Gene Wolfe is a Master in the realm of Fantasy / Science Fiction.
Literally.
And this is a collection of the first two parts of his Masterpiece.
Set unknown millennia on a future Earth, Severian is in the Torture's Guild.
Tasked with meting out punishments for crimes.
He is beguiled by a woman being tortured for her crimes and against all Guild Law and his oaths
he helps her die.
For this transgression he is cast out and forced to live as a wandering Executioner.
This is what leads him to an incredible adventure and his destiny.
Mind blowing and Epic in scope this is a beautifully crafted story that will stay with you for a lifetime.

Shadow & Claw is the first half of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Originally published in 1994, this reformat and re-release by Macmillan on their Tor Forge imprint was released 8th June 2021. This edition is part of the Tor Essentials collection. It's 512 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

I distinctly remember reading this at release almost 30 years ago. I found it, then and now, disturbing and unsettling (completely intentional on the author's part) as well as bluntly (but not at all simply) written. I agree with Wolfe's adherents, including Gaiman, who proclaim his genius long and loud. There certainly aren't many books in the genre which can be legitimately be compared to Book of the New Sun in scope or reach. The problem is that it's also been misread as a rallying cry in fandom, drawing the less savory fans who enjoy the torture porn layers of the book without considering what Wolfe was really trying to *say*. I've heard it attributed to Jonathan Swift, that readers had never read Gulliver's Travels because they read it too young. I believe that a similar mechanism occurs here as well. Readers who read through the text and interpret it as a dark tale of torture and retribution with well oiled swords (*snerk*), obscene systemic misogyny, and torture with a side order of more torture have missed the point.

This is a nuanced read and will repay close attention and contemplation during reading. At the same time, much of the book is graphically violent and difficult to read for anyone with any empathy whatsoever. Trigger warnings abound - suicide, body horror, torture, rape, degradation, physical violence and more.

Three and a half stars. Difficult to read. Impressive and perennial. It belongs with the classics of the genre but I cannot say I enjoyed reading it either time and I don't know that I'll be revisiting it.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This is the Tor Essentials edition of the first half of Grand Master Gene Wolfe’s classic science fantasy tetralogy, The Urth of the New Sun. Tor Essentials were created to introduce new generations of readers to the SF and Fantasy that inspired the current generation of writers in the field, a field in which this work still stands tall.

This is not a hero’s journey but an antihero’s journey, told from the first-person perspective of Severian the Torturer, who begins his unreliable narration of his remarkable life at the bottom of his society, an apprentice to the torturer’s guild who, through the metaphor of his travels through the impossibly ancient and cluttered capital ends his story on the Autarch’s throne, having seen his dying empire from the lowest of the low to its highest peak.

VERDICT: The Urth of the New Sun, of which The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, are merely the first half, is just the sort of “new classic” that the publisher intended to bring back to a new audience. The shadow of this series reaches long, from the dying dystopias of post-apocalyptic fiction to the newest tales of old empires with millennia of histories and all their detritus, such as the Teixcalaan Empire of The Memory of Empire. Consider this an “essential” purchase for libraries that don’t have the earlier editions, and a highly recommended book for both SF and Fantasy readers searching for complicated worldbuilding cohering around characters who serve as both hero and villain in the telling of their tales.

* Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for an advance copy for review purposes *

This book took me a very long time to finish, not just because of the page count, but because it is a book that asks to be read deliberately and paying attention to all the details. I started reading the review copy provided, but the text was way too small in my eReader, so halfway through the first book, I purchased the box set of the complete series, and restarted from the beginning. I am glad I did, because I caught many things on the second read I had missed in the first.

It is really hard to describe this book. The introduction describes what makes this book unique and gives more context around its timeline - it is a far future sci fi, that reads like fantasy because the language used is filled with terms that bring to mind medieval times. The "translator notes" later on explain that the closest words that exist today to describe creatures or technology of the far future were used, so we end up with armigers, destriers and smilodons. It brings a lot of cognitive dissonance to hear about smilodons on one page, and flyers soon after. Gene Wolf really messes with your assumptions, and you have to constantly keep reminding yourself this is still our world, in spite of its decaying red sun and green terraformed moon. The torturer's dungeons have all metal walls, so remove from your head the TV image of a medieval prison, and picture instead Guantanamo Bay.

"Shadow and Claw" appears to be the memoirs of a torturer that eventually managed to come to a position of great power. He has some, but minimal education, so he does not really understand the ancient (which is futuristic for us) technology around him. He is not a very likeable character, and some of his actions are downright repulsive (<spoiler>the boat ride with Jolenta</spoiler>), I'm still trying to figure out what I think of this - I need to read the remaining books to make sense of this world. In "Shadow of the Torturer", Severian is limited to a narrow world view, where the world is the torturer's tower, and everybody there shares specific goals and values. When he falls in disgrace and is forced to wander, he experiences the bigger city, and then the surrounding areas, and runs into a more diverse population and thoughts. The bigger hand at play is still a mystery to me at this point. Some elements are downright horrific and Kafka-esque - the holding chamber in the House Absolute and Jolenta's story come to mind.

My full review is available on my blog (link below).

I don’t think I’ll be offering any new insight in this review – Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun has already been analyzed to death since its original publication date. Hailed as a masterpiece and having won numerous awards, The Book of the New Sun remains one of the key SF works over 40 years after its conception. I’m very content that I had finally gotten the chance to acquaint myself with this series. Both The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator are indeed worth reading, and I hope to get my hands on the rest of the series sooner than later. Was it however such profoundly intellectually challenging experience I dared to hope? Alas, not entirely. And the responsibility for this turn of events lies as much in me as in the books themselves.

You see, had I read it a decade or two ago, it would’ve made a much greater impression. It would undoubtedly form my mental image of the far-future decline-of-humanity narratives reminiscent of anthropological analyses of historical cycles, and I would’ve judged all other books by Shadow & Claw’s own measure. I would revel in the intricate puzzles these books offer (though I did it anyway) and would discover many of Wolfe’s opus magnum’s secrets with a fresher eye and more inclination to unhedged awe than I possess today. As it is, however, with these decades filled by a multitude of other books, be they fiction or not, and my own life experiences, I can’t help but be less than dazzled by Wolfe’s intellectual magic and because of this – to see more clearly the imperfections of his work.

[...]

For me by far the most interesting element of The Book of the New Sun was the weight of history, both the one forgotten and the one remembered in bits and pieces, often simply garbled beyond recognition of purposefully misremembered. The world of Urth contains pockets of old technology which can be still used but not reproduced, and which is limited to the rich and powerful in a feudal world of strictly divided socio-economical classes, or strata, and nested among the prevalent, very much medieval technological and social level of awareness. The world in general is strongly reminiscent of medieval Europe – on purpose, I feel, to showcase the darkness and unthinking brutality of the slow decline. Two decades ago, I’d have devoured it all and asked for more; today, I have more doubts. The first one is obviously concerned with Wolfe’s belief in cyclical nature of social change. The spectres of the rise and fall of empires and history endlessly repeating itself until death and rebirth of a new society hang heavily over The Book of the New Sun. To be honest, I don’t consider feudal order as more or less natural than any other, and the belief that humanity will sooner or later regress to it (I use the word “regress” on purpose, because this discussion is inherently rooted in the paradigm of progress) seems to me rather contrived and false. Wolfe is certainly neither the first nor the last to adhere to this assumption, as the books on this list only in the SF genre range from Herbert’s Dune to Carey’s The Book of Koli and beyond. The recurring nature of Urth’s development is also clearly visible in the figure of the main protagonist, Severian, who was designed to resemble Jesus and repeat at least some of Jesus’s steps. Again, Christ-like Messianic figures crowd our cultural narratives and collective imagination from Matrix to Narnia, and the trope of the Chosen One must be the most overused tropes of all 😉.

To be fair to Wolfe, though, Severian seems not as much a Chosen One as a Happened One, at least for now: he himself is more someone to whom things happen, than someone who acts purposefully. Even the first fateful decision he makes is not thought-through, but rather a result of the spur of the moment – and from then on, the avalanche of events propels him on and he rides the slide, from one adventure to another, always rather clueless as to what he’s actually doing and saved from many a mishap by possessing way more luck than wisdom. On the other hand, however, the most meaningful instances of Severian’s actions always contain compassion at its root – and if compassion is too big a word here, than let’s settle on empathy, or a need for human connection and at least a modicum of understanding for the Other.

[...]

Wolfe clearly let rip with his personal literary favourites here: we can find everything in The Book of the New Sun, from the myth of Theseus and Odysseus to Frankenstein and Robin Hood, by way of Time Machine and apocryphal biblical texts. All those Easter Eggs are nice to find, but to me they also negatively affected the narrative as some of them seemed shoehorned and out of place – particularly Dr. Talos’s play.

Also, while I can appreciate the fact that Severian is a horny, good-looking young man freshly released from a monastery-like environment, I really don’t need to spend so much time on his sexual conquests. I mean, seriously, I hope the next books have less descriptions of both the bodies of Severian’s partners, and Severian’s carnal pleasures. I really don’t care if someone’s pubic hair resembles chicken or anything else.

I could go on and on with this rambling review, but it’s high time to end it. As most of it is highly positive and totally tangential to the books, you can see that the first two volumes of Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun made a certain impression on me. It might not be the masterpiece I expected, but it is a very good book, worth reading – if not for the plot itself (some of the great twists are rather predictable in our day and age, so the suspense of these books is rather minimal, and Severian as the protagonist is also difficult to like sometimes) then at least for the intellectual inspiration. I might not agree with Wolfe, but I sure enjoyed arguing with him.

I have received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

In Ada Palmer’s forward (titled The Path of the New Sun) for this edition of Shadow & Claw, she points out the absence of clutter from most imagined futures. Civilizations built over past ruins; histories overwritten to fit the dominant narrative. Science fiction showcases the idea of unity and progress, but of course, that’s not always the case. The post-apocalyptic genre, in particular, definitely flips over this notion. Civilization’s fall precedes the disintegration of structures, the decline of past knowledge, and the shift in cultural values. “Modern” technology and structures disintegrate as the descendants of the past adapt and rebuild. The dying earth genre, however, takes this concept further to demonstrate the image of a cluttered future.

Gene Wolfe has painted a fantastical far future where a dying red sun and green moon reign the skies. The accomplishments of past civilizations, including space travel, have dwindled to myths. The narrator, Severian, is an apprentice to the Guild of the Torturers. When he commits the crime of showing mercy toward his victim, the Guild exiles him. From there, he embarks on a journey to learn more about an ancient relic and discover his destiny. In the world of Urth, spaceships, alien species (even Giants!), and other wonders abound, but Severian’s memory makes his story not all that it seems.

Both the narrative and worldbuilding in this novel are cluttered. Severian recounts his time at the Guild, his exile, and his quest through disjointed scenes and sections. Characters go as soon as they come. Severian’s narrative provides contemplative yet fleeting glimpses of the places and people he encounters. Here, people and places are unfinished, blank canvases to ponder on forever. Symbols create people, and the archives don’t catalog everything. Memory is valuable, but Shadow & Claw shows that, for any reason, memory can be purposely altered or erased over time. Urth is a future layered with histories and ancient structures, both on the surface and buried, and nothing is as it seems at first glance.

Still a classic, still mind-blowing. A great look at human nature when faced with challenges wrapped in poetry.

"Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by the Washington Post.

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe’s most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly and “one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century” by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The Shadow of the Torturer is the first volume in this four-volume epic, the tale of young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession- showing mercy toward his victim.

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

This new Tor Essentials edition of Shadow and Claw contains a new introduction by historian and novelist Ada Palmer, author of the award-winning Too Like the Lightning."

I read a one of Wolfe's books for book club and have since been wanting to read more, so this book is perfectly timed.

So sorry. I could not get into this book.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles.
I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

I thought the story was very interesting, it was not particularly for me, but I think certain people will love it. All in all I'm very glad I got to read the book.

Fantastic work of fiction. Gene Wolfe draws in the reader and holds them spellbound. At times a bit confusing, but in the end, completely worth the read.

Gene Wolfe is one of the overlooked masters of SFF writing. While other writers heap praise on his work, and while he has been recognized with numerous awards, his popularity among readers has never reached that of Gaiman, for example. In part, this is due to his writing style, which is often dense, allegorical, full of allusions, and regularly features an unreliable narrator. The reader must be attentive, tuned in, and committed, in a way that not all entries in the SFF genre require. Wolfe often invents language for the worlds he creates, and this too creates a potential barrier to less-invested readers. Shadow and Claw, the first two books of a tetralogy features all of these characteristics. The main character lives in a far-off future -- Earth in a million years -- yet the justice system is decidedly medieval. Severian is a Torturer apprentice; his job is to collect confessions of crime through torture, but when faced with a conflict involving a particularly sympathetic prisoner and potential torture subject, he balks. This begins a journey during which Severian learns more about society, about himself and his role within it, about memory and the changeability of remembrance. Shadow and Claw is not a great piece of SFF literature; it is simply great literature.

A dying sun and a society that has much regressed both socially and technologically, though some remnants remain to shape the story and the world of Urth, once maybe known as Earth, set a million or so years in the future.

It's strange, beautifully written and at times extremely confusing, but also very intriguing. Dark and twisted and sad and far from hopeful. Nevertheless, I find myself very interested in seeing where the story and the characters end up at.

The main character of Severian shines as a character, though the same definitely can't be said about him as a person. He is not without some serious issues (though he is mostly kind of sympathetic) and the same can be said about pretty much any character here. There are no heroes and barely anyone is truly innocent.