"Shadow of the Torturer"

ICL.REDFORD · undated · from sf-lovers.1981.mbox

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From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE
Subject: "Shadow of the Torturer"
Date: 19 Apr 1981 1453-PST
Message-ID: <sflovers-v3-101-3 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #101
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-03

It's hard to know what to say about this book, except that it's 
definitely worth your time.  It's the life story of an executioner, 
starting with his appenticeship in the torturer's guild, and ending in
his early manhood.  Later books apparently chronicle his rise to the 
Autarchy, the emperorship.  The second, "The Claw of the Conciliator" 
is already out in hardback.  It is not a violent or sadistic story, 
nor is the protagonist particularly evil; he is just a cold, dark man 
doing the job for which he was trained.  He tells the story in such an
even philosophic tone that you have to shake yourself to get out of 
it.  Example:

            The knife had somehow fallen from the dead man's neck.
    Perhaps he had pulled it out in his agony.  When I bent to
    pick it up, I discovered that the coin was still in my hand
    and thrust it into my pocket.
            We believe that we invent symbols.  The truth is that
    they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard,
    defining edges.  When soldiers take their oath they are given
    a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch.
    Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the
    special duties and burdens of military life - they are
    soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the
    management of arms.  I did not know that then, but it is a
    profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things
    to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to
    believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic.
    The would-be sorceror alone has faith in the efficacy of pure
    knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves
    or not at all.

Gene Wolfe is the author.

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