It was indeed an okay book. Perhaps if read right after it was first published, the book and the whole series would have made stronger impact on me, as the type of storytelling used here was probably not as common in science fiction as it is nowadays. I like the world described in the Book of the New Sun series, but I am not that big fan of the form of storytelling Wolfe uses. The form chosen makes the narrative too twisted and unambigious and it is therefore impossible for me to famliliarize with any of the characters in the book. The prtagonist is not reliable enough in his narrative for me to know what he feels or thinks in different situations. Also, his description of the other characters he meets is so vague that I cannot really understand them or relate with them.

I am sure that the style is chosen on purpose and in the first (book 1) it worked. However, in this book the storytelling starts to get boring. I do not have strong enough emotions towards the characters to care what happens to them (and the protagonist does not seem to care about what happens to any of them either). I may read the rest of the books because I am interested in the setting of the books, but now I need a break from the series.