My wife has a Master’s in English Literature and dropped it halfway through the first book because she didn’t like the main character.

That’s a shame, but I find it’s not uncommon.

It’s part of Wolfe’s genius. The Severian depicted in the story really is fairly unlikeable, but the thing is that the Severian depicted in the story isn’t the actual protagonist. The actual protagonist - the actual character we’re meant to come to understand through the course of the story - is the much later Severian who has written a memoir in which he purports to tell the story of his life. The Severian of the story is, to some significant degree, a fiction created by that Severian.

We’re supposed to notice that that Severian is unlikeable, because that contrasts with the tone of the story, in which Severian is presented as if he’s somehow both simple and noble - a bit of a naif cast out into the world who always tries to do the right thing. But the reality is that he’s neither of those things - he’s more of a self-serving and callow asshole. Severian the memoirist is trying to hide that and present himself as this simple, noble man striding forth into the world, but he can’t quite pull it off, and bits of his real character slip through.

The Forever War

I was kind of disappointed by this one. I think the problem was that Haldeman was too close to the subject matter, as a vet, so his focus was on a few specific things - the sense of meaninglessness of the war, and the sense of alienation a soldier experiences on coming home, since life has kept going in his absence. Both of those things were amplified by the enormity of the timescale, so it did work to make the points he appeared to be trying to make, but then that was about it. I think I was expecting some broader analysis of time dilation on that scale, and it just wasn’t there.

A Fire Upon the Deep

I loved this. It’s right in my wheelhouse - a fascinating story told by a notably talented writer. Vinge had a great gift for prose, and focused on interesting topics - sort of a somewhat less challenging Greg Egan.

The Handmaid’s Tale

I’m sort of ambivalent about this one. It’s a good story well told, but it’s a bit too heavy-handedly allegorical. It’s not so much that that hurts it in and of itself - for its time, it was a much-needed slap in the face. But it spawned a whole generation of heavy-handed allegorical social commentary that’s grown increasingly shallow and obvious and tedious. Allegory is fine all in all, and has long been part of the point of science fiction, but to be really enjoyable and effective, it needs to sort of sneak through and nudge readers - not leap out and beat them over the head. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t too far gone to the beat you over the head form of it, but many of its imitators definitely are. And I know it’s unfair to judge a book in part by the imitators it spawned, but still, that interfered with my enjoyment of it.

Hyperion

This is definitely in at least my top ten. It’s just so well written - a great story pieced together from a set of smaller stories, each one of which stands well on its own (though some notably better than others) and all of which come together for a much greater whole.

And it’s just stuffed full of neat little touches - AIs speaking in Zen koans, portal technology so common that “houses” are built out of interconnected rooms spread between different planets, a forest of trees that have harnessed lightning as part of their life cycle, a self-unaware god who’s lost in time (and it’s not an accident that when we first encounter Yuki in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, she’s reading Hyperion).

If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend The Uplift Trilogy by David Brin. It’s right in line with this list.