Stephen reviewed The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1) by Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun (1))
Too impenetrable for me
2 stars
I liked this book less and less as I got through it, then I went and read some 5-star reviews for it, and they loved the things I did not. So you may wish to invert my reasoning!
I got tired of the archaic language - descriptions written solely in words I don't know don't intrigue me, they just annoy now (Charles Stross invokes this for me as well). It doesn't make me imagine the otherness, the Dying World vibes, it just means I don't know what's going on.
The second two thirds of the book feels like a fever dream, and I just hated it. The protagonist wanders from place to place and seems to accept literally anything he's told by anyone. Just not my cup of tea.
Weirdly there's both less torture in this than a Joe Abercrombie book, and also in some ways it's worse. The clue …
I liked this book less and less as I got through it, then I went and read some 5-star reviews for it, and they loved the things I did not. So you may wish to invert my reasoning!
I got tired of the archaic language - descriptions written solely in words I don't know don't intrigue me, they just annoy now (Charles Stross invokes this for me as well). It doesn't make me imagine the otherness, the Dying World vibes, it just means I don't know what's going on.
The second two thirds of the book feels like a fever dream, and I just hated it. The protagonist wanders from place to place and seems to accept literally anything he's told by anyone. Just not my cup of tea.
Weirdly there's both less torture in this than a Joe Abercrombie book, and also in some ways it's worse. The clue is in the title, though.
