The Shadow of the Torturer

Amazing imagination of Earth (Urth) millions (or more??) of years from now, where after catastrophe, most of humanity left, maybe some stayed, maybe some eventually came back, who knows. The planet is in a bad state now, whatever the situation. There's an amazing mix of midieval atmosphere mixed with ultra high tech futuristic gadgetry. The book itself is rather frustrating plot wise. Almost nothing is explained, the plot is almost non-existent, and book one ends pretty much going "well that's it, grab book 2 if you give a f***". Heck, I'm not even sure if the characters are all human or some evolved simian creatures. There's talk of other species developing intelligence, spiritual entities, "magical technology", completely uneducated (most citizenry it seems) peasants, intergalactic aliens, hybrid clones, resurrected species, aristocrats who understand absolutely advanced technology, all sorts of absolutely fantastic imagery...all in a world governed by midieval principles and justice...and strangely I find that compensates for the relative meandering lack of plot. I want to learn more about this planet and who the heck is actually "translating" the original manuscript that the book is. It's almost as if this ultra futuristic book is written by someone else, even further into the future. What are we hundreds of millions of years in the future now?

I fully expect subsequent books to get even crazier, and I'll be let down if they don't. Arther C Clarks famous quote describes the entire environment so far, for seemingly most of the population: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."