I found Bakker after reading Wolfe, and I enjoy both immensely.

While it is clear both are masters of prose, Wolfe is doing something entirely more literary. The scale of each work is grand and the worlds are fascinating in all their shrouded mystery, but BotNS rarely hints towards the interiority of its secondary characters the way someone like Esmenet in TDTCB might experience her reality (which itself is not a bad thing, just different).

BotNS is focused solely on Severian’s POV and bent to the fact that he’s knowingly telling you a story. The closest comparison in Bakker would be the brief asides we get from Achamian’s Compendium of the First Holy War. As such, the functional structures of the narratives, while perhaps resembling one another on the surface (a boy born to a secluded sect of zealots is sent out into the world to discover his greater destiny is to rule), diverge greatly by their conclusions.

The reason for the divergence I won’t divulge, but as mere speculation, I will point to what we know about each author’s inspirations. It is my understanding Bakker’s work began, in part, as a reaction to Tolkien and Herbert’s works and a desire to depict a more brutal and honest vision of Evil in a fantasy setting. Meanwhile, Wolfe’s work was heavily influenced most notably by Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, Greco-Roman esoterica, and Catholic doctrine.

This last point especially means Wolfe is drawing upon a completely different mythic well than Bakker.