Shadow and Claw: The First Half of the Book of the New Sun [Paperback]

In creating this work, Gene Wolfe has taken the basic concept of Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books and produced his own spin which, once read, is never forgotten. Another highly enjoyable component of the series (in my opinion) is the nomenclature. There are a lot of peculiar terms - "autarch", "carnifex", "cacogens", etc. The difference between Wolfe's use of these expressions and the typical garbage employed to describe the worlds of other sci-fi/fantasy authors is that, to the best of my knowledge, not one of these words is made up. Instead they are derived from a plethora of sources - old English, French, Latin, and so on. This level of research only adds to the believability of the author's conception of an ancient and decaying Terran empire.

There is furthermore the mythical/philosophical/religious story arc, the multitudonous subplots (many of which mesh together as the story progresses), the wonderful characterisation (even the most minor characters are beautifully fleshed out - I can't think of anyone who appears as merely a cipher) and the many little fables from the itinerant Severian's "Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky" (I hope I got the title right). This is also a series which rewards re-reading - so much is prefigured that you will notice something new every time you revisit it.

In summation, you owe it to yourself to beg, borrow, steal or even buy these books. I guarantee that you will not regret it. In writing them, to my mind, Gene Wolfe has earned himself a place in Heaven.

In this book, Severian, apprentice in the Guild of Seekers for Truth and Penitence, is sent to the library of the Autarch, the ruler of the Commonwealth, for several books, and meets the head of the Librarian's Guild. This man explains how the Librarian's Guild attracts its apprentices. In each library is placed a copy of The Book of Gold, which attracts exactly those youths who will make good librarians. These children are taken into the guild. No apprentice can say, later, just what The Book of Gold is about. It is, simply, the most wonderful book in the world.

Wolfe has said that, for him, The Book of Gold (or one of them, anyway) was Jack Vance's book _The Dying Earth_. _The Book of the New Sun_, of which this book contains the first two of four volumes, is an homage, in large part, to _The Dying Earth_. _The Book of the New Sun_ is a story of the far future, when Earth's sun is dying, and all of the people with the inclination to do so have left the dying planet. This book is about the remaining inhabitants, both human and extra-human, and the world as it is left to them, and what is to become of it. It is also a book to give the old, tarnished word "redemption" a new lease on life. Wolfe is a practicing Catholic, but while this informs his viewpoint, this is not your average book of Christian allegory. It's a reworking of some elements found in the New Testament, and a lot of elements definitely not found there.

A lot of other words get a new lease on life too. Many other reviewers below seem to feel that some or all of the many difficult words in this book are made up. None are. Neither are any of the proper names. The quest to find them is a difficult one: just because a word is not found in the OED does not mean it is imaginary. The common noun "anpiel", for example, is drawn from the proper name "Anpiel", the name of the angel who takes care of birds...and I admit I had to write to Mr. Wolfe on my own to find this out.

But none of these amounts to a real reason to read these books. Read them, instead, to see how this kind of thing SHOULD be done: from the inside out, from a boy swimming in the river to the final alteration of the cycle of creation.