Shadow and Claw

Title: Shadow and Claw(First part of "The Book of the New Sun" including "The Shadow of the Torturer" and "The Claw of the Conciliator")
Author: Gene Wolfe
Genre: Science-Fiction, Epic
Comments: From the blurb of the book, any person in the right mind would class this as a terrifying horror story that sets you on edge. You could say as much, but there's more to it than just that. In the far future, there exists a guild of torturers(we're on planet Urth, not Earth), people taken from their parents at birth and carried of to the home of the guild-masters. Women were banned eons ago, for their methods of torturing were beyond inhumane. When the last woman abandoned the guild, she set a curse on the world, and created a new, green moon, destroying the old one. This new moon destroyed most life, and humans straggle to survive, back to the guild though. The story is told through the eyes of Severian, a sixteen year old boy banished for committing the worst sin of them all-showing mercy to his victim. Him and his three friends must face the world and regain their position in society if they are to ever get back into the guild. A darker force is at work though, one of the Vodalirii, master assassins, plans on resurrecting the body of a tainted woman, and wishes the guild shut for all the pain and suffering they cause.
So far I've read 113 pages of the book. My absolute favourite part, or sentences rather, is from Chapter 3, "The Autarch's Face."
"Ask not the Autarch a question, for they will give you 3 answers. One, of tales on a planet called Earth. The other, our own selfishness causing our demise, and the last, of a time when we were crawling from the sea, and a miasma of arcane power nearly killed us all."
In the chapter I'm reading, "The Destruction of the Altar," the Voldarii is on a mass killing spree, ravaging the entire south  bank of the torturer's guild. The souls of the dead are rising, and they are not happy.