His best-known and most highly regarded work is the multi-volume novel "The Book of the New Sun". Set in a bleak, distant future influenced by Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" series, the story details the life of Severian, a journeyman torturer, exiled from his guild for showing compassion to one of the condemned. The novel is composed of the volumes "The Shadow of the Torturer" (1980), "The Claw of the Conciliator" (1981), winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, "The Sword of the Lictor" (1982), and "The Citadel of the Autarch" (1983). A coda, "The Urth of the New Sun" (1987), wraps up some loose ends but is generally considered a separate work. Several of Wolfe's essays about writing the "Book of the New Sun" series were published in "The Castle of the Otter" (1982; the title refers to a misprint of the fourth book's title in "Locus" magazine).