Opening: Wait, don't run away, really, it's okay. No, I don't come from the future. The future isn't a place. I know I look exactly like you, but there's a reason—well, hell, it's because my stupid bosses thought it would make things simpler, if we showed you something straight-up impossible right up front, it would save time trying to convince you I'm telling the truth. More.
Capsule: How is it possible to not like this story? It's written in the casual vernacular of a character speaking (a neat feat, in and of itself), instead of any external narrative voice, so we immediately know we're in for an intense experience, highly personal and subjective. Amazingly, once the speaker starts to tell the parable of The Frozen one, the panorama widens. So much so, that is encompasses many fantasy tropes and disarms them--given the lightness of tone, humor, and length, this doesn't really feel like a deconstruction (but what on earth, I ask myself at a moment like this, does a deconstruction actually feel like?)--before returning for the conclusion.
The narrative cleft of present "Why am I here talking to you" with "the story of the Frozen One in The City" is bridged by the application of what we learn in the parable.
I really enjoyed the sense of breathless momentum towards the end and the final verbal strokes. The appearance of Howlaa inside the fable, I thought, was also a rich touch, since it perfectly paralleled the appearance of the narrator in the universe of the anonymous recipient of the story, who by extension becomes the reader.
This story by Pratt shows him in his usual high form, though it's certainly more divertissement than opera. The future may not be a place, but wherever it exists, this little tale should be a part of it.
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