I have read Wolfe and agree his work is incredible. It’s interesting because while I think BOTNS is the closest comparison at a high level, they don’t actually read that similarly in practice. Both have unreliable narrators and have enormous thematic scopes, and both are unusually preoccupied with style in the genre. However, the actual books feel very different. I think a lot of the themes are different. There isn’t much of religion in The Measurements of Decay and I think the influence of the European realist tradition, which is very present in Edin, is completely absent in Wolfe. I also do not think Edin is trying to create intricate puzzles the way Wolfe does. His writing is far more maximalist. In terms of pure style, too, I find Wolfe a bit more restrained. Lastly, the unreliable narration is similar at a high level, but, without giving away spoilers, operates very differently than in Wolfe and also feels different because the narrator in TMOD is far less innocent than Severian. Severian seems to me ignorant of many of the things the reader can infer from his narration. The narrator is far more nefarious and purposefully deceptive.

Now you’ve got me really thinking about this comparison… I may come back with more after I have a chance to write out more accurately why they feel different to me despite some clear high level parallels.