Book of the New Sun

The Book of the New Sun is a lengthy Science Fantasy novel by Gene Wolfe, originally published as four spearate books. Wolfe, and this novel in particular, have a cult following for its deceptively engaging Worldbuilding couched in Science Fiction trappings that take the form of the narrator’s memoirs.

The story takes place in a feudal society a million years in the future. Severian, an apprentice of the Torturer’s Guild, narrates his story. After falling in love with one of his charges, Severian is exiled from the guild and sent to a distant city as its appointed executioner. Along the way he meets many strange people and experiences many life-altering events. The earliest chapters, in particular have a Low Fantasy feel as Severian largely wanders from place to place. As the seemingly disconnected characters and episodes gradually reveal their importance to the overall plot, the story takes on overtones of High Fantasy, or perhaps a strange Deconstruction juxtaposed with increasingly surreal scifi elements and religious philosophy.

The book delights in shrowding its events, characters, history, and even locations in a thick layer of ambiguity. As Severian is a relatively uneducated Unreliable Narrator in a time far removed from our own, he often fails to grasp thesignificance of what he sees, frequently misremembers earlier chapters, and will inexplicably contradict himself on a number of occasions. As a result, the reader is left to draw many of their own conclusions themselves, putting together obscure literary references and terms with briefly mentioned symbolism to connect the dots. While the book can be enjoyed and appreciated on the surface level as a Science Fantasy journey of heroism, the book is encouraged to be read multiple times.

Later reprintings have collected the four books into two volumes (Shadow & Claw and Sword & Citadel) or into one. A follow-up novel called The Urth of the New Sun subsequently appeared to explain aspects of the plot more overtly, while adding in several twists of its own. While the book was seen as somewhat superfluous at the time as a looser sequel to the originally-planned four volumes, most fans now find it a worthy novel by its own merits.

Volumes

The Shadow of the Torturer
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Sword of the Lictor
The Citadel of the Autarch
The Urth of the New Sun, a coda

Lexicon Urthus by Michael Andre-Driussi (if you can find a copy) explains much, though it does contain many spoilers.

It is, along with the Book of the Long Sun tetralogy and Book of the Short Sun trilogy, loosely part of the Solar cycle.

This series contains examples of:

Passing the Torch: In the Commonwealth, the Autarch is not a hereditary position (in theory at least), but one which is traditionally passed down to a member of the Commonality.
The Autarch does this to Severian

. It’s also the reason why so many Exultants (the hereditary nobility) dislike the Autarch.
Perfectly Cromulent Word: Frequently.
He [Master Gurloes] mispronounced quite common words: urticate, salpinx, bordereau.

Translation: string with nettles, the fallopian or eustachian tube, a memorandum listing documents.

Theme Naming:
- Siblings such as Agilus and Agia are intentionally given similar names, also apparently telling the order of their birth.
  Severian’s name indicates he has an older sister, somewhere.
- Vodalus and all characters from the city of Nessus, including Severian himself, are named after saints (though many of them little-known).

Torture Technician: The Torturer’s Guild in which Severian is raised and apprenticed. As there are, by decree, no female torturers, the guild raises such male infants as fall into their hands.
Tracking Device: It’s explicit that powers are guiding Severian’s journey, so they’ll need a way to keep tabs on him. Maybe through something that he will always keep with him, such as
the Claw of the Conciliator?
Unreliable Narrator: Severian is one of the big ones, and it is sometimes lampshaded. He claims on several occasions to have an eidetic memory – but it’s quite clear that he sometimes lies outright. He also omits details that he apparently considers unimportant (or has difficulty understanding) – this extends to major events that change the course of the story.
- Furthermore, Severian’s verbose (and usually [significantly] inconclusive) philosophical ramblings tend to disguise the fact that he isn’t smart enough to work out what’s really going on. It is an alleged trait of some real-life mnemonists – shared by Severian – that they are passive acceptors, and combine a wealth of thought with surprisingly little intellect.
- Wolfe’s Shout-Out to the author Borges (the library/Ultan the Librarian) is likely a pointer to Borges’ ‘Funes the Memorious’ as a indicator of why Severian is unreliable; Funes is a young man who’s head is so full of facts that he ‘can’t think any more’, and is incapable of making the generalisations that Severian needs to join the dots.
- One reader went carefully through the novels and noticed that every single time Severian mentions his “eidetic” memory he goes on to recall something that’s already happened in the novel… and gets some detail wrong. Either he’s lying constantly or his memory is nothing as good as he thinks it is. (Formatting on the link is pretty ugly; scroll down a page or so to get the content.)
- Genre-wise, the book is a political autobiography.
  For example, Severian elaborately washes his hands of the murder of his delicious predecessor and appeals to his soldiers by claiming to be a war veteran.
Vestigial Empire: The Commonwealth of Urth. It’s the successor of an interstellar empire. Now it barely holds onto one measly continent.
Viewers Are Geniuses: The books are peppered with a large amount of obscure terms that will look like Latin altered to fit English grammatical rules to the casual reader. As noted in the afterword of the first book, none of the words are made up, and have seen real-world usage. Their obscurity is intended to reinforce the fact that they are approximations of untranslatable concepts, nothing else. A reader with an exceptionally large vocabulary will have a much easier time with the novels.
Voice Changeling: The alzabo can perfectly imitate the voice of anyone that it has eaten. It naturally uses this to lure its victims’ family members out of hiding.
Warfare Regression: Played with – frontline soldiers of the Commonwealth are armed with slings, crossbows, and lances. Traditional cavalry has returned. However, the slings and crosswbows have pyrotechnic ammo, said lances fire energy beams, and the cavalry ride creatures that can go 100 Miles per hour.
Weird Trade Union:
- Other than the Torturers, there are the librarians and animal trainers, as well as one of witches, who rather
  than being solely magical, they appear to have a spy network
  
  .
- Severian claims that the animal trainers are literally married to their animals. It is likely he is confused by the term “animal husbandry”. (He relates this story about the guild of Animal Trainers not long after spending some time correcting misinformation about his own guild, apparently not realizing the irony.)
Wham Episode: Lake Diaturna.
Severian fights Baldanders, Terminus Est is destroyed, and Severian meets the Hierodules.
Wham Line: Wolfe manages to finish chapter one with a wham line.
It was in this fashion that I began the long journey by which I have backed into the throne
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: One of the central themes.
In particular, contrast Jolenta with Jonas.
Would Hit a Girl: Severian, and not just professionally.
There were two women there who had been lovers as we had been, and they stared at us and laughed; but when they saw I would not spare them because they were women, they fled shrieking.
You All Meet in an Inn: Played with. Severian meets Baldanders and Dr. Talos at an Inn, but despite Dr. Talos asking Severian to join his theater troupe, Severian has no intention of travelling with them. He does inadvertently end up crossing paths with them several times, though.
Younger Than They Look: Throughout his journey, people consistently treat Severian as a mature adult; granted his post-industrial world requires children to grow up quickly. Nevertheless it should be remembered that the journey takes place immediately after his elevation to Journeyman. He’s around eighteen. It’s easy for the reader to ascribe to Severian an intellectual maturity which he does not possess, which brings us back to Unreliable Narrator.