Wolfe's Book of the New Sun has become an instant favorite of mine- perhaps my favorite work of fiction of all time. An incredibly rewarding work that has stimulated me intellectually and creatively more than any other.

Citadel of the Autarch brings Wolfe's magnum opus to its conclusion, expounding and elaborating upon ideas, concepts, scenes and characters found in previous installments in brilliant and confounding ways. The novel's sci-fi conceits come more to the forefront than they ever have, resulting in a truly genre-defying masterwork that wraps the series up in that truly Wolfian 'satisfying in how unsatisfying it is' kind of manner that doesn't seek to answer all the reader's questions in quick or easy to understand ways. Though these installments shouldn't necessarily be looked at individually (it was written as one large book after all, and each of the installments do not act as 'sequels' really) I will say that Citadel is the slowest-going installment of the tetralogy. Perhaps it's because a third of the book could be interpreted as Wolfe at his most self-indulgent with his use of 'stories within stories' but I've come to expect this from him, and it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the work as a whole whatsoever, especially when it's all so beautifully written and crafted.