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Since the beginning of time it had worked its will on humanity, and for as long as man could remember, he had struggled against its power. But in the 21st century the battle was won: the sea, mankind’s age-old enemy, had finally been conquered.
Professionals like Walter Franklin now patrolled the infinite savannahs of the oceans, harvesting from the plankton prairies as crop which kept the world fed. But like that other great frontier, space, the sea had not yet yielded up all its secrets. And men like Franklin would never rest until its every fathomless mystery had been challenged . . .

This is the story of one member of the Terran Survey Corps. His name is Loftus Tait. There are many men of his stamp in the Corps; men who possess a deep and unshakable conviction that what they are doing has a meaning in face of the great unknowns, men who, recognising the transience and minuteness of humankind, yet believe that Man has a destiny among the stars.

Not for him or his crew was there the refinement and luxury of a base ship equipped like a small world; they took their frail craft across the parsecs and set down as and when they could, and worked at their jobs, and came back – if they were lucky.

Some were not so lucky.

For something like two hundred and fifty years Earth had been dominated by humanoid aliens from the star world of Alishang. But man’s spirit refused to be conquered. There was a world-wide underground planning for the day of final liberation. And there were four leaders who knew the secret that would guarantee victory – the secret of ZI.

Rupert Clinton, intelligence man for this underground, was not one of those four; yet somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious mind, he knew ZI’s secret.

Enter the magical realm of the most fascinating empire ever created.

In the ancient, fabled land of Nevèrÿon, they tell of a gleaming golden city, driven deep beneath the waves of history – the city whose whispered name is Neveryóna.

For Pryn, a young girl fleeing her village on the back of a dragon, Neveryóna is the shining symbol of all that is out of reach. It leads her to the exotic port city of Kolhari, where she talks with the wealthy merchant Madame Keyne, walks with Gorgik the Liberator as he schemes against the Court of Eagles – and crosses the Bridge of Lost Desire in search of her destiny.

Blue Genes…

Ape-like and with one arm replaced by a claw, the not-quite-human Angelo and his beautiful female partner Ariadne are genetically bred rescuers programmed to travel vast distances through space in suspended animation to bring back Pioneers – explorers sent out from Earth generations ago to settle other planets. The latest mission is to rescue Pioneer Murray from the planet La Plage and to return to Earth where – as usual – decades have passed while they have been travelling between the stars.

But Earth itself has gone through a catastrophic collapse from which its burnt-out civilization is trying to recover. And amongst the remnants of a sterile and despairing humanity, there is less room than ever before for such strange creatures as Angelo.

Combining rich and weird alien environments with exciting deep-space adventure, Pioneers is a brilliant novel of love and alienation in a strange and poignant future.

Somewhere, deep in the mighty rainforest, is the Kingdom of the Sun Bear. And there, legend has it, are the seven ancient heads of the Punan – and the secret of untold riches.
To find and possess the heads, a man must brave not only the terrifying creatures of the forest, but must also risk the displeasure of the gods and spirits that inhabit it.
Yet, two groups set off in a ferocious rivalry in pursuit of the legend. They disturb the equilibrium of the forest and risk awful consequences. For, it seems, only one creature can benefit from such a quest – Shadow-hawk, the eater of men’s souls.

After roving through space for centuries, a starship unburdens its cargo of human embryos on a harsh new world. They quickly grow to maturity in the ship’s artificial womb. A lifetime of Earth memories is programmed into their dreams.
But before their indoctrination is complete, an alien intruder infiltrates and destroys the system, and the reason for the odyssey is never learned.
Now, on a verdant island surrounded by quicksand, Othman, wanderer, dreamer, and self-proclaimed leader of the Earthling band, builds a mighty bridge to span the ocean of molten mud that keeps them from the world beyond.
He has yet to face the deadly toll his quest will take on the delicate ecology of the planet – or the revolt of his beautiful, strong-willed wife, Silandi. And he has yet to discover the hidden knowledge locked deep within their hearts.

So begins one of the most celebrated stories in fantasy literature . . . packed full of mystery, deep themes and incredible prose, meet Severian the Torturer and follow him on his journey across the great world of Urth

Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman.

Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name.

Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild – a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination . . .

Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel, 1981
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1982

Readers can’t stop reading The Shadow of the Torturer:

‘Full of rich characters and great imagination’ Mark Lawrence, author of Red Sister

‘A dark jewel . . . He has a mastery of language not often seen in fantasy writing . . . Couple this with an original and unique, highly imaginative and complex worldbuilding and the high praise is warranted‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘This is a picaresque fantasy with a difference, for our hero Severian is no wide-eyed country boy from the shire, but an apprentice torturer, thoroughly schooled in his trade’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘There are certain books that can be considered life-changing experiences. Gene Wolfe is an author who has written one of those for me’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
‘The Book of the New Sun Tetralogy is one of the great achievements in science fiction and is a MUST READ for fans of the genre. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘In addition to being unique in style, The Shadow of the Torturer is a gorgeous piece of work: passionate storytelling (heart-wrenching in places), fascinating insights into nature and the human condition, beautiful prose’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Genre fiction at its finest. Original, difficult and well-crafted, it is easy to see how Wolfe is regarded as a writer’s writer’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

They called him the Survivor – a 20th Century man ‘reborn’ in 2113.

After a devastating atomic holocaust, mankind had now turned to the machine to solve his problems. Which led to the androids – descended from the robot, they were hardly distinguishable from real humans. By the year 2113 they ran society – leaving man to a life of leisure.

It was into this world that John Markham emerged after spending 146 years of suspended animation in an underground deep-freeze unit. But his new lease of life was likely to be a short one. A man with his outdated ideas could be very dangerous – a fact the androids realized only too well.

It was many, many years ago that humans came and settled the world of Newholme – cruelly bending the planet to their will; setting down roots and raising up cities and farms and a grand temple to their goddess.


But now the ground itself is shaking with ever-increasing violence. And the Greatest Questioner, official arbiter of the Council of Worlds, has come to this isolated orb to investigate rumours of a terrible secret that lies buried deep within Newholme’s past – a past that is not dead, not completely. And it will fall to Mouche, a beautiful youth of uncommon cleverness and spirit, to save his imperilled home by discovering and embracing that which makes him unique among humans.

For every living thing on Newholme is doomed, unless Mouche can appease something dark and terrible that is coiled within, and surrender to the mysterious ecstatic revelry that results when the six moons join.

Take a step forward and fall suddenly into a creeping blob of protoplasm, then discover that your three companions have fallen with you and your bodies have been digested by the ‘thing’.

Watch a man searching on a beach, and feel your blood run cold when he tells you what he is searching for.

A doorway that will take you anywhere, except back to earth.

Baron Jim is in the thick of it again. Somehow he’s found himself taking on England’s oldest enemy – the French – who have entered into an unholy alliance with a most fearsome horror: the mighty serpents of the deep underseas. Nobody has battled them before; nobody even realised they could leave the sea. And with the serpents as their allies it’s only a matter of time before the French invasion succeeds – unless Baron Jim can stop them.

They were humanity’s hope – the first young people selected to leave Earth for study in the Galactic Federation. But something went wrong in deep space. Terribly wrong.

Suddenly Jim Rawlins, Ellen Bouvier, Curt Harrington, and the squirrel-like Alien philosopher Peep were castaways, stranded on the quarantined planet of Quebahr – with no training, and little hope of rescue. Between them and the Federation’s emergency beacon were primitive Mauregs, aggressive Walats, lizard-like Noifs – plus danger, conspiracy and the mystery of an impending high-tech war on a backward peaceful planet.
Without warning, the future of the two worlds – Earth and Quebahr – depended on three young humans’ ability to adapt and survive.

The Riddle of Enigma

Years of exacting study were coming to an end. All five student scientists, each the best its species had to offer, were one step away from their final degrees. One examination remained: the students were to determine why the tiny planet of Enigma, a planet with so little mass that it should never have had an atmosphere, in fact it did.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly until the only Human member of the team, Molly was accidentally blown into one of the deep fissures that pocked the planet’s surface.

She found herself trapped in a series of tunnels and caves that only led her deeper into the riddle that was at the heart of Enigma. But as her concerned companions followed her, they found Enigma’s most puzzling anomaly. For in the dark passages they discovered life – life which couldn’t possibly exist.

Otto McGavin is peaceful and idealistic by nature, an Anglo-Buddhist, who seeks employment with the Confederación because he believes in it and its mission to protect the rights of humans and nonhumans. The only problem is that the Confederación needs him as a Prime Operator for its secret service, the TBII, and the TBII wants Otto as a spy, a thief and an assassin.

It’s not, of course, a problem for the Confederación, which simply uses immersion therapy and hypnosis for Otto’s training, and then sends him out in deep cover on a variety of dangerous missions on a number of bizarre worlds.

But for Otto, it’s a different matter: what he has to witness and what he is forced to do take a terrible toll on him . . .

In a Twentieth Century Parallel world, the renegade George Washington has long been decently and quietly liquidated and Britain’s greatest colony, America, is to be connected to the Mother of Parliaments by the strongest of umbilical cords – a Transatlantic Tunnel.

When Tom Ryan stops his car late at night on a dark road for a man dressed as a Roman centurion, his first thought is that he’s picked up one of those amateur re-enactors but the man, Marcus Appius Silvanus appears to speak only Latin. He insists the year is AD60 and that the British Queen is Boudicca – and that he and his men of the Fourteenth Gemina are in hot pursuit of her.

Tom and his sister Mary shelter the Roman, but inadvertently attract the attention of an unscrupulous journalist. He’s not the only one interested in the Ryans: an IRA terrorist who was once Mary’s lover in Northern Ireland tracks her down to tell her the plane crash which killed her parents twenty years ago was caused by the British security services.

Deep in the English countryside, those same servants of the state are busy exploiting the theories of a young prodigy to build ‘Oracle’, a probe that can view the past – and, they hope, the future, so that threats to national security can be stifled before they occur.

The Vorsters
Were the blue-robed worshippers of the atom, symbolised by the Cobalt-60 reactors that glowed blindingly on every alter in their fast-growing churches.

The Harmonists
Were the green-robed heretics, a breakaway faction condemned as icon-adorers, who believed that their creed was truer to the code of Vorst, the Founder.

At the beginning of the 22nd century, Earth colonies were established on Mars and Venus. But the ultimate dream – to travel to the stars – was still an impossibility. A few enlightened men believed that the Vorsters and the Harmonists could solve this seemingly insurmountable problem, if they could only forget their differences and work together. But the hatred between the two factions was too deep to be reconciled – until a conflict on Venus between a Vorster priest and his Harmonist opponent resulted in some totally unexpected developments . . .

It will be the greatest voyage of exploration in human history. Fifty men and women are chosen to crew the Wotan. Their mission: to travel deep into the unknown galaxy in search of habitable worlds, to rekindle the dying human spirit. Their only contact with Earth is the telepathic link between one of the crew members and her sister back home. But when the mind-link with Earth is abruptly broken the Wotan is lost in the pearl-gray twilight of nospace. Then just as all seems lost, the Wotan encounters a massive alien presence. Suddenly the crew is forced to realise that their every assumption about life and death, humanity and the universe, may be dead wrong.

Omega: an apocalyptic rumour from the Eastern Front. Omega: something that will alter all the strategic calculations of the Earth’s great military blocs. Omega: the code name for a weapon that may well bring doomsday with it. But if Omega is indeed the agent that will destroy the world, that world is not our own. For this is a timeline in which World War Two never truly ended: a timeline in which Hitler died in a plane crash, Britain joined Germany in its battle against Communist Russia, and the present is an age of intermittent, but deadly, armed conflict between the USSR, the European Alliance, and the USA.

The frontier regions are radioactive wastelands, nuclear winter threatens catastrophe, global confrontation could erupt again any time – and that’s before Omega is taken into account…This is the reality experienced by Owen Meredith when an accident forces his consciousness from the England we know into the mind of his cognate self in that other darker, Europe.

Switching back and forth between being plain Owen Meredith and troubled Major Owain Maredudd, Owen is faced not only with a Cold War going Hot, but with a deep crisis of identity. Who is he? Whose twisted destiny is he treading? Did the ordinary domestic life he remembers ever even take place? Perhaps the universe of Owain and Omega is merely a symptom of mental illness – but if so, why is it so urgently tangible?

The Last Transaction is a deep and fascinating glimpse into the memories, inner compulsions, torments, triumphs, and events in the life of a President of the United States in a world gone mad, from 1980 to 1985. Even more, it is a perceptive vision of the major issues our society will face tomorrow. Sure to be a controversial, possibly prophetic, like anything Barry Malzberg writes, this novel is an experience you will not forget.

The space programme has finally lost its novelty, and a jaded public hardly notices another moon launch. Skilful PR men preserve the illusion that the missions have become routine.

But astronaut Richard Martin can tell a different story. Of panic in deep space, of crewmen pushed beyond breaking point, of official indifference towards his own shattered life.

Martin is effectively put under wraps – until the pilot of a moon capsule, loaded with nuclear weaponry goes beserk and a nightmare develops, threatening to engulf the world – a nightmare that only Martin could end.

What! A science fiction novel about science fiction fans? And why not?

Or – like it says in this novel:

“Do you really think that a group of science fiction fans could save this planet? Could understand this situation to save it?”
“I most certainly do,” she says. “Who else?”

Who else, indeed?
Not since Frederic Brown’s “What Mad Universe” has there been a novel like this.

Howson was a runt. Twisted, ugly, crippled. The kind of guy people just didn’t want to know.

But when he took a deep breath, braced himself and projected his thoughts thousands of miles into space, they were all over him. Howson’s telepathic powers were like nothing they’d ever known before . . . and he became the greatest curative telepathist in the world.

But when they put him to work chasing people’s nightmares deep down inside their minds, could they be expected to cope with what the runt found in there? More importantly, could Howson?


First published in 1964.