is intelligent and doesn’t spoon feed, explicate or even bother with neologisms. Swear to God, every word I’ve had to look up is either archaic, Latin or dug out of some layer in the earth only discovered once the quake ended, dislodging cities and forcing up defunct tongues on fresh mantle.

It’s exhausting. I’m taking it in pieces. Like it probably should be. And I’m being rewarded with beauty. For all that esoterica I’m finding complex souls, missions problematic and unexpected, countries divulged and summarily drowned in blood, magic and ritual. I’m not yet sure if it’s great or just greatly impressive. But its power is undeniable. And it sure as shit wrings the neck on anything a fantasy serial with feathers has presented, chicken-hearted hops in the farmyard, thus far. At least in my experience.

And what he doesn’t tell or show is a hovering shadow with more density than the average immersive fantasy author’s entire oeuvre. I can’t wait to sink my head back into this tar pit ( )

ToddSherman | Aug 24, 2017 |

Set in the far future of Earth (or Urth as it is known in these books), this is the tale of Severian, of the Guild of Torturers and his travels across a world changed out of all recognition from the one we know.

This is no ordinary fantasy tale. Episodic in nature, with a large cast of characters (many of whom disappear only to reappear much later on in the tale) the story unfolds at a stately pace and is told as if written by Severian himself.

Cast out from the Guild that has been his home since he was a small boy for falling in love with one of the prisoners, Severian is told to travel to the distant city of Thrax, there to take up the post of Carnifex, dispatching 'justice' to those poor unfortunate souls who come before him and his sword, Terminus Est. But the journey is no easy one. Indeed, he has only just reached the gates of the vast city of Nessus, home of the Guild, as book one draws to a close.

Book two takes up the tale some time later and we follow Severian to the House Absolute, home of the Autarch, and beyond to the very edge of the Northern Mountains.

Wolfe's imagination is wondrous to behold and his descriptions of the city of Nessus and the House Absolute are strange and unsettling, conjuring up a world both in decay and stasis. It is known that Mankind has fallen from the peaks of the past, when he traversed the stars, and now lives beneath the baleful glare of the red sun of this dying earth.

Severian seems bound to a destiny over which he has no control. Each adventure brings him a step closer to that destiny, the outcome of which is stated quite early on, so we know the conclusion of the tale in advnace. The pleasure comes in how the story unfolds and the course of events that will bring him to that destiny.

If you prefer swashbuckling, elves and broad strokes of the pen, then maybe this isn't the book for you. If however you enjoy a tale well told of memory and truth and the nature of power, then give this a go. I'll certainly be reading the next volume. ( )

David.Manns | Nov 28, 2016 |