Wolfe continues the saga begun in Nightside the Long Sun with this curious mix of science and medieval culture in which gods possess people and robotic police patrol mysterious underground passageways. Patera Silk, a young cleric, attempts to ransom his parish buildings from creditors; in the process he uncovers a larger conspiracy involving the government of Viron and even the gods he worships. Emerging from the underground with his new knowledge, he finds himself chosen as leader ("Calde") of the masses and is simultaneously arrested.
Wolfe's first novel since Pandora by Holly Hollander (1990) is a vivid and compelling evocation of life inside an interstellar spacecraft so huge that a whole world of cities and wildernesses exists within it, and so old that its origins and purpose are mere legends to its inhabitants. Patera Silk, a young priest in one of the city of Viron's poorest temples ("manteions"), receives a mental message from one of his gods, an enlightenment which invests his life with urgent meaning. On the same day, however, he learns his manteion had been sold for back taxes and may well be dismantled.
Severian, formerly a member of the Torturers' Guild and now Autarch of Urth, travels beyond the boundaries of time and space aboard the Ship of Tzadkiel on a mission to bring the New Sun to his dying planet. Wolfe demonstrates his mastery of both style and content in this complex, multilayered story of one man's eternal quest. Containing enough background material to make it accessible to series newcomers, this sequel to the four-volume Book of the New Sun is highly recommended.
Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of Torturers, flees from exile. In a mountain wilderness he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live on, adopts as son only to lose him in battle, discharges an old debt to vengeance, encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and helps the people of the floating islands in their unending battle for freedom.
'Claw of the Conciliator' is the second book in Gene Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun'. This book, somewhat confusingly, does not pick up where 'The Shadow of the Torturer' leaves off, which is somewhat surprising since the end of the first book was kind of a cliffhanger. We never do find out (at least in this book) what happened at the end of first book.
