Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, 1) Paperback – June 8, 2021

I read The Shadow of the Torturer – or, at least, I read some of it – way back in high school. At the time, I don’t think I was quite prepared for this strange, fascinating book. I assumed – quite wrongly, as it turned out – that this might be of a piece with the Thomas Covenant series, giving me a true anti-hero to follow through this world as he reluctantly became something more. That’s not a bad assumption, given that the series is about a professional torturer who is exiled from his tribe and forced into a world that mostly despises him and those who practice his trade.And yet, that basic premise is more of the starting point for The Book of the New Sun, rather than its hook. Yes, Severian is a fascinating anti-hero, a man who is capable of brutal torture and yet whose principal crime is one of kindness; a man who is both selfish and oddly kind; a man who is both interested in the honor of his guild and in overthrowing the society around him. But none of that really seems to touch on the heart of Shadow & Claw (which is comprised of the first two books of the New Sun series, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator), which is as interested in its strange, undefinable world as it is in its characters.And what a unique world it is. It’s easy to make the assumption that Shadow & Claw is fantasy; there’s an undeniably medieval feel to the setup, to the massive castles and shadowy guilds and deadly swords. But before long, you realize that this is not an ancient world, but an impossibly distant one, and that what we are seeing is not primitive settlements but devastated ruins. What we see is not a mankind learning to connect and build a society, but one that may be dying out, as the universe itself dies out around it. That uneasy blend of past and future, of science-fiction and Arthurian myth, is one of the features of The Book of the New Sun that’s so fascinating, so compelling.For all of that, though, it has to be said that The Book of the New Sun doesn’t read like anything else, either. Even now that I’m halfway through the series, I’m not sure I could tell you what it’s truly about; yes, Severian is on a journey, but to what end? To what are we building? What, if anything, does it all mean? I don’t have any answers to that, and to be honest, I’m not even sure that there will be answers to it. Part of that comes from Wolfe’s conceit (the series is written as Severian’s memoirs, written much later in his life, and for an audience presumably of the world around him), which results in a book that’s meandering at times, philosophical in others, and more subjective than we often realize. But much of it comes from the plotting, or lack thereof; the book often feels like a mosaic, a collection of incidents that are coming together to create something larger that we can’t see until we step back a bit and take it all in.It’s why I've been struggling to rate this book. On one level, it’s a masterful piece of writing – wholly unique, thought-provoking, endlessly fascinating. On another, it’s frustrating, wandering, unfocused, and sometimes bewildering. Its scope and imagination are impossible not to admire, even while you sometimes wonder what it all means – or if it means anything at all. And perhaps that will change as I finish the series and I get a sense of Wolfe’s larger goals, his bigger pictures. Whatever the case, it’s a series that I’m fascinated by and compelled to keep reading, and one that I’m glad I came back to after all these years. I don’t know how far I made it when I read it all those years ago, but reading it now, it’s a book that I feel I’m far more likely to appreciate now that I’m (slightly) more mature.

Shadow and Claw is a combination of the first two volumes of Gene Wolfe's tetralogy The Book of the New Sun. The individual books are Shadow of the Torturer and Claw of the Conciliator, and both follow (and are narrated by) Severian, an apprentice torturer on a far future Earth.Severian is a young member of the Torturer's Guild, a respected (but also reviled) part of the government that implements punishments, sometimes through executions and sometimes through slower, more painful means. The Guild members are not sadistic, but they are extremely bureaucratic, referring to their victims as clients and rigidly following the instructions of their higher-ups. Although relatively content in this life, Severian breaks a cardinal rule by showing mercy to a prisoner. This leads to his exile and a series of bizarre adventures that - as we are told quite early on - will lead to Severian's ascension to the throne of the Autarch.In a vague sense, this is similar to Jack Vance's Dying Earth books, which also take place in an era when the sun is dying and Earth's civilization has become almost medieval again, with magic often replacing technology. But where Vance focuses on humor and adventure, Wolfe has a loftier, more detached goal, aiming for a story that is more literature than genre fiction. To some extent, he succeeds: this is a very well-written tale, in the sense that he is adept at the use of language. On the other hand, many readers may be distracted by his meandering plot and sometimes confusing action.Although this series is considered somewhat of a classic, I'm not sure if I'd personally rate it that high. It is not an easy read, and I feel my perspective may change if I reread it in the future; based on a single read, however, I'd say this is a good novel, bordering on great, but still a bit shy of true classic status.