The Shadow of the Torturer

The first and most important thing I have to say about this book: this is not a full book. Reading it is like reading chapters 1-5 of a 20 chapters novel. It is part one of four. However, if I were to consider this a tetralogy, as people say it is, I would give this a one star and call it horrible. A regular book has a beginning, middle and ending. This book is just the beginning, it does NOT end with a cliff hanger or in the middle of a mystery, in a classic “to be continued” fashion. No, it is just a regular story divided in four books. I don't consider it to be self-sufficient, so I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt and continue to read the next one at least.

I say this because the story is not interesting by itself, but the book as a whole does have some positive features. Most notedly the prose, that although at times it's too allusive (i.e., meaningless), it's often quite beautiful as well. The author does go overboard with his scene and character descriptions, but coupled with Jonathan Davis pleasant reading I found it bearable. Also, it is a very short book.

Besides the prose, I liked the main character's unique background: he is a torturer. Not only someone who has chosen to be a torturer in a world that needs that kind of service, but one who was born into it, raised from birth into the profession. The fictional world has many guilds, each representing a distinct craft. Their members are selected from a very early age according to some criteria, and are raised through their whole lives into the practice of their art.

The focus of the book is more on that aspect then the torture thing. How does it feel for a young man, going into the world having spent his whole life enclosed with the same people, learning basically only one thing? Knowing none other than your colleagues in trade, having never made any real friends. Obeying and respecting your masters, never knowing your parents. Listening only to their teachings, never considering other options, other career choices.

And when your whole life you only learned how to cause pain, is there room for other emotions? This premise is the one I most liked about the book, but it plays a secondary role in the convoluted story. The part about alternative realities mixing in with the world just made me shrug. I will therefore ignore that in this review as It made no sense and no difference to the plot whatsoever. I'm sure it will come into play in later books, sigh.

Anyway, the story is told in first person by the protagonist himself, young Severian, a torturer by birth. Still at a young age, he is forced to betray his guild lest he betrays himself, as he developed feelings of love for one that be should have tortured to death. He is casted away in shame, into a world that fears and hates him for the clothes he wears, the colors of his guild that reminds people that he is a bringer of pain and death.

On the way to his punishment, an assignment in a distant town to the north of the Citadel where he spent his whole life, he is challenged into a mortal duel by an unknown knight. Thinking he deserves death for being a traitor, he does not dwell much on and accepts his destiny to die by his hands at the appointed time.

The duel has some specific rules however, and young Agia volunteers herself to help him with the preparations. She is a young woman that for some reason seems to have an estrange fascination for him. During this “quest” he also meets Dorcas, a women that appears from nowhere, remembers nothing, but saves his life, and for no apparent reason, falls in love with him.

Along the way he also meets two other important characters, Dr. Talos, a somewhat con artist and street playwright/artist, an Baldanders, a huge, strong and dim-witted man that follows the doctor around. The doctor sees in Severian a possible candidate for his street plays, being him and outcast and associated with death on sight.

So, this is the whole plot of the book. There is some small hooks here and there that promises an interesting story for the next books, but they do not make this book alone worth of reading.

There is a small twist that was kind of well developed, but I hated how it was delivered. Basically:
- (Severian) Agia, that knight challenging me when I had just met you felt like a scam to me. Are you trying to trick me?- (Agia) No"A little later.- Agia, this mysterious letter I received says not trust you. Are you sure you're not deceiving me? It all felt so convenient, you deciding to help me, a stranger you just met, in the preparations for his own death.- (Agia) No, really. I'm not lying to you."And later is revealed she was indeed betraying him.

Anyway, if this was central to the story it would have pissed me off. It may have occupied a large portion of the book, but I still see it as a minor detail. This book is much more about the setting and the unique relation of the protagonist with the environment around him. The expectations and reactions he arouses in other people, and how he manages to discover himself in this world he never had a connection with.

Reading other people reviews, I found little I found relevant. Here is one thing I can agree with:

“The sense of ‘love' in The New Sun is even more unsettling. It descends on the characters suddenly and nonsensically, springing to life without build or motivation.”
J.G. Kelly

There are many critiques regarding how some of the characters are under developed. I took that to mean that they are just not as important as the protagonist, and the story could be told very well without going deeper into they're backgrouds so far.

Set in the far future of Earth (or Urth as it is known in these books), this is the tale of Severian, of the Guild of Torturers and his travels across a world changed out of all recognition from the one we know.

This is no ordinary fantasy tale. Episodic in nature, with a large cast of characters (many of whom disappear only to reappear much later on in the tale) the story unfolds at a stately pace and is told as if written by Severian himself.

Cast out from the Guild that has been his home since he was a small boy for falling in love with one of the prisoners, Severian is told to travel to the distant city of Thrax, there to take up the post of Carnifex, dispatching ‘justice' to those poor unfortunate souls who come before him and his sword, Terminus Est. But the journey is no easy one. Indeed, he has only just reached the gates of the vast city of Nessus, home of the Guild, as book one draws to a close.

Book two takes up the tale some time later and we follow Severian to the House Absolute, home of the Autarch, and beyond to the very edge of the Northern Mountains.

Wolfe's imagination is wondrous to behold and his descriptions of the city of Nessus and the House Absolute are strange and unsettling, conjuring up a world both in decay and stasis. It is known that Mankind has fallen from the peaks of the past, when he traversed the stars, and now lives beneath the baleful glare of the red sun of this dying earth.

Severian seems bound to a destiny over which he has no control. Each adventure brings him a step closer to that destiny, the outcome of which is stated quite early on, so we know the conclusion of the tale in advnace. The pleasure comes in how the story unfolds and the course of events that will bring him to that destiny.

If you prefer swashbuckling, elves and broad strokes of the pen, then maybe this isn't the book for you. If however you enjoy a tale well told of memory and truth and the nature of power, then give this a go. I'll certainly be reading the next volume.