The Book
of the New Sun
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The Book
of the New Sun
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Shadow & Claw: The Shadow of the Torturer/the Claw of the Conciliator
by
Gene Wolfe
One of the most acclaimed "science fantasies" ever, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is a long, magical novel in four volumes. Shadow & Claw contains the first two: The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, which respectively won the World Fantasy and Nebula Awards. This is the first-person narrative of Severian, a lowly apprentice torturer blessed and cursed with a photographic memory, whose travels lead him through the marvels of far-future Urth, and who--as revealed near the beginning--eventually becomes his land's sole ruler or Autarch. On the surface it's a colorful story with all the classic ingredients: growing up, adventure, sex, betrayal, murder, exile, battle, monsters, and mysteries to be solved. (Only well into book 2 do we realize what saved Severian's life in chapter 1.) For lovers of literary allusions, they are plenty here: a Dickensian cemetery scene, a torture-engine from Kafka, a wonderful library out of Borges, and familiar fables changed by eons of retelling. Wolfe evokes a chilly sense of time's vastness, with an age-old, much-restored painting of a golden-visored "knight," really an astronaut standing on the moon, and an ancient citadel of metal towers, actually grounded spacecraft. Even the sun is senile and dying, and so Urth needs a new sun. The Book of the New Sun is almost heartbreakingly good, full of riches and subtleties that improve with each rereading. It is Gene Wolfe's masterpiece. |
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Sword & Citadel: The Sword of the Lictor and the Citadel of the
Autarch
by
Gene Wolfe
Unanimously acclaimed as one of the finest works of science fiction ever written, the four-volume epic The Book of the New Sun is now available for the first time this decade. This dramatic adventure follows Severian as he transforms from a ruthless monster to a savior of a world. Sword & Citadel contains the concluding two volumes, the Sword of the Lictor and the Citadel of the Autarch. What Frank Herbert attempted and only partially succeeded at in the DUNE series--a tale of theosophy and apotheosis that keeps its head in the heavens and its feet down to Earth (or Urth)--Gene Wolfe does with the apparent effortlessness of a true master. I consider myself well-read in general, but THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is easily one of the two or three most difficult texts I've ever encountered...it's the ULYSSES of science fiction. Wolfe presents us with a cosmogony staggering in its scope and detail and challenges us, along with his narrator Severian the torturer, to puzzle out its secrets. He poses questions to us that, until we stumble across the answers, we weren't even aware were asked. The story is filled to the brim with Biblical allusions, rich metaphor, high adventure, and--at the last--revelations and insight that feel authentic rather than contrived or exaggerated. THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN makes you work for your entertainment, but what you come away with really sticks to your ribs. Information about Mr. Wolfe is depressingly hard to come by, so I can only marvel at the kind of mind that could have produced something this compelling, truthful, and--let's not forget--entertaining. |
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The Urth of the New Sun
by
Gene Wolfe
THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN is a coda to Gene Wolfe's four-volume masterpiece The Book of the New Sun. It is a work both like and unlike its predecessor, and is essential reading for anyone who appreciated The Book of the New Sun.THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN begins with Severian having just completed the second copy of his book while on the Ship of the Hierodules, journeying to Yesod, the universe higher than our own, that he may stand trial to bring a New Sun to Urth. Although The Book of the New Sun was concerned mostly with Severian's internal thoughts, THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN is very much concerned with the universe(s) outside Severian. The settings in which Severian finds himself in the first half of the book, outside the Ship, in the Ship's holds, and finally on the isle on Yesod, are brilliantly exotic locales, but which Severian himself knows are beyond his understanding. In The Book of the New Sun, Severian writes his tale in a complete manner, understanding why various aspects of his adventure are as they are. In URTH, however, Severian gives detailed descriptions of where he travels, but writes as one completely lost as a mere human among the Hierodules.Yesod is one of the most fascinating settings in science fiction, and Wolfe's clear style brings them to the reader's imagination fully. Wolfe's concepts of the wings of Tzadkiel looking like curtains around him while he sits on his throne, the scarab machine that like something out of ancient mythologies makes Yesod function, and tongueless Apetha enthrall the reader. Madregot, the Brook beyond Briah were Severian pauses for a moment, is a rather powerful place to the reader.The second half of THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN involves Severian's return to Urth. And although Wolfe does obviously tie up several loose ends in this part of the Book, he also clearly evokes Severian's bafflement at his own omnipotence. The final scene of the book is mysterious and it is difficult to say it concludes anything, so the ending is a beginning of something much more for Severian, about which we must only speculate.Having completed The Book of the New Sun, a beautiful and original work that was for me the Book of Gold, I hope readers will go on to THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN, which dazzles and entertains as much as the first four volumes of Severian's tale. Having finished it, perhaps the reader will wish to go on to Wolfe's other "solar" works, The Book of the Long Sun and its follow-up The Book of the Short Sun. |
