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Gene Wolfe

Fantasy

Gene Wolfe

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Titles to Look Out For:
1980. Shadow of the Torturer (1st book of the series Urth:The Book of the New Sun)
1987. Urth of the New Sun (5th book of the series Urth:The Book of the New Sun)

Author Information:
Gene Wolfe was born in New York City and raised in Houston, Texas. He spent two-and-a-half years at Texas A&M, then dropped out and was drafted. As a private in the Seventh Division during the Korean War, he was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge. The GI Bill permitted him to attend the University of Houston after the war, where he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In 1980, he was a senior editor on the staff of Plant Engineering Magazine.

Gene Wolfe has written "mainstream" novels, a young-adult novel and many magazine articles, but is best known as a science fiction writer. One of his notable works is 'The Fifth Head of Cerberus'.

In 1973, his Death of Doctor Island won the Nebula award (from the Science Fiction Writers of America organisation). His novel Peace won the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award in 1977; and his "The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps" was awarded the Rhysling for science fiction poetry

1981, Arrow, pbk
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1980, Timescape
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• The Shadow of the Torturer [top]
  First published in 1980 in the US by Simon & Schuster in hardback
  Reprinted in 1980 in the US by Timescape Books (Book Club Edition-hbk)
  Published in 1981 in Great Britain by Arrow Books in paperback, 301pp, ISBN 0099263203

Storyline: 'One is not born into the torturers' guild, one is adopted there from the children of its victims. In the great Citadel built of unsmeltable gray metal, young Severian and his fellow apprentices study to achieve the rank of Master Torturer, learning the ancient Mysteries of the guild, sworn to torture whom the Autarch says to torture, and to kill whom he says to kill. But with the coming of Thecla, a beautiful and intelligent woman whose indiscretions have lost her her place in the inner circle of concubines of the House Absolute, life changes for Severian, as he disobeys the rules he has been raised to follow. The young torturer expects to be killed for his crime; instead he is exiled from the City to serve as a simple executioner in distant Thrax, the City of Windowless Rooms. As he leaves, his master gifts him with the executioner's sword, Terminus Est, the Line of Division.
So armed, he sets forth into the vast City, heading for the distant gate. On his way he encounters the twins Agia and Agilus, who drive him to an arcane duel on the Sanguinary Field; the acting troupe of Dr. Talos, a charlatan, Baldander, a monstrous giant, and the lovely Jolenta and Dorcas, a mysterious girl who appears on the shore of the Lake of Birds, where the dead lie.
Into Severian's hands falls also the miraculous gem, the Claw of the Conciliator, whose powers promise to lead him to the very throne of the House Absolute. But first he must journey north, to the land of the mountains, and it is at the great gate of the City Imperishable, the largest in the world, that the first volume of The Book of the New Sun closes, with Severian standing in the portal of his destiny.

• Urth of the New Sun [top]
  First published in 1987 in the US by Tor in hardback
  Reprinted in 1987 in the US by Tor in hardcover, book club edition

Story: In this sequel to The Book of the New Sun, we return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the preceding 4 volume work