A review by woahno
Lightspeed Magazine, January 2018 by John Joseph Adams
5.0
A boy learns sleight of hand and illusions and eventually is brought in to learn "real" magic. A slow buildup as the curtain is pulled further and further back. Then he learns how to make the Regents problems disappear but he then loses something each time until his body is striped away. His lust for power, ultimately is what destroys him before he leaves in search for the secret to the trick.
This story was simply awesome. I loved the structure and the narrative voice. There very little dialogue but it is used in such a way that I found it to be most fitting for this story. As I was reading and learning more and more about what the circumstances of the narrator were and what this boy, who becomes a man throughout the story, has gotten himself into I was left in a frenzy of thought. What possesses a person to want a power like this and to keep going as they fade to nothing? What happened to those that left and began to recite their litany? Does he actually find the secret to the trick? Is there a secret?
Anywho, it was great.
This story was simply awesome. I loved the structure and the narrative voice. There very little dialogue but it is used in such a way that I found it to be most fitting for this story. As I was reading and learning more and more about what the circumstances of the narrator were and what this boy, who becomes a man throughout the story, has gotten himself into I was left in a frenzy of thought. What possesses a person to want a power like this and to keep going as they fade to nothing? What happened to those that left and began to recite their litany? Does he actually find the secret to the trick? Is there a secret?
Anywho, it was great.