Amelia

i found it very hard to get into. it’s fantasy set up as a sherlock and watson style mystery but when the solution to a mystery is some aspect of the magic system that as the reader you could not know it takes away from the feeling of seeing a great investigator. i didn’t have a chance to try and figure out for myself because the solution always came from some information i didn’t have previously.

Absolute cinema only dragged down by Clavell sort of being a freak. A lot of Japanese people going “wow, your penis is so huge, white guy.” Amazing in all other aspects if you can look past that.

Absolute cinema. Just as good every time I read it. A story that will make you believe in God.

The last of the three novellas is kinda mid compared to the first two

You could just say anything in the 1700s

I find the narrator unconvincing as a person from the society he’s in. His references and observations often feel as though they’re coming directly from the author in 2024. The politics of the book are similarly serviceable but not particularly inspired. Totalitarianism is bad. Science is good. But the conclusion was genuinely unexpected and it elevates the rest of it a bit imo.