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‘The Revolutionary’
Impressions of Chapter 12 of Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer
© 2019 James LaFond
MAR/23/19
Reading from pages 78-83 of Shadow & Claw
The Traitor
“The hope in her voice now made me think of a flower growing in shadow.”
When it comes time for the torment of Thecla it becomes obvious to the reader that the engine room of some ancient starship has been repurposed to support various devices for torture. The revolutionary is the most hideous, a machine that released the self-hating portion of a person’s psyche to make of their end a nightmare from within. The use of ancient electronics and rattletrap gismos for the devouring of souls in the bowls of a starship, marooned in the bowels of a dying civilization under a dying star is a masterpiece of understated horror.
In the linchpin scene of the entire four-volume saga, Severian becomes a sympathetic protagonist by betraying his inhuman guild and breaking his oath by giving Thecla a knife with which to commit suicide, sparing her the horror of tearing out her hair and eyes in her sleep.
Diction of note
-cataphracts, armored cavalry
-anagnost,
-armigette
-jade, slang for a mistress
The World is Our Widow
‘The Fearful Song’
before the rising sun
‘The Witches, Our Sisters’
eBook
the lesser angels of our nature
eBook
thriving in bad places
eBook
z-pill forever
eBook
son of a lesser god
eBook
broken dance
eBook
logic of steel
eBook
triumph
eBook
solo boxing
eBook
winter of a fighting life
eBook
hate
eBook
wife—
eBook
ranger?
eBook
songs of aryas
eBook
logic of force
eBook
predation
eBook
the first boxers
eBook
book of nightmares
eBook
all-power-fighting
eBook
the sunset saga complete
eBook
into leviathan’s maw
eBook
the greatest lie ever sold
eBook
cracker-boy
eBook
the greatest boxer
eBook
the combat space
eBook
by the wine dark sea
eBook
the year the world took the z-pill
eBook
fate
eBook
orphan nation
eBook
sorcerer!
eBook
barbarism versus civilization
eBook
within leviathan’s craw
eBook
advent america
eBook
on combat
eBook
your trojan whorse
eBook
masculine axis
eBook
let the world fend for itself
eBook
america the brutal
eBook
honor among men
eBook
menthol rampage
eBook
taboo you
eBook
fiction anthology one
eBook
on the overton railroad
eBook
the gods of boxing
eBook
the fighting edge
eBook
song of the secret gardener
eBook
fanatic
eBook
under the god of things
eBook
dark, distant futures
eBook
night city
eBook
when you're food
eBook
blue eyed daughter of zeus
eBook
time & cosmos
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