"A major work of twentieth-century American literature...Wolfe creates
a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from
within...once into it, there is no stopping." ---The New York Times on
The Book of the New Sun
This new Tor Essentials edition of Sword & Citadel contains a new
introduction by historian and novelist Ada Palmer, author of the
award-winning Too Like the Lightning.
Gene Wolfe has been called the finest writer the science fiction world
has yet produced by the Washington Post.
THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe's most
remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable
in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers
Weekly and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in
the twentieth century" by the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable
epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian,
driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark
mission far from his home.
The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its
harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the
dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will alter forever
the realm known as Urth.
Wonderfully vivid and inventive... the most extraordinary hero in the
history of the heroic epic." --The Washington Post