enne📚 reviewed In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu
In the Watchful City
4 stars
A novella about borders, stories, and painful transformation. Anima is part of a networked city panopticon, bound to try to protect aer citizens through the ability to possess animals. The mysterious stranger Vessel intrudes into the city, offering to trade stories from ser cabinet of wonders in exchange for Anima leaving a story of aer own.
My one real wish is that that the inner stories filled in more detail about the world than they did. They did all thematically resonate together enough that made the work satisfying as a whole, but I wish the storytelling and worldbuilding was knitted together a little bit more tightly.