The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene 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. Sword & Citadel brings together the final two books of the tetralogy in one volume:
The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home.
The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth.
"Brilliant . . . terrific . . . a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!"-Philadelphia Inquirer
"The Book of the New Sun establishes [Wolfe's] preeminence, pure and simple. . . . The Book of the New Sun contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . once into it, there is no stopping."--The New York Times Book Review
The Sword of Lictor (1981) 203 pages by Gene Wolfe.
The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) 200 pages by Gene Wolfe.
Sevarian makes it to Thrax and becomes the lictor, but after not too long a time there gives it up. Dorcas regains some of her memory and heads back to the south of Nessus to investigate her past, meanwhile Sevarian heads north. Meets up with a family in the wilderness that is attacked by an Alzabo. After passing through the land of mages, he continues north, encounters a town, or maybe a monument to Typhon. Then into a small villiage, where he discovers they are shore people, with another group of lake people who live on floating islands. There is a castle there, that was kidnapping the children of the shore people, until the shore people started kidnapping the lake people and leaving them at the castle.
Now that I actually write it down, I see that is laid out with these separate encounters, sometimes bringing back characters from earlier in the book. Most of the chapters were very good, but there were a couple that were hard to follow. Then there were the stories within a story, either from the brown book that Sevarian was carrying or told by one of the other characters. Those were usually harder to follow and [possibly] laced with metaphors that maybe we, the reader, were supposed to understand, or maybe just the characters were meant to pick up on them.
There is a lot of different SF in The Book of the New Sun. The remnants of a space faring population. Resurrection. Gaining the memories of others. Aliens. Humans that have evolved or been genetically engineered. An Undine. Time travelers, the botanical gardens where time and space seem to be distorted, and on and on.
At one point Wolfe gives the exact definition of deus ex machina, says that it's a poor storytelling technique. I don't know if he was trying to be ironic, or what.
The book was good, the character of Sevarian was great, the way he was adolescent at the beginning of the book and a man (or several) at the end. I missed some of the segways in the plot. When Sevarian, Dorcas, Dr. Talos, Baldanders, Jolenta and Jonas went through the wall of Nessus, I don't know how they got split up.
If you like PDK, you'll probably love this novel, otherwise I'd say you're better off finding an author you really enjoy.
