The Claw of the Conciliator was published by Timescape Books (a Simon & Schuster imprint) in 1981, and it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel. The second volume of The Book of the New Sun deepens and complicates the narrative begun in The Shadow of the Torturer: Severian continues his journey toward Thrax, the city to which he has been exiled to serve as executioner, but the journey is interrupted by encounters with the strange, the miraculous, and the politically dangerous.
The “Claw” of the title is a gem — apparently a fragment of the Claw of the Conciliator, a holy relic of the figure who may (or may not) bring a New Sun to the dying world. Severian has acquired it accidentally, and it demonstrates powers of healing and resurrection that he cannot explain or control. The theological implications multiply: is Severian himself the Conciliator? Is the Claw genuine or a fraud? Are the “miracles” it performs genuine interventions of the divine or merely the operation of forgotten technology?
Wolfe’s narrative becomes increasingly fragmented in this volume — interpolated stories-within-stories (the tale of the student and his son, the play Eschatology and Genesis) that seem digressive but prove, on careful reading, to be mirrors of the main narrative. The unreliability of Severian’s narration becomes more pronounced: he omits crucial information, contradicts earlier statements, and occasionally admits that his “perfect memory” may be less perfect than he claims.
Collecting The Claw of the Conciliator
First edition (Timescape Books, New York, 1981): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $100–$300
- Without jacket: $20–$50
- Nebula Award winner sticker adds modest premium