Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wonderful ways. Severian is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and now journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.