Fool

Today's story was Fool by John Morressy from the February issue of F&SF and it totally kicked ass. Great narrative voice, interesting story, wicked ending.

In fact, wicked is a good description of this story. It reminded me a bit of Hopfrog by Poe, but the deformed narrator of Fool is more calculating than crazy. The structure was a little odd, beginning with the fool entering a crowded banquet hall to much applause and then launching into the story, much of which was "backstory" but it was interesting and different enough to overcome the loss of momentum from such flashbacks.

Rules were made to be broken, but you have to do it with so much style that the reader forgets the rules.