Summer 2019 (Hugo Award Nominee 2019 - Best Short Story);

While I was not overly impressed or in love with this one, I was very much driven to follow the plight of the character we are watching (which is very much not the narrator we're in the point of view of). I've always had a knack for liking to see how different worlds handle magic, and what the cost might be.

I loved the recurring question in the removal. Was it gone just from his sight, or gone from all of space and time? It's a beautiful and chilling thing to drive someone with that power, and conscious, and lack of cruelty, mad. ( )

So far only listened to:

~ The Court Magician by Sarah Pinsker - Spotify podcast/podcastle - 2.5*

meh it's a lesson piece. A street kid wants to know how magic works and boy, does he find out. That part of the story is a "watch what you wish for" but then you have the fancy court people who watch for the curious children and exploit them. The magician's job (he is a former street kid) is to make whatever is bothering the magistrate disappear. The cost to the magician is great and each time he does the magistrate's business he loses something.

The author in a Q&A mentions something about the story exploring "The cost of complicity - and the willingness to be complicit" "I don't think hunger for knowledge is dangerous; I think hunger for anything is dangerous when it allows you to be manipulated. And of course, what matters more than knowledge is what you do with it once you've acquired it."


I'm not sure if I listened to the LS edition that was narrated by Stefan Rudnicki or the PodCastle episode narrated by a different person.

I always love short stories with cool (and nasty) twists. :) This one fits that bill nicely. :)

There's always a trick. :)

Nommed for 2019 Hugo. ( )