Sword & Citadel

It is possible I already had some presentiment of this review.

This series (it is one book originally split into four and now sold as a pair of duologies) probably doesn't fall within the category of ergodic literature even though I think it does require something more of the reader.
From the esoteric, yet oddly familiar, words to the unique, simple to follow but simultaneously baffling narrative structure, this book is an experience that has etched itself in my brain. It ticked so many boxes for me that I didn't even know I had wanted in a book or even imagined to be possible in a narrative form. So rare to read an incredible book and not have the regret that you will lose something in a reread. The Book of the New Sun is begging to be reread and the only thing stopping me from immediately restarting everything is the feeling that the experience will only be enhanced by allowing it to sink in deeper into my psyche.

As Ada Palmer puts it in her foreword titled ‘path of the new sun':

“...the Book of the New Sun is cluttered with more than spaceships, species, and ruins. It is cluttered with characters who come and go abruptly without closure, their functions clear only with rereading and contemplation. It is cluttered with rare words thronging ten to a page, which, in most books, would be one of a few signature terms key to the tale, and traded among fans as shibboleths... ...And it is cluttered with premises which would be the core of many other books, but here never surface again...
...Gene Wolfe, who warns us in each volume that this road (like Dante's) is no easy one, asks us to trust that this mes of strangers, interruptions, tangents, and abortive missions, with no resolution at volume's end, will mean something. Gene Wolfe, in turn, placing this puzzle-box masterwork in a stranger's hands, must trust that we, the reader, will know how to work the delicate mechanism, requiring pushing to mastery a skill many of us do not realise we have.”

Shoutout to the Alzabo Soup podcast which is a massive help in understanding this book. They discuss the whole thing chapter by chapter in glorious detail. I recommend at least reading The Shadow of the Torturer in its entirety before starting the podcast if you decide to listen along.