A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth is a beautiful collection. The stories are quiet but unexpected. Mason elegantly interweaves history and fiction, often taking inspiration from historical figures and imagining their thoughts and motivations. And while the stories follow individual characters and their personal issues and impressions, they also paint a bigger picture of the time and period they are set in. All of the stories are set in the 19th and early 20th century and many of them focus on science and exploration. This type of setting is a personal favourite of mine anyway and the poetic but precise writing style managed to create such a vivid picture of each time and place that I could easily imagine being there myself. Many of the stories also transcend their setting, adding speculative elements into the mix. I enjoyed how all of these elements - the personal, the historical, and the speculative - are merged in order to explore bigger themes, such as identity, isolation and intimacy, to name but a few. It doesn't happen often that I give a shortstory collection 5 stars, but this one absolutely deserves this high rating because there is not a single story in it that I didn't like. All of them were excellently crafted and unique but they still felt coherent because they were similar in tone and themes. In short: a perfect collection.