Status Updates From The Urth of the New Sun (Th...

the way Wolfe keeps bringing back characters, events and locations from previous volumes of the series but in completely new contexts is something I imagine makes or breaks this novel for most readers, I absolutely love it but then again the 2nd "Back to the Future" movie is also my favourite in that trilogy

another interesting thing about this book is that it shifts the metaphysical basis of the series from a weird mashup between Neoplatonism and Catholic mysticism to the Kabbalah - we also get to see way more of the extradimensional deities orchestrating everything in the previous volumes, who turn out to be humans from a parallel universe hoping that this one's humans also ascend to divinity

SO FAR it is looking to be even weirder than the preceding 4 books, taking place aboard the spaceship transporting Severian to be tested by the Hierogrammates for the position of New Sun only then to be subjected to one weird assassination attempt after the other and a shipboard mutiny. The whole "science-fiction story as experienced by fantasy characters" part becomes really central here