Book of the New Sun

I've heard that "Citadel of the Autarch", to be released in November or December, is the fourth and final volume of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. I didn't know that the third had come out; can anyone tell me its title and publisher? Thanks. For those of you who don't know, the first two books are "The Shadow of the Torturer" and "The Claw of the Concili- ator", and are available wherever you get sf paperbacks. They are impressionistic science fantasy of the kind Moorcock would like to be able to write (and I love Moorcock). I strongly recommend them to anyone whose likes extend beyond Asimov, Hogan, Clement, and other "pure" hard-sf writers.

There was a convention here in Indy the weekend of July 4th, and there I saw the hardbound edition of the 3rd book of the New Sun, called "the Sword of the Lictor". I haven't yet seen it paperback. I agree with Maroney, both about Wolfe and Moorcock. The Book of the New Sun is excellent, although you do feel a little confused by the setting, and also the beginning of the first book (for that matter, the beginning of the second book) sort of jumps you into the middle of something, then later goes back and catches you up. Furthermore, a lot of background is left unexplained for a long time (do you agree, Tim?), so that you very slowly begin to catch on to all the references, terms, names, etc. This to me was the only drawback to reading it. As far as I know, this book has not been discussed much on the net; any particular reason? Doug Burton

The Third book in the "Book of the New Sun" is "The Sword of the Lictor". It is published by Simon and Schuster (under the timescape imprint). It is scheduled to come out in paperback sometime in dec. The forth book ("Citidal of the Autarch") was supposed to be out in nov/dec, but was canceled (no reason given) and should be out in January. Joe