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Review: The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson

It's been a long time since I reviewed a short story. This story, at 15,460 words, is a novelette, whatever that means. I don't often read short stories that aren't on Tor.com or part of the occasional collection. This one, as most shorter fiction that I like, is speculative fiction. It tells a fairy-tale-like story with an intrusive narrative voice I love, reminiscent in tone and theme of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and in content, like something out of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, although this one isn't tied to a specific fairy-tale (that I know of), though perhaps it contains notes of Chicken Little, if Chicken Little were wise. In any case, go read it now.

All authors leave a swath of destruction. We maim and move on. The privilege of the happy ending is accorded to few.

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