G.Wolfe _Shadow of the Torturer_

Tim Walters · 26 Jul 1991, 02:46 · from rec.arts.sf-lovers.1991.mbox

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From: walters at Metaphor.COM (Tim Walters)
Subject: Re: G.Wolfe _Shadow of the Torturer_
Date: 26 Jul 91 02:46:40 GMT
Message-ID: <947 at cronos.metaphor.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
References: <9107221851.AA00898 at nowalls.UCSD.EDU> <1991Jul23.164922.11000 at leland.Stanford.EDU> <MATT.91Jul23100408 at physics16.berkeley.edu> <1991Jul24.205552.13088 at watdragon.waterloo.edu>

|> >
|> >Actually, I don't think I would call The Book of the New Sun a series,
|> >or a tetrology, so much as a four-volume novel.  (And I would call
|> >The Urth of the New Sun a sequel.)
|> 
|> While I agree with your sentiments, and (to a certain extent) your musing 
|> that the four books could work well bound into one volume, I would disagree
|> with your assertion that Urth of the New Sun is a "sequel".  I would say that 
|> it is more of a commentary, explanation, or companion.  

I would call it a coda -- a recapitulation of the themes of the first 
four books, reharmonized and unified.  Without Severian's return as the
Conciliator and meeting with his far earlier incarnation as Apu-Punchau,
the work seems unfinished to me.

|> If you want to see a master at his best, then you should read
|> endangered species.

A good choice, but I would vote for _The Island of Doctor Death and
Other Stories and Other Stories_ or _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.

Tim Walters

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