Unless that despicable sophistry about 'all men being torturers' anyway, sways our not-too-bright dictator, that is. Instead, what we got after this four-book-long shameless narcissistic trip, is the same old same old Power Absolute in the body of a tyrant with a convenient multiple personality disorder ( of course he has an excellent excuse for using that unbearably pompous royal "We"), and nothing better than vague hints that he may (but really, maybe NOT-in fact it looks like NOT) dissolve and reform some of the worst aspects of this fantasy, like the torturers' guild. First we have to redeem our imaginations, you see. So it's not really that I hoped for a physical salvation of the planet (would be nice though! And in print it costs nothing!), but for a moral salvation of Severian's (Wolfe's) fantasy civilisation. Note-we know that THIS world is eventually beyond saving our sun is a star with an expiration date, however remote, and we can only hope that aliens or AI or, heck, future humans, will figure out a way to preserve human life, or at least the consciousness of it. The sadism, the misogyny, the wobbly structure, the technical flaws-I have to admit I'd have looked past all of them (though not forgotten them), if only Severian (Wolfe) actually saved (t)his world in the end.
self-aggrandizing fascistoid reactionary crapola. I'm entering a busier period and don't know if I'll have time (or the will, frankly) to discuss the book(s) in detail, so just my overall impression (finished yesterday).
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