Reddit mentions of Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of The Book of the New Sun (New Sun (2))

Threads like these make me thankful that I started using goodreads to keep track of my books.

My top 5 most recent 5 star SF books (not including Fantasy) are:

• Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
  
• Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
  
• Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
  
• Sword and Citadel by Gene Wolfe
  
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
  
  It seems I'm quite liberal with my 5 star ratings (or maybe I've just been lucky over the last 8 months) but I believe each one of the books deserved it.

I have no idea what the French translation is like, but I usually feel that a lot is lost in translation with normal books, and with Wolfe where the specific wording is very important to be able to read between the lines or get the subtext I'd doubt that a translation works well.

But you can get them used very cheap off amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0312890184/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A23PVFCGFE1326&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0312890176/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A7CL6GT0UVQKS&psc=1

There's several different edition, some are in four books. Most are in two, there's even a couple of omnibus versions. Used paperbacks on amazon sometimes go as low as £0.01 plus shipping, and shipping is not that expensive within Europe, especially if you can find all the books from the same seller and get a discount on shipping.

Yeah! Gene Wolfe's series The Book of the New Sun is a great read. It has some very, very interesting uses of language, almost archaic in tone and meaning, but reads almost like poetry sometimes. I recommend it, probably one of the most re-read books on my bookshelf.

First half
Second half

The recent version by Orb is pretty good. There's an incredible version by Centipede Press but it's only a few thousand dollars! If something gets published by Centipede that's a definite clue to quality.

It comes in two books (it's a teratology - four books in 2 physical volumes - a bit confusing to the book buyer to be honest)

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Claw-First-Half-Book/dp/0312890176

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Citadel-Second-Half-Book/dp/0312890184

The second half of a book series about a man who is in a guild of torturers but is expelled because he commits the ultimate sin: helping one of his victims escape the torture through suicide. It's pseudo-realistic fantasy and a very dark, but surprisingly uplifting book series.

Thanks for the competition and good luck everyone!

Imladris

Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of amber -Get all the short novels in one book as The Great Book Of Amber

• quick fun read. Great ideas, Great Characters.
  
• "Meatloaf"
  
  
  Steven Erikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen
  
  
• Holy stack of doorstopper books batman! Long and "Meaty" indeed.
  
• "10 Course steak dinner"
  
• start with book 2, and if its not your thing, then that book stands alone fairly well.
  
  Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
  
  
• After years of being badgered by friends to read this, i am well into the first book, and its really interesting. Gene Wolfe has a very "Epic" style of writing.
  
• Book 1 and 2
  
• "4 course Sable fish dinner"
  
  
  
  

Hands down, The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's actually a series of four books (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch) following Severian the Torturer after he is banished from his guild for showing mercy to one of their "clients."

It's just...beautiful and complex and you'll discover something new and fascinating each time you read it. The tetralogy has been ranked on par with the works of Tolkein and has been recognized all the major sci-fi awards, and gained wider literary recognition as well. See the editorial reviews section on the linked Amazon pages:

>"Outstanding...A major work of twentieth-century American literature." --The New York Times Book Review

>"Wonderfully vivid and inventive...the most extraordinary hero in the history of the heroic epic." --Washington Post Book World

>"Brilliant...terrific...a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!" --Philadelphia Inquirer

>About the Author: Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by The Washington Post. A former engineer, he has written numerous books and won a variety of awards for his SF writing.

Anyway...yeah, I kind of like these books.

EDIT: A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. is great, too. It's kind of post post apocalyptic, and it examines the self destructive nature of humanity.

It's a Boy
Due November 17th
This
This

You want to challenge me?! That's fine, but I return a challenge with a challenge.

Gene Wolfe's, The Book of the New Sun, Part 1 and Part 2.

These will make you work as a reader. You'll have to reread passages, and you will not fully understand the story on one read through (I've done it 3 times so far). However, the payoff for reading these is HUGE. The man is an absolute master of his craft.