I'm curious how far you get with "Mama Dracula". Last weekend it played at B-Fest, Northwestern University's annual marathon of bad movies:
http://www.b-fest.com/

One particularly interesting hater of Metropolis was H.G. "Class Warfare OF THE FUTURE!" Wells. Here's his review:
http://erkelzaar.tsudao.com…

Clues
Dunno if this falls under "style" — or at least the kind of style we're talking about. There's at least one factor that I think makes "Watson's Apology" worth a second read.

Brian Blessed played the ghost of Hamlet's father in Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet. He was almost too whispery to be recognizable.

If anyone lived in their own creation and never left, wouldn't that be a break from reality? Even if the creation passed its fire inspection with flying colors?

I wish I had the book so I could refresh myself on the ending.

I agree. Even before the Cosmo was built, Martin had a realization of how temporary any structure was, even the most forward-looking. Millhauser wrote something about the breaking of the ground setting in motion the trajectory of the wrecker's ball.

"…when you woke from a long dream of stone…"

Don't feel bad, Carnegie wasn't entirely a bootstrapper either. If I remember right, he got taken under the wing of the railroad tycoon he worked for, borrowed some money from his boss, and did some insider trading before it was illegal. Success!

I can't tell if you're trolling, but — honest answer, I wasn't bored by the description of the Grand Cosmo. More thinking "Holy crap, this has seriously become untethered." Overwhelmed with the uphill battle, and dazed by the Nascar track of impressions.

@Laika — thank you, it must have been "High Rise". I don't remember it being "Lord of the Flies" crossed with "The Room", but it's been a couple decades since I read it.

I just said this somewhere else, but mobility — the American dream! — means being able to forget where you came from. I think few people move across country — or to North Broadway — and make more than the occasional visit home. Or see old friends who were part of an older life, and have since gone their own ways.

…or his parents. Mobility means having the freedom to forget where you came from.

Oh, just wanna say — cool stuff, MikeStrange and everybody.

or kicks his heels like Charlie Chaplin and walks off down the dusty road, away from The Girl and toward whatever happens next?

Strange that Martin loved systems, but ended up with Caroline. It makes me want to quote "Apocalypse Now". ."Do you find my marriage unsound?"…"I don't see any marriage at all, sir." Basically, Martin picked the biggest, most visible banana peel he could find, and swan-dived onto it.

Works of Ray Bradbury…too…all-encompassing…

I would love to own a store where I rolled a fiberglass Ronald McDonald out to the sidewalk every morning. It would beat rolling out Jared from Subway.

It wouldn't have fit with the rest of the book, but I would love to have seen more about how the residents of the Grand Cosmo lived day to day…how the fruits of Martin's ambition played out.

Children and Builders
Leonard, it's interesting that you talk about Martin as a child. I hadn't thought about that, partly because Martin doesn't have what us in the 2010s would recognize as a childhood. He has no playmates or even friends his own age. Instead he has bosses and customers. I suspect that wooden…