Shadow & Claw
by Gene Wolfe
Volume 1 of The Book of the New Sun series: The Shadow of the Torturer (Book 1) and The Claw of the Conciliator (Book 2)
Recommendations from our site
“Book of the New Sun initiated what we now call ‘deep future SF’. It takes place so far in earth’s future that every mountain has been carved into a portrait of a king by now…Everywhere you dig a hole, there’s a city underneath. And space travel and contact with aliens was so long ago that it’s lost in the depths, not of history, but of mythology – before even the currently remembered eras of humanity. We’re so far in the future, in fact, that the sun is growing dim and the earth is getting cold…If you like big ideas books and puzzle box books where you’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and deep world building and reflections on time and space, then it’s a wonderful series.” Read more...
Ada Palmer, Novelist