Sword & Citadel

The Sword of the Lictor & The Citadel of the Autarch The Book of the New Sun

by Gene Wolfe

Paperback, 416 pages

English language

Published Oct. 15, 1994 by Orb Books.

(27 reviews)

Shadow and Claw is an omnibus of the second two books of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. It chronicles the life and adventures of journeyman torturer Severian.

6 editions

robots_suck reviewed Sword & Citadel by Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun)

Review

4 stars

Sword is the best book in this series, imo.

Patrick Johanneson reviewed Sword & citadel by Gene Wolfe

Review of 'Sword & citadel' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I loved this tetralogy, though I'm not convinced I'm even close to understanding all that went on. This saga demands re-reading.

cogmer reviewed Sword & Citadel by Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun)

Review of 'Sword & Citadel' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A little too pretentious for my taste. I have to give the author credit for engaging me enough so that I went out and bought supplemental material to help me unravel some of the 'riddles', but most of the revelations left me wondering why Wolfe obfuscated all of these things in the first place. Rather than creating puzzles to enhance immersion or engage the reader most of the time I was left with the feeling that he was just playing literary games with himself.

I'm glad I read it, and I imagine that this is the kind of story that would actually get better on re-reads, but I don't think I've enjoyed it enough to do that to myself.

:/