Book description
Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of
Torturers, flees from exile. In a mountain wilderness Severian, the
disgraced apprentice torturer, has reached his place of exile - Thrax,
the city of Windowless Rooms, where he must take up his post as Lictor,
executioner and torturer. However, he flees the city and heads into the
mountains. There he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live
on, adopts a son only to lose him in battle and discharges an old debt
to vengeance. As his exile takes stranger and stranger turns, he
encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and meets the
mysterious Dr Talos . . . Gene Wolfe (1931 -) Gene Wolfe was born in
New York in 1931 and raised in Texas. After serving in the Korean War he
graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston and
worked in engineering until becoming an editor of a trade periodical,
Plant Engineering, in 1972. Since retiring from this post in 1984, he
has written full-time. The author of over three dozen award-wining
novels and story collections, he is regarded as one of modern fantasy's
most important writers. His best-known work, the four volume far-future
Book of the New Sun, won the World Fantasy, BSFA, Nebula, British
Fantasy and John W. Campbell memorial Awards. He has won the World
Fantasy Award four times for his novels and collections and the World
Fantasy Life Achievement Award for his extraordinary body of work. Gene
Wolfe lives in Illinois with his wife, Rosemary.
