Very dense, but ultimately rewarding. Not very much happens plot wise, but Severian is a dominating narrator. It's textbook unreliable narrator, but to read back anything through his lens complicates what is already a complicated story involving time travel and aliens.

Although it's often hard to figure out what's going on, I felt that the text invites deeper reading in a positive way. I often found myself revisiting a scene later to consider why and to what end Wolfe chose to show scenes. The play of Dr. Talos is particularly rich, as are Severian's conversations with Jonas.