There is something hypnotic about Gene Wolfe’s prose in The Claw of the Conciliator. And when he lets his imagination loose, all kinds of weird and surprising things happen. The Claw of the Conciliator is a good book, an improvement over the previous book, but it is still frustrating at times.
At first I was afraid it would degenerate into a tedious Star Wars styled rebel vs. imperium narrative. But things quickly get much more complicated and I was as confused as our hero Severian over what’s going on. That’s a good thing.
There are two stories within the story of the novel: the legend of the man who was formed from dreams, and the play put on by Severian and his companions. Severian encounters aliens, robots, and humans from his Urth’s future. Despite all this thrashing about the novel works for the most part. The biggest complaint I have, other than the occasional descent into abstraction, is that there are a few to many conventions of the SF genre that are imposed upon the story.
The image that is trapped in my mind is from a scene where Severian is shown a book that is actually window into distant space. Within he sees a titanic figure moving against a field of stars. The vision overwhelms him, causing blood to seep out of the pores of his forehead. What does it mean? Who knows. And that’s kind of how the book is. Captivating but also challenging and hard to understand.
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