Book of the New Sun [Hardcover]

Where all these writers failed Gene Wolfe, in his four part "Book of the New Sun" succeeded majestically. Although the book is in some senses clearly derivative of other SF works, most notably Jack Vance's "Dying Earth Series, Wolfe draws largely on classical history to and mythology to create and boundlessly vast world that is all the more mysterious and fascinating for the fact that it is almost as strange and new to Wolfe's hero, Severian, as it is to the reader.

Expelled from his place amongst the Guild of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence (commonly "The Torturers") Severian is obliged to travel on foot to his place of exile. The journey is his first time away from the citadel at the centre of the colossal but decaying metropolis Nessus (Rome, Contantinople?). The reader, therefore, has the chance to discover the world (Earth many millennia in the future) with the books protagonist. The result is a layering of reality not unlike that achieved by Ridley Scott in his early films, most notably Blade Runner. The universe of the story is not composed of a few truths and verities that are presented to reader as cast in stone. As in our own world room is left for varying shade of opinion and perception, distortion, half truths and half remembered truths. Reading the book Severian's world and its inner logic seems to the reader to become more tangible than his or her own.

It is precisely here that Wolfe suceeds were so many other fantasy and science fantasy authors have failed. In creating a world that is nothing like Tolkien's but has a firm basis in layers of history, mythology and in Wolfe's own imagination, the writer comes closer than any other author (certainly any author I've read) in crafting a novel comparable to Tolkien's precisely because of it is nothing like anything that Tolkien wrote, except in the quality of Wolfe's writing, the breadth of his sources and the sweep of his imagination.

If you like good fantasy read this book. Even if you don't normally like fantasy but are enjoy history, myth or simply captivatingly good writing, read this book. In general, just read this book!

I think to try to tell here too much of the story would be to spoil the books to any who read them, and so i'll try not to.

The book, which contains the last two from the tetralogy "The Book of the Sun", that begun with "Shadow and Claw", tells the story of Severian, a boy raised on earth in a future so distant from us that the sun is but a dying star, all resources have been exausted ages ago, and our age is remembered by nothing but almost forgotten myths. The books are written as an autobiography, in which Severian tells us his adventures from a humble beginning in the long decaying Citadel of Nessus and his Guild, commonly known as the Torturers, and a future so strange he would never have imagined it. Along the way we get to discover the world in which he lives at the same pace he does, and to discover new mysteries faster than answers to them (as is usual).

This is one (or the best) books i've ever read, and i'm an ardent reader of science fiction and fantasy. I'm tempted to commit an heresy, and quite plainly state that i did enjoyed this book far more than i did The Lord of The Rings, although i love all Tolkien's books and have read most of them. Perhaps that was because i felt i could relate more with this story than his, because although it has elements one could call simply fantasy, it deals with a possible future, and despite all the cryptic changes in the fabric of society, culture and religion, people within still have the same yearnings and desires, so that even in that almost alien world one feels that might happen.

I think i've wrote too long a review already, but you're just searching for the bottom line, i'll give it now: If you like science fiction, fantasy, or if you just like books that are true works of art, read this. It won't let you down.

Just make sure you have ample time to read... you won't be able to put it down until the end! ;^)

On the downside, the sheer 'strangeness' of this future can be quite offputting, as can Wolfe's laboured use of language. While both of these factors are vital to the novel's structure, they do take a bit of getting used to...