bout 25% of the way through 7.25

Really cool setting. More religious politics (a good segue from Joyce). Rife with religious debate about what constitutes heresy in a context which is less annoying than a coupla college kids as was the case with Portrait of the Artists. Reeaaaally liked the ex-inquisitor Williams refusing to hear confessions of other monks so that he could inquest and investigate punitively without being bound by sacramental secrecy. Hardo mode

50%, hovering around an 8. It's well written, but mystery itself is less compelling than the dialogs.

I think this book does a good job at capturing the blade's edge between piety and zealousness, and the capital-C Church's devotion to scripture and tradition over the wellbeing of its members. The pious become negligent towards the affairs of the world, and the zealots try to bend the arm of religion to assume more power and then fabricate heresies to ascribe to anyone who crosses them.

75% of the way through and its more of the same. Clear inspiration from Sherlock Holmes, which is fun. Again, dialogs about heretics being willing to die for their heresy. Begs the question of conviction in an idea that one is willing to die for vs. the desire to die which manifests itself in conviction in an infohazard/heresy.

A few lingering ideas as the story peters out.

Really interesting characterizations of books as obfuscations of knowledge rather than tools of dissemination.

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