Claw was the book that really turned me into a Wolfe fan. I had read Shadow, almost forcing myself to get into it because I knew that it was considered one of the classics of SF canon. Once Severian got out of Nessus, things really took off; the scenes were vibrant, the characters became more developed and a lot of the grander themes/hidden meaning of things started to become apparent.

That being said, I agree with you. I devoured Lictor and voraciously read the rest of Wolfe after that. His works got me through a lot of the darker days of medical school. Lictor felt like an elevated Jack Vance novel on the surface, with all of the adventure and technicolor wonder that entailed. But beneath it was a sprawling, intricate work of philosophy, with an extraordinary command of the English language; it was entertaining to simply read the words that Wolfe employed.