The Shadow of the Torturer
core novel 1980 The Book of the New Sun
Record
| First published | 1980 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.84 (37,607 ratings, collected 2026-08-06) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780671253257 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Where it sits
- Universe: The Book of the New Sun
- Series: The Book of the New Sun core; position 1 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Gene Wolfe
Awards (verified)
- World Fantasy Award (Best Novel), 1981: won
- British Science Fiction Association Award (Best Novel), 1981: won
- Nebula Award (Best Novel), 1980: nominated
- John W. Campbell Memorial Award, 1981: nominated
- Locus Award (Best Fantasy Novel), 1981: nominated
Notes
- From the series record (The Book of the New Sun): Severian's story: a torturer exiled from his guild for mercy, who becomes Autarch of a far-future, dying Earth (Urth) under a fading sun. Classified by Wikipedia as 'science fantasy' in the 'Dying Earth' subgenre, with an explicit far-future SF setting, but critical consensus treats it as foundational within fantasy literature -- a 1998 Locus poll ranked it 3rd among 36 all-time best fantasy novels published before 1990, behind only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and this database already admitted The Dying Earth on the same genre-boundary logic. Internal chronology equals publication order for the 4-volume tetralogy; The Urth of the New Sun is a direct continuation/coda.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Book of the New Sun: position 1 of 5: next The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
Sources
- The Book of the New Sun (Wikipedia)
- Gene Wolfe (Nebula Awards, SFWA)
- The Shadow of the Torturer (Worlds Without End)
- The Sword of the Lictor (Wikipedia)
- The Citadel of the Autarch (Wikipedia)
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One of 3732 works in the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.