From the Bookshelf of Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
A difficult read as well as rewarding. Impressive worldbuilding that suggests much more than it shows us. I add the rest of the saga to my pending to read list.
New comment: I re-read it before continuing the series.
New comment: I re-read it before continuing the series.
There is something innately compelling in Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
On one hand it's a bildungsroman in which we know the outcome very early on because the narrator tells us: Severian eventually becomes the autarch. We are driven to listen because want to know the story of how the protagonist with the perfect memory went from the member of the Torturer's Guild, an isolated and disliked profession, to what is essentially the ruler of South America in an era when much of humanity has long left f ...more
On one hand it's a bildungsroman in which we know the outcome very early on because the narrator tells us: Severian eventually becomes the autarch. We are driven to listen because want to know the story of how the protagonist with the perfect memory went from the member of the Torturer's Guild, an isolated and disliked profession, to what is essentially the ruler of South America in an era when much of humanity has long left f ...more
This is one of the books that, in my life, I have read and re-read. I first opened it when I was a teenager in the 1980s, probably when I was about 15 or 16 years old (alongside some early George RR Martin - 'Tuf Voyaging'!) from my local library. Subsequently, I have probably read this (and the subsequent books in the 'New Sun' series) at least three times.
This most recent re-reading was prompted after I read Mark Lawrence's excellent "Prince of Fools" and thought that there were some basic the ...more
This most recent re-reading was prompted after I read Mark Lawrence's excellent "Prince of Fools" and thought that there were some basic the ...more
May 28, 2013
Mindy
marked it as to-read
Jan 13, 2014
Justin Ajeffrey
added it
Feb 03, 2014
Mark Gerlach
marked it as to-read
Jun 16, 2014
Tam Linsey
marked it as to-read
May 01, 2019
Shana
marked it as to-read
May 31, 2021
Bryan Garcia
marked it as to-read
Oct 23, 2022
David Garver
marked it as to-read
Jul 20, 2023
Daniel Kowalczyk
marked it as to-read
Sep 14, 2023
Teddie
marked it as to-read
Nov 13, 2024
Michael Browder
marked it as to-read
Apr 07, 2025
Candice Kamencik
marked it as to-read
Jul 19, 2025
Jessica
marked it as to-read
