THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER

by Gene Wolfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1980

The first volume of a projected tetralogy set on a wintry post-technological Earth beneath a dying sun. Under a strictly maintained oligarchy whose precise nature is never very clear, various ancient guilds in an immense ""Citadel"" somewhere in the erstwhile South America piously attend the still-functioning machines of a legendary interstellar civilization. The apprentice Severian of the Torturers' Guild, exiled for helping a noble prisoner to kill herself before the completion of her sentence, is setting out for a new appointment in a distant city when the mysterious sword he carries precipitates him into a duel waged with poisonous extraterrestrial weapons; at the same time he comes into possession of a strange jewel (to be the subject of the second book). Wolfe, who has seldom failed to tell a good story with tantalizing intelligence, is in characteristic form here, investing banal materials with elliptical intimations of portent; but somehow this vein seems hollower in a long narrative than in his many splendid short stories and novellas. The whole series may turn out to be only another quest-story got up with metaphysical trappings; this first installment, however, certainly has its strengths--and we'll hope for the best.

Pub Date: May 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION