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The Malcontent

by Serah Eley

Finally Nicholas summoned his overseers and all other servants who were mobile to his chamber. “You are merely robots,” Nicholas said, “but I know you are not stupid. Doubtless during my withdrawal you laid plans to snare me again, to draw me against my will into a plot for my own happiness.”

“Harshly said, sir,” said the Overseer of Planning, “but essentially correct. We have found a young lady with whom we feel you will establish a more-than-satisfactory rapport, and taken measures to ensure that you shall not avoid her.”

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Host Commentary

I love Serah’s cheerful subversion of the Princess Bride-style narrative in a narrative here. I also love how the story shifts the closer you get to it. This is a story about self-actualisation, and it’s entirely up to you who’s self is being actualised. It’s fractals all the way down, a story being told about a story being told that may be a story designed to enhance the life of the protagonist. Author and narrator, protagonist and creator. A spectrum of stories arcing out across the stars, and doing so in a manner that plays the hits on a delightful new set of instruments.

I always struggle with what I love the most about this one. I think it’s the perfectly executed ‘Oh no I appear to have been the bad guy all along’ moment, and the way that leads to the one thing anyone in power who deserves it should do. Namely, remove the systems that got them there as fast as possible. I’m a Brit, and if you don’t think the class system is still rife here I’ve got an island to sell you, guvnor.

But delightful as that is, I think my real favourite element of this one is that this is one of those stories that start as a prison and end as a key. No characters, only creators, as freedom, class, gender and species all become things we can define and tune, bringing the exact nature of ourselves into sharp relief. We choose our own genre. Like Serah says in the opening, ‘We make our own stage. The audience is waiting.’ In this hellscape time period, that feels like a reassuring note from a cool relative. Make your own stage. Start some good trouble. It’s always story time somewhere. Thanks Serah, and thanks Paul.

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