[You] will be missing a major—a seminal—event in the development of SF if you don't allow yourself the pleasure of reading [The Claw of the Conciliator] and its predecessor [Shadow of the Torturer],… as long as you do so in the privacy of your mind, the enjoyment will not count against you socially.

As a piece of literature, this work is simply overwhelming. Severian is a character realized in a depth and to a breadth we have never seen in SF before; of all unlikely tin things, a detailed, likeable portrait of the skilled artisan as a young man is emerging here; courageous, professional—distasteful of the slavering onlookers as he breaks his victims' thighs deftly—rather wise but certainly unsophisticated, he is still being led around by his private parts. But that will change.

As a piece of craftsmanship, the work so far is so...