What a fascinating story, exactly what I’ve come to expect but just because Sanderson is usually on point doesn’t mean we don’t give him credit for doing so!
As always, this short story packs more of a wallop than many longer novels I’ve read and/or started to read and summarily abandoned. Briefly put, we start in the head of a trapper accompanied by his two birds, and while you expect that there is more than meets the eye it’s hard to get much because our narrator is oh so laconic. What a normal characterisation, you think, not giving it more than a second of thought without realizing that it will become a/the crux on which the entire story rests!!! But that’s much later (but not that much, this is a very short work), and between then we have some conflict that hinges on what seems like a classic “Pocahontas” vibe–our trapper and the incursion of civilization in the form of a faceless Corporation hell bent on figuring out what’s so fancy about those birds and also anything we can sell around these parts?
You’d even be excused if you find the whole conceit a bit cringe worthy–oh really, Mr. White Guy Sanderson, it’s bad when industrialization comes in and doesn’t appreciate the beauty of living in harmony with nature? Our company executive thinks she owns whatever lands she lands on? That the Earth is just some dead thing she can claim?–but in actuality that’s ALSO going to flip you on its head (a mild spoiler, except you can’t have thought at any point that there wasn’t going to be some twist to take the story out of its well-trod groove).
Are these novels doing their job, which is to keep me engaged while I wait patiently (SO PATIENTLY) for Oathbringer to come off hold at my local library? Maybe? I guess there’s a bit of anxiety when reading these that there’s some small detail or point which will eventually become The Point in Cosmere novel that I’m not getting, so it’s hard to just relax and enjoy what I’m reading. Don’t get me wrong–I do enjoy these, and I find them engaging, but I wish there were a book-by-book vaguely spoiler-free guide to “here’s what you should jot down from this novel[la] for future reference.”
Even as I write this out I’m realizing that this very likely does exist, somewhere on the Reddits and Wikis of the Interwebs.
In any case, I’m SO PATIENT, Santa Baby won’t you hurry down the Libby list for me?