Finished (re)reading Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer, and moving on to the Claw of the Conciliator. It's such an incredibly quotable work:
"It's a pity you're a torturer", Ultan said. "You could've been a philosopher."
"Work your will upon those guilty. Where was their mercy on the innocent? When did they tremble, when weep? What kind of men could do as they have done - thieves, false friends, betrayers, bad shipmates, no shipmates, murderers and kidnappers. Without you, where are their nightmares, where are their restitutions, so long promised? Where are their chains, fetters, manacles, and cangues? Where are their abacinations, that shall leave them blind? Where are the defenestrations that shall break their bones, where is the estrapade that shall grind their joints? Where is she, the beloved whom I lost?"
"The Increate maintains all things in order surely; and the theologicans say light is his shadow. Must it not be then that in darkness order grows ever less, flowers leaping from nothingness into a girl's fingers just as by light in spring they leap from mere filthiness in the air? Perhaps when night closes our eyes there is less order than we believe."
"Now I have travelled much farther from our tower, but I have found that the pattern of our guild is repeated mindlessly (like the repetitions of Father Inire's mirrors in the House Absolute) in the societies of every trade, so that they are all of them torturers, just as we. His quarry stands to the hunter as our clients to us; those who buy to the tradesman; the enemies of the Commonwealth to the soldier; the governed to the governor's; men to women. All love that which they destroy."
After finishing the Solar Cycle, I think I may just move on to reading the entire work of Wolfe - I always was used to reading "wide", getting one or two books per author at most before moving on, but now I am an Old I think going in depth on my favorites would work better. It's also a good time to do so, as most of his novels are in print, and those that aren't are still easy to find second-hand. I think he is one of a handful of authors I'd like to completely read before I die, along with Ballard, Dick, Lem, Houellebecq and few others. So yeah, if I don't post for a while I will be doing that.
