I remember reading The Shadow of the Torturer for the first time. There are times when books elicit an emotion I've never felt before. I rarely reread books, but when I feel that way, I know I will end up coming back to the book again. I've read all sorts of weird fantasy and science fiction, but I've never had the same feeling of strangeness, or of the quiet of something that is winding down to an end.
Beyond the brilliant story, or the setting, or the characters, it's Severian in the river, and the feelings of not-quite-rightness that scene evoked, that I remember.
Anyway it's free and you should get it
~Camilla
Ghavrel is Ghavrel is Ghavrel
*MySmiley*