After Norstrilia
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
If Norstrilia's telepathic sheep barons and cryptic underpeople left you craving fiction that refuses to explain itself, Wolfe's colonial labyrinth delivers the same fever-dream density—folklore-laced prose hiding three meanings per sentence, eccentric anti-heroes navigating absurd power, and empathy for the marginalized earned through philosophical sleight-of-hand. This is the baroque riddle you've been hunting: no training wheels, just revelation.