The Sword of the Lictor

Volume three of four. Severian takes up the office he was sent north to fill and then leaves it, moving out of the city and into the mountains — the stretch of the series where the scale of the dying world, and how much of it is ruin, becomes hard to miss.

Context: third instalment of the single story a16z carded as one series entry in its Fantasy section. Not a standalone; the four volumes were drafted as one book before the first was published.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from; Fantasy section, Book of the New Sun series entry.
• Gene Wolfe — the author.
• The Shadow of the Torturer — volume one.
• The Claw of the Conciliator — volume two.
• The Citadel of the Autarch — volume four.
• Science Fiction — the genre border the series sits on.
• a16z — the firm whose infrastructure team curates the list.