This audio is a hoot and has more digs at organized religion in the first 15 minutes than anything I've ever read before...

If the first half of this story is funny, the second half is quite serious and dark, involving regicide, infanticide, madness, murder of masses, fictional murder, godhood, death, destruction, reliving one's worst memories/nightmares until one has forgotten the origin point ... and more digs at organized religion, tradition (we do it because it's tradition! [and not because it makes any rational or common sense]) and asking the question about how the father/son relationship should really happen. The ending is not a happy one for all the humor contained in the story, but it leaves one thoughtful.

Mr. Shearman sure knows how to write. ( )

has Six and Frobisher in a peculiar mock-Roman Empire world with bizarre rituals of imperial succession. I started out rather liking this setting (more grist to the mill of those researching the reception of the classics in sf) but ended up not liking it much after all; the off-hand treatment of violence and torture reminded me of the worst of the Sixth Doctor TV stories (I may be thinking of Vengeance on Varos). Frobisher is basically a one-joke character, and it just wasn't very funny. ( )