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A review by borteez
The Book of the New Sun - The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe
3.0
I read this alongside the fantastic podcast 'Shelved by Genre,' which was an interesting experiment in terms of reading along with something that wasn't schoolwork. It was nostalgic to pace myself that way and I think it tended to bring GW's strengths to the forefront as I went along. That being said, I am not sure I would do it again.
The Books of the New Sun are, to put it lightly, mindbogglingly strange for their time. I can see the DNA of so many things we consider revolutionary in speculative fiction--time travel, complex and deeply Catholic (but also super NOT?) cosmologies, DeviantArt OCs. You know. The gamut of the human creative experience.
These books have our main character, Severian, meandering through a world in its sunsetting phase. As he goes he finds himself embroiled in a high-fantasy shlockfest of magical wars, curses and swords, strange creatures and plants and gods and stories, and it all leads to... possibly the most disappointing runup of final tie-togethers I've ever witnessed.
I wouldn't say this series *isn't* worth reading, I particularly think the first three volumes are really solid if sometimes a little bit boring. I do think GW lost the plot somewhere along the way, perhaps around the thirteenth time I said aloud 'really? we're doing THIS?'
All in all, I don't regret my time with GW here, I do think these books have a TON of VERY interesting speculation about the nature of humanity, religion, cycles of violence, what makes a community versus a village versus a nation versus a society versus a planet versus a universe, etc. It all just unfolds extremely... unpredictably. And I do hope, in future endeavors of Gene's, he learned to make his protagonist at least somewhat likable.
The Books of the New Sun are, to put it lightly, mindbogglingly strange for their time. I can see the DNA of so many things we consider revolutionary in speculative fiction--time travel, complex and deeply Catholic (but also super NOT?) cosmologies, DeviantArt OCs. You know. The gamut of the human creative experience.
These books have our main character, Severian, meandering through a world in its sunsetting phase. As he goes he finds himself embroiled in a high-fantasy shlockfest of magical wars, curses and swords, strange creatures and plants and gods and stories, and it all leads to... possibly the most disappointing runup of final tie-togethers I've ever witnessed.
I wouldn't say this series *isn't* worth reading, I particularly think the first three volumes are really solid if sometimes a little bit boring. I do think GW lost the plot somewhere along the way, perhaps around the thirteenth time I said aloud 'really? we're doing THIS?'
All in all, I don't regret my time with GW here, I do think these books have a TON of VERY interesting speculation about the nature of humanity, religion, cycles of violence, what makes a community versus a village versus a nation versus a society versus a planet versus a universe, etc. It all just unfolds extremely... unpredictably. And I do hope, in future endeavors of Gene's, he learned to make his protagonist at least somewhat likable.