Reviews of The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) and related work
- Sequel: The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
- Sequel: The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
- Sequel: The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)
- Sequel: The Urth of the New Sun (1987)
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980
)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2020.
There’s some of Jack Vance’s sterile and ostentatious pageantry in here, and some of mainstream pseudo-medieval fantasy’s sexism, with one hot woman after another chasing Severian, the incurious protagonist. He has little to recommend him beyond a rudimentary conscience and a gruesome skill set that seems designed to appeal to brooding teenagers.
Wolfe’s perspective on more ordinary people is similarly dark. The city of Nessus is full of poison, decay and greed, with people clinging to largely meaningless traditions in service to a corrupt and absent government. There’s a contrast to this cynicism from the very beginning, in Vodalus the revolutionary, followed by a few humble folk like Jolenta shining a light on social problems that seem ultimately fixable rather than comfortingly static. It turns out, later in the series, that Vodalus is doomed and the authority of the Autarch is vindicated rather than challenged, so that the social problems are actually static, but Wolfe is careful to modulate the cynicism of the ultimate conclusions.
Perhaps this was one of the first books to learn from the ideas of Dhalgren (1975). Wolfe does a good job keeping the world and story coherent and reasonably deep, rejecting Delany’s hollowness but keeping some of his darkly organic playfulness. Wolfe is a less typical poet but uses entertaining neologisms a cut above the genre standard. His diction is easy to like, with frequent unexpected turns of phrase that fit right in, instead of trying to jar the reader as Delany did. The city library, which is built like a reified memory palace, is a weird and striking image, just the right mix of literary symbolism and worldbuilding. As an example of science fantasy, The Shadow of the Torturer is lacking in extrapolation but solidly crafted. It has all the emotional appeal of Elric of Melniboné with a stronger sense of internal logic, which is a fine thing.
‣ The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2023.
Continuing to ply his trade and bed beautiful women, Severian travels from the city to the House Absolute.
The first book is a fantasy in an urban setting, but it’s not an urban fantasy in the composite sense of Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976), where fantasy creatures are added to modern everyday settings with real-world place names. This second book, with its rural setting, feels more typical for the epic fantasy genre of its time. It reminds me especially of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which started with Lord Foul’s Bane (1977). Severian remains dark and brooding like Donaldson’s anti-hero, but acquires more Jesus-like powers, which is a bad sign. His challenges, which were institutional and interesting in the first book, are replaced by rather vulgar villains and disconnected monsters that read as if a GM rolled 1d100. Wolfe still manages some interesting ideas and turns of phrase, but nothing striking. It’s obvious by this point that the setting is only 2% science fiction and 98% fantasy, built around mythopoeically suggestive set pieces like a giant undine.
‣ The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2023.
Severian serves as the resident executioner and Master of Chains of the city of Thrax. After the horrors of his work drive his lover, Dorcas, into a deep depression, he goes back on the long road.
Less sex—though not zero—and more operatic worldbuilding. The geography becomes more important as Severian approaches the equator in his picaresque travels. He encounters an old dictator who provides a fun view of history, and the mystery of Dr. Talos is resolved, which qualifies as plot progression. Severian starts feeling chosen to wear the claw which, given the magical powers of that item, aligns the main character with the Christian figure of Jesus. This alignment was deliberate on the writer’s part, and perversely funny because Severian works as a torturer, while Jesus was tortured. Wolfe’s angle on that is that the mythical Jesus was a carpenter, killed on a cross, a product of carpentry. Unsurprisingly, Severian suffers increasing torments of his own on the hero’s journey.
‣ The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2023.
Still starving, Severian walks out of his second-to-last encounter with Dr. Talos into the equatorial war between his country and the Ascians of far-future North America.
This book was an unexpected delight. At first it seems like a very low-power coda at the tail end of Severian’s quest, including days of inactive chit-chat in a field hospital, and the returning of the Claw to the order of nuns. Then it walks through the stereotypical climax event of any major genre fantasy, which is a war, but Wolfe doesn’t stop there. Out of the stereotypical climax, Wolfe pulls the real climax, weird and wonderful, like the true claw inside the gem that Severian carried. The main character is promoted to Autarch by consensual cannibalism, ascending to a plane of Dune-like intrigue, gaining a pleasing overview of the setting. The language is more beautiful, Ascian sociology is fun, the loose ends are tied up as promised; it’s all better than I expected. The only obvious blemish is a fantasy sequence in chapter 21 where Severian reimagines all the hot women he’s met as warrior women; that fantasy is Wolfe’s own.
References here: “Darmok” (1991).
‣ The Urth of the New Sun (1987)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2024.
Final judgement, apocalypse, and good cups of mate.
The opening chapters, before Severian’s return to Earth/Urth/Ushas, are the strongest. From them, Wolfe turns away from the larger universe and toward revisiting familiar people and places, with very little plot, character, or real answers.